Is This How School Should Be?

This post has been sitting in my drafts since 2022. Thought it was worth the post today as education seems to still be stunted under Mrs. McMahon and Randy Weingarten. Enjoy!

There are many things being diagnosed within our failing school system. Low pay for teachers, over inundated classrooms, poor student achievement, bullying, technology. The list goes on and on. What isn't being discussed is the lack of will to educate. Due to the many issues we all feel we need to focus on and the many teacher walk outs or protests the thing getting lost is the actual children. We discuss the children as if they're not in the room while ALL of them are most literally in the room. As a parent with a child who is experiencing emerging behavior issues I can say that all of the "issues" being discussed have done nothing to assist my actual child. Each meeting we have that seems to place all of the blame on him and our family while ending with a reiteration of how many other students must be serviced over our struggling child lead me to think the "issues" are leading to something far more detrimental. In constantly discussing how put upon the adults in the system are and how no one is paid their true worth there are children without a diagnosable issue being thrown into the cracks because no one could possibly have the time nor patience to help. But there is plenty of time to tell my family how under paid and short staffed the school is.

My son is an awesome human. My husband and I enjoy him thoroughly. He is 12 and currently experiencing that sensation many children experience where he'd like nothing more than to challenge authority. Test everyone who dares to tell him what to do. My husband and I don't spend all of our time centering on each wayward thing he says nor do we assume every action is his downward spiral to an adulthood of thievery and devastation. We do not allow him to be disrespectful but when he is told to do something and mumbles under his breath that he "hates this place" or the task is "stupid ass shit" we don't stop to make a deal of his mumbled words. We simply remind him of what he needs to do and move on. I understand that he'd like nothing more than a reaction so I choose my battles. His school cannot say the same. Though he has had 1 or 2 teachers since beginning middle school that seem to be able to work with him there are several that somehow have found him to be completely uncontrollable. In their intense need to advise us of how bad our child is and how he is absolutely ruining it for every other child in his class they have lead myself to believe my son is hopeless. Though I don't feel this way when he is with me I am lead to feel this way each day the same teachers kick him out of class for one infraction or another. Since many of his more extreme behaviors are displayed at the school (and it was this middle school only) I have a hard time not placing some of the problem solving onus on the school. However, when I make the mistake of asking about the teacher's behavior management techniques or what is done when he gets into an argument I am met with combative denial. As I have said before I am also constantly reminded of how put upon the teacher's and staff are and how my child is robbing his classmates of their education. Never do I truly feel as if my child matters. I believe he is picking up on this as well. The issue here is as a parent I don't want to hear about the trials and tribulations of a public servant that has chosen their profession with full knowledge it came with lower pay than deserved, benefits it would take A LOT of time and patience to earn and situations that would be less than ideal to work in. Now I know this sentence could start quite the fire among the educators of the nation but just hear me out.

Prior to motherhood & running our family business I was a 5th grade teacher. I originally wanted to attend college to be a creative writer but, a very effective college counselor advised me that being a writer didn't entail college unless I was going into a field such as journalism or textbook writing. He advised I find a degree that could pay the bills while I pursued my writing passion. After discussing degrees with this wise man and discussing my goals we landed on education. I wanted to do something that made a difference. I had no passion to be a doctor nor the stomach to handle what the medical profession entailed. Teaching felt right. He encouraged me to take the first course and see what I thought. After doing so I knew that was where I needed to be. I locked in and went for it. I took classes on how to teach the basic subjects, create exams and grading rubrics, write lesson plans, behavior management and psychology. As I got deeper we began our on site interactions and through those I found my appropriate age group as well. Many teachers find themselves in bad situations because their personality or expectations do not match that of their chosen age group. As I went through my courses I had several great professors who not only prepared us for the tasks of the job but the reality of it. We were told we would never be rich teaching. That if we wanted to be wealthy or even paid reasonably we should either pursue other careers or marry well. We were told that parents had changed and the supportive systems we remembered were very rarely in place if at all. We were advised that class sizes were growing with no relief in site. None of the issues found on those picket signs were a surprise to me. I cannot speak for everyone else though. During my student teaching I had a glimpse of some of the issues no one was discussing nor writing about on signs. I witnessed children who did not conform for whatever reason or who displayed their emotions in a disruptive and inappropriate manner be labeled "a problem" or "always in trouble". One such child was in the 5th grade class I spent all of my student teaching in. He was a hard case for sure. He was highly disruptive even somewhat violent at times. He was a small child with a hard look. The teacher I worked with was a white Mormon woman in the middle of a divorce with 2 children at home. To say she was interested in dealing with this child would be an overstatement. I believe she advised me some children "just can't be saved". I didn't see this. I saw a young boy with little to no coping skills and a huge chip on his shoulder which was being enlarged through improper handling at school and probably at home. I gravitated toward this child though he showed little interest in me. I don't remember how it happened but slowly he let me in. He told me how his mom worked all of the time and he stayed home with his teenage brother who was also in a gang. The gang members would often hang out at the child's apartment and he was treated as a tiny mascot. The older boys were rough with him and out of necessity he grew a hard layer over what may have been a normal child's behavior. He told me how the teacher I worked under could never understand him and that he was often sent out of the room for his infractions. The child felt no connection to the school or his home. He loved his mother but she was stuck too. She was a single parent doing her best. Once I showed genuine interest in this child I was able to deal with him during some of the times he decided to be disruptive or inappropriate. My lead teacher would assign me to him during assignments she thought might set him off or allow me to step outside with him when he acted up instead of simply sending him to the office to be dealt with. I'd like to say this boy completely changed that year but as they do the school year ended and I went on to finish up my credits and graduate, As fate would have it the teacher I was student teaching under took a new job and I was happily hired to replace her at the school I had student taught at. 

    I thought about that boy often and would refer to him when we discussed behavior management and child psychology. I was not aware of the difference I had made until I began my first year of teaching my own 5th grade class in the same classroom I had met the young boy. At the end of one day I was saying goodbye to my current students at the door as I always did and realized the boy was waiting outside my door. I invited him in and as he carefully walked around the room asking about the changes I had made and making polite conversation. I realized in that moment I had made an impact. After that initial visit that boy came to my class every day after school for several weeks. Sometimes I would have him help me with stuff sometimes he would just wander around quietly while I worked. No matter what the time entailed I allowed him to drive the narrative. Through being genuine and showing concern this child felt wanted for the short period of time I had with him. Though he stopped coming at some point the fact he came back at all was powerful. This child and I did not share the same background. We had very little in common but somehow he saw me as a safe place. This is what is missing. Teachers willing to go over and above. They're over inundated and underappreciated but in the end the children are the ones paying for it. It's the adults who must accept their lot in life and either do their job to and PAST its fullest or find other employment. If they're worried about their pensions then assume work in other areas of the state. Hold signs for road work or fix sidewalks. Work in the lunch room for fucks sake. Don't stick it out at a job that has such a profound effect on other human beings. Human beings that do not have the tools yet to understand that their demands are too much for you. And definitely stop taking out your frustrations with the parents or administrators on these children. They're not asking for any of this. We as adults know full well what we're getting into but children are simply moved about like pawns. If I have to watch one more teacher complain about pay from a system their state government broke while a child sits at home losing any hope of pay for themselves someday I think I'll scream. 

    Teachers are worth their weight in gold. They should all be millionaires but that isn't going to happen. So what is the answer? Spend the little money you have to make a sign and refuse to work until the union's demands are met (let's face it folks teachers are not running shit)? Or should you hike up your boots and hit up the community at large for help? Spend that sign making/picketing time creating a few more effective fundraisers (sorry, bake sales are just not it anymore). Extend your reach beyond your district and start hooking up with other state's districts to brainstorm solutions. Maybe a state to state sharing system to ensure all schools have supplies? Take that brain power you waste thinking of all of the things you're not getting and find ways to get the kids the things they need. Would it be at all possible to begin teacher sharing using technology? Have international cohorts where teachers trade classes for a day with each other from other nations. Find our weak spots and see if we can enlist places who excel in them to help. The saying "it takes a village" doesn't only go for child rearing. It applies to educating. Right now the village is full of idiots and they're turning a very beautiful thing like free education for ALL into a grievance fest that ends in political demands our children will never benefit from. 

    I have one definite money saver. STOP buying these boxed programs from the text book dealers. Stop buying software that promises to analyze the child and set the curriculum for you all in one place (I am looking at you Accelerated Reader and your newer homey Iready). Maybe put that boxed education money into teacher pay and training so they can get back to creating their own lesson plans based on agreed upon standards. Start creating lessons that apply to this Google generation of kids who have too much information at their finger tips. You're sitting there obsessing over the writing process while the child needs to know how to safely and effectively search the internet for information because the way we used to obtain information does not apply and will apply less after we are gone. Comprehension and critical thinking are no longer bound by books, it needs to be applied to their actual daily lives. Those lives are online. I heard or read somewhere to raise your child for the world they'll inherit not the world you knew. This applies in spades today. I was of the generation that straddled the no internet/internet time. I was there before AOL or Instagram. When home computers were a luxury of the very rich. I had a pager in high school for goodness sake. My kids on the other hand can fact check me as I am lecturing them. This is what needs to be addressed. We need to update our antiquated systems of educating. Meet this generation WHERE THEY ARE not based on what we went through. I believe this power lies in our teachers not the tech companies selling one size fits all "holy grail" programs. Teachers know better how to assess their students & then intervene. Accelerated Reader simply demands so much data each year. Those stickers all over your car are simply supporting the program seller not your child. I would watch my students pick the easiest books so they could get through the tests quickly or select a book not based on want to read but on how many points the system deemed it worth. I don't even want to discuss how we had to use this crap program on 1 computer shared between 35 kids. Between this and the 1 hour & 45 minutes of "Trophies" (we had numerous in-services on using Trophies none of which gave us answers on how to make it effective) we had to get through teaching the kids to read felt impossible. From what I understood a love of reading & a will to do so must be fostered first. Then you move into the mechanics of words. Then into comprehension and so on. What I understood didn't matter though because the school had paid a huge sum to Harcourt for their Trophies program. It HAD to be used. What if that money had been redistributed to pay us more or offer actually helpful TRAINING in-services? What if the school hadn't removed the classroom chapter book packs from the library to replace them with the Trophies textbooks but instead bought us a more diverse selection of said chapter books and then let us do our job creating lessons and projects based on State standards AND student needs?