A Reader Writes... (Yes, I Know the Hours are Long - Part 9)

In response to the post, “Yes, I Know the Hours are Long – Part 1 & 2 (11/7/2010),” a LYS Teacher writes:

Wow, this is too precious. Teachers taking time to point the finger at Cain and acting like the situation your school is in is his fault. I can assure you, he has been sent to your school district or campus to help you. You must try to sift through it all and find the positives or you will definitely wallow in anger, self-pity and the need to blame someone else for the shortcomings of yourself, your team, your school, and/or even your school district. Change cannot occur until you are willing to try to change even just one thing about yourself to become an LYS teacher.

Cain makes you see the worst side of being a teacher, laugh about it, and then get over it and do better. If you listen and take notes when he's talking and presenting you will find clues and ideas as to how to teach better. It's how we improve. This will help you, even if you don't continue teaching.

SC Response

First, thank you for having my back. You are correct; the reason why I work with campus is for the sole purpose of improving student performance. And honestly, if that were not the case, I wouldn’t spend my life on the road. Three nights a week in a Hampton Inn is neither an intrinsic nor extrinsic motivator.

What I think many teachers bristle at is the thought that an outsider has determined that they can improve. After all, the outsider obviously does not realize that they (the staff) work a lot of hours (we do, as I pointed out in the original post) and that most of their students are successful (the effect of rose colored glasses).

As you wrote in you comment, I actually “get it.” I know that as educators, we work in a stressful, labor intensive profession. I know that it is easy to cut a corner here, get your buttons pushed there, and without realizing it lose sight of the big picture. It happens to all of us, myself included. My job is to support educators, by pointing out where they can be more effective, but even more importantly, help them self-identify the half-steps that are holding them and their students back.

Finally, I’m glad that due to the way that the comments lined out that we are discussing this topic again at the beginning of the Spring semester. I believe that this discussion is important, and with half of the school year now behind us, the third round of comments might be less inflammatory and more substantive.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...