I recently read the angry, yet all
too predictable, ranting of a former teacher in the op-ed section of the local
newspaper.
… Let me tell you,
I taught in my district for 16 years. I had wonderful children in my classroom
who worked hard and took pride in their education. My career as a teacher was
rewarding, and it was an honor to have such fine children in my classroom. But
it wasn’t easy. I faced adversity over and over again. No, not from difficult
students, but from the “system.”
I had a reputation
as being a hard, scary teacher. Why? Because I had high expectations for my
students, and I held them to it. I refused to lower the bar. I believed in each
young man and woman who walked into my classroom. This is what got me into
trouble. On more than one occasion, I was told by my academic deans that my
expectations were “too high” and I needed to back off.
Really? This bar
is called accountability. I am not sure administrators know what that word
means anymore.
For several decades,
we held students accountable for their actions, whether it be academic success
or failure, behavior, or attendance. Furthermore, parents were held accountable
as well. Now we have students missing school chronically who make up their poor
attendance by sitting in a portable building on Saturday’s doing nothing, and
we offer “redo’s” when the students don’t do well on assignments...
SC Response
Don’t be fooled by this teacher’s
claim of great success. I’ve been doing this long enough to know that it won’t
stand up to scrutiny. Here’s why…
Great teaching really boils down
to great coaching. To paraphrase the late, great O.A. “Bum” Phillips, “A good
coach can win with his players. A GREAT coach can win with your players.”
Meaning a good coach says (and
does), “I have one way of coaching. For YOU to succeed, YOU must conform to my way."
With this coach (or teacher) success
is only available / possible for a certain type of player (or student).
A great coach says (and does), “It is MY
job to make you successful. I will
do what it takes to make sure that MY
coaching maximizes your success.”
With this coach (or teacher)
success is available / possible for every type of player (or student).
The "good ol’ days" of
education really weren’t. In the good ol’ days, to be successful in
school, the student had to be the round peg that fit in the round hole. The
student had to possess the right skill set, the right personality, the right
motivation and/or the right parents to be successful. To be fair, there
were a lot of students who had those attributes (though those students looked
suspiciously similar to each other). And, to be honest, a lot of those
students grew up to be teachers.
But what if you were the square
peg? What if you didn’t possess the attributes that schools and teachers valued
and demanded? To be blunt, it was not the good ol’ days for these students. Instead,
it was a living nightmare for these students and their families. For these
students, school wasn’t a place of nurturing and hope. School was the place
you went to every day that demeaned and tore you down. Until you could no
longer take it and you slinked away.
This is not poetic license. This
is the past viewed without rose colored glasses. I graduated from a large Texas
high school (it’s even bigger now). Personally, I thrived in the setting I just
described. Along with 500 of my fellow graduating Seniors. Which sounds like an
endorsement of the way it was. But it’s not. Because that
graduating Senior class of 500, started out as a Freshman class of 750. In a single, one-year cohort of students,
“the good ol’ days” failed 250 children that I grew up with.
Today’s educator graduates more
students, with more diverse needs, from more diverse backgrounds, to higher levels
of success, than ever before in the history of our country. These modern educators
accomplish this not by doing what they used to do. They accomplish this by leaning
forward, evolving their craft, to do what needs to be done, TODAY.
We have those in our profession
that were unable to evolve from where we were to where we are. If they recognized
this and retired, we celebrate their past service and contributions, which were
considerable.
But when push comes to shove, if
that person wants to trumpet their “success" in an attempt to tear down
forward progress, they force us to shine a light on their significant failures.
That being the considerable number of academic casualties they produced (up to
40% of the overall student population) in the name of conformity and “high
expectations.”
To the current educators that read
the same ed/op that I did, let that bitter ex-teacher stew in his/her own guilt
and regret. You, and the people you work with in classrooms today, have
more important things to worry about.
Think.
Work. Achieve.
Your turn...
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