[Vision2020] Disrespect Just Another Hurdle for Teachers

[Tom Hansen]

>From today's (December 29, 2004) Spokesman Review with a special thanks to
the Moscow School District on behalf of a grateful community.

 

Thanks, guys.

 

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Disrespect just another hurdle for teachers 

 

Dorothy Rich

Knight Ridder

December 29, 2004

 

The T-shirt at the teachers' meeting says it all: "The Flogging Will
Continue Until Morale Improves." The truth is this: Many people just don't
like teachers.

 

Kids get lower than hoped-for test scores . . . teachers get blamed.

 

Kids don't do homework . . . teachers get blamed.

 

Teachers assign too much homework or assign too little.

 

Teachers are boring and unfair.

 

Teachers get summers off and are lazy.

 

Teachers know this litany. But there's a new edge to it today. Everyone
seems to know more about teaching than teachers. There is a lot of anger and
disappointment about education.

 

Contrary to a lot of popular thinking today, I believe that teachers (and I
see a lot of them in action) are working harder and better than ever. I say
this from a perspective of 50 years in the field. Of course some teachers
are better than others and so are some lawyers and doctors. Teachers today
are facing problems brought into the school never faced before.

 

It's not spitballs that demand discipline today. For many schools, there are
issues about security, and even occasionally, guns. And beyond all that,
teachers are trying to educate more children than ever before, including
bilingual children and children with special needs. Everyone is in the
classroom needing to be taught.

 

And the world outside the school, including some parents, are sending
messages to children - Do It Now! Have It Now! - that undermine the slow,
often grinding process of education.

 

Teaching is an extraordinary job. In an ideal world, it would be done only
by extraordinary people. Yet, even to teach in an ordinary way takes a lot
more than what most people have to give on most jobs.

 

Think of the daily multi-tasking for classroom teachers: do the paperwork,
actually teach subjects, keep the entire class engaged for entire class
periods, manage discipline, mediate disputes, counsel troubled children,
nurse the sick, contact parents - and all before lunch.

 

Since I was a little girl (a long time ago), I kept hearing this message,
often delivered with a smirk: "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." I
went into teaching anyway.

 

My father said that teaching was money in the bank, not much, but you can
count on it. After all this time I am still teaching and I am not sorry.
Teaching is more than a noble profession. Teachers, with parents, help
create the future. Even when it is hard, teaching makes me feel that I have
made a difference.

 

You'd think that the message about "Those who can't, teach" would be over
and done with. But not so fast.

 

An experienced teacher told me recently about her grown son. A special
education student all through grade school, he was determined that when he
went to college that he would not major in education, even though it was the
field he liked and was good at. He wanted to show that he could really do
something, so he majored in economics.

 

Now, out of college, having proved himself, he is ready to become a teacher,
even though it means taking education courses he could have taken in
college.

 

We hear the dreaded "Those who can't" . . . message less these days. Is it
because investment banking hasn't turned out to be so terrific after all? Or
is it because, as I hope, there is growing recognition that teaching is a
very complex and difficult job, and it takes people who "can."

 

Teachers need what the rest of us need: support, training, trust. That's the
tried and true road to improvement. It starts in every school and in every
home.

 

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Take care,

 

Tom "who believes that education is Priority One" Hansen

 

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Work like you don't need the money.
Love like you've never been hurt.
Dance like nobody's watching.

- Author Unknown
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