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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Exhaustion of the American Teacher
With the 2012-2013 American school year still in its infancy, its worthwhile to note that the people doing the actual educating are down in the dumps. Many feel more beaten down this year than last. Some are walking into their classrooms unsure if this is still the job for them. Their hearts ache with a quiet anguish thats peculiarly theirs. Theyve accumulated invisible scars from years of trying to educate the increasingly hobbled American child effectively enough that his international test scores will rival those of children flourishing in wealthy, socially-advanced Scandinavian nations and even wealthier Asian city-states where tiger moms value education like American parents value fast food and reality TV.
The American child has changed, and not necessarily for the better. Many shrill voices argue that teachers must change, too, by simply working harder. The favored lever for achieving this prescribed augmentation of the American schoolteachers work ethic is fear, driven by a progressively more precarious employment situation.
But teachers by and large arent afraid; theyre just tired.
Meanwhile, no one is demanding American non-teachers change anything. Michelle Rhee wastes none of her vast supply of indignation on American public policies that leave a quarter of our children in poverty while, not coincidentally, the profits of Rhees corporate backers reach new heights. And no one but Paul Tough dares to hint at the obvious-but-politically-incorrect reality that a swelling army of kid-whipped or addiction-addled American parents have totally abdicated the job of parenting and have raised the white flag when it comes to disciplining their children or teaching them virtues like honesty, hard work, and self-respect. Americans have explicitly handed off character education to schoolteachers. Such a practice says a great deal about our nations expectations of its parents.
http://theeducatorsroom.com/2012/09/the-exhaustion-of-the-american-teacher/
senseandsensibility
(17,058 posts)Teachers aren't perfect, but this article explains why it's illogical to blame only them, as the righties have begun doing without apology. They flat out say that nothing else matters but the teacher, yet are against giving them ANY power, especially unionized power. In fact, this is all a way to continue their decades long demonization of teachers so that they can break the union and profit from privatizing the schools. And the money they get from that still comes from the taxpayer.
gopiscrap
(23,761 posts)my wife is a teacher and all the public does is dump on them