Teaching Blues

Parent Cafe
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<p>I have been a public elementary school teacher, mostly 2nd and 3rd grade, for 27 years. The first 12 years I taught in a Title 1 school in a low performing urban school district. Then I transferred to a high performing school in a suburban district where I have been since 1999. I’ve been able to stay in the classroom full time and raise my kids because I have truly enjoyed teaching interested, well prepared kids and have benefited from the support and assistance of involved parents.</p>

<p>Our school is quickly changing. More affluent families have aged out of the school. Foreclosures are rampant in the neighborhood. Rentals and subsidized housing are becoming the norm. You can guess where this is going… my job is getting almost impossibly hard. Homework isn’t being turned in, parents can’t or don’t want to be contacted, more families than ever are divorced or separated, kids are restless and inattentive, recess brings tattling and playground issues. After 27 years, I don’t want to go back to this version of teaching. </p>

<p>I feel stuck. Two kids have tuition to be paid. I am at the top of the salary scale. If I go anywhere else, I’ll be subject to downsizing and pink slips. I take great pride in my job and am finding that I must spend 10 hours a day in my classroom to feel adequately prepared to do my best the next day. I willing to work hard, but at this point instead of designing curriculum and planning projects and events, I am talking to parents about emotional and behavioral issues, planning remediation instruction, and rearranging my classroom to minimize disruption.</p>

<p>I’m sure I’m not the only veteran teacher out there to see the tide turning with this horrible economy. Any thoughts?</p>

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<p>So you like the easy work. You like teaching affluent, well-prepared kids, from affluent, interested families. That’s great, and nice work if you can get it, but the reality is that, no matter how good a teacher you were/are, they really didn’t need you to begin with. I know that sounds harsh, but it’s true. Some to the studies now being used to promote summer schools for low-income kids indicate that affluent kids gained more academically in the summers when they WEREN’T in school than when they were. </p>

<p>So now you have opportunity to teach when and where you are really needed. If you can’t hack it, you should do something else. Why is talking to parents about behavioral and emotional issues, planning remediation, etc. not a key part of what EVERY teacher should be doing?</p>

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<p>Mini-</p>

<p>It is interesting you mention that (and sorry for hijacking the thread, probably should be a new thread). Malcolm Gladwell talked about that in outliers, that the disparity between poor kids and more well off ones comes from the summer break, whereas the inner city kids almost catch up to the performance of more well off ones, but then over the summer fall behind, and it is because kids from affluent backgrounds get all kinds of re-inforcement (my dad made the point to the local HS principal when I was in HS, probably NHS induction, and the principal was bragging to parents about how many of the kids went to college, specifically top ones,e tc…and my dad made the observation “yeah, but look what you were working with, what did you really add to the process?”…my area was all white collar, relatively affluent, parents mostly college educated". )</p>

<p>Minny, I think you are facing what a lot of people are, where people even with jobs are facing a rapidly changing landscape, trying to hang on to jobs being sent overseas, competing for jobs against low paid visa holders and so forth. Not saying that to make you feel bad about speaking out, just saying that you aren’t alone with deteriorating work conditions.</p>

<p>I can only speak for myself, where my own job/industry has changed a lot, and that is perhaps trying to find a way to motivate yourself, assuming you cannot easily leave the job (I hear you about tuition and such, believe me). Not complaining about my job, it is decent paying and challenging, but also takes a lot out of my personal life, forget about hobbies and such…</p>

<p>-The job seems to have a lot of challenges, but mini had a thought, how about reframing the job from what you once did, and look at the challenges it brings and to try and find ways to solve them? I more then know how hard those challenges are, I have lived in marginal city areas and I saw the problems in the schools, kids with single parent families where the mom was either overwhelmed or didn’t care, etc…</p>

<p>I am not saying the problems can be solved, but maybe, just maybe, the challenge of trying to make it work better, even for one kid, can bouy you through it. Maybe putting attention into how to help the kids with problems , the same kind of attention you put into lesson plans and such in the past. From past experience with less then stellar job situations, getting depressed or bothered made it worse for me, and I tried to find something, anything, I could get out of it. </p>

<p>-There is also the idea of expanding into the vacuum, of seeing things that need to be done and jumping in (and I realize schools, thanks to bureacracy and work rules, makes this difficult). Look at the situation around you, and take on something at the school you think needs changing, made better,and if you see a better path, formulate a plan and run it by the principal, create something new. Often having a new challenge can help take away the boredom or other ills of a job IME. </p>

<p>-If you have kids that do try, that are at least somewhat responsive, maybe you should put your sense of satisfaction more on what you can do for those kids then on the gloom of the failure of others. I read a book review not long ago about a teacher in the South Bronx in a district not known for great schools (literally poorest in the country) and how they found the energy to try and help all the kids by the (few) that were trying, by taking measure from their accomplishments, having the energy to take on the problems of the others. Maybe if a couple of kids who try are getting A’s and flourishing, focusing on that would take the pain away some from those who are problem cases and the like. </p>

<p>-Try not to look at the past, because it isn’t going to happen again. Even if the economy straightens itself out, even if jobs start flowing and such, I suspect your role in teaching is going to change, as it is in most places. Between the pressure on schools with costs and such, and the public antipathy towards public employees and teachers, I doubt the days of the past will come back, I think larger class sizes and such are going to be the norm all over. Wish I had some specifics, but for me what it comes down to is looking forward and spending time finding a path I can follow, given the changing circumstances.</p>

<p>-Not sure of in your neck of the woods, but does your school district offer any kind of training at all, in terms of dealing with what you are? I suspect a lot of that has been cut out if not eliminated, and a school that was once affluent may never have had much, but if they offer training,take it. I sense you feel overwhelmed, and maybe that can help. </p>

<p>Or if they don’t have anything, maybe do some research on your own, get books from the library, online resources, whatever, that may help you figure out how to handle the challenges you have</p>

<p>One thing I have learned, is that when overwhelmed with stuff like this I have found that trying to find answers, even if unsuccessful, helps me get through whatever it is I faced. </p>

<p>-Maybe start planning an exit strategy, a path, that once the financial pressures of college tuition and such are past, can allow you an exit strategy of some sort. With the current economy, I am not saying you can jump out and do that any time soon, but rather that once you are past the tuition years and such, which kind of holds you hostage, you may want to do other things, and now may be the time to start looking forward and making plans. Perhaps it would be moving to another place, and maybe teaching at a private school, or starting your own business, maybe as a tutoring service or something, or gaining skills to switch to something else or finding an idea for a business…you get the drift. In a sense, it is taking some of the load off from today by planning and looking at tomorrow, for when if things are that bad, you can move on. </p>

<p>I am not trying to give a polyanna, everything will be fine look at things, nor can I speak from being a teacher, but rather simply trying to offer suggestions of what I would try in your situation to make a tough situation better.</p>

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<p>Hi Mini- are you a classroom teacher by chance?
My post wasn’t intended to whine about how hard it is to teach. Yeah, I know teaching is hard. By the way, it is even a hard job to teach the children of affluent, interested families- but it is fun too! What’s wrong with enjoying a job that his challenging and fun? Isn’t that what we all hope our kids will be able to do after college?</p>

<p>The scary thing is that few teachers can “hack” teaching in a tough school. Most teachers new to the profession leave after 2 to 7 years. I have been a dedicated, hard working teacher. I have taught low and high achieving kids. I’ve taught special needs kids, emotionally disturbed kids, GATE kids… taught 'em all… for a really long time. </p>

<p>Your comment about my opportunity to teach when and where I am really needed sounds so patronizing. Would you tell a physician in private practice for 27 years to work in an inner city ER or an attorney is private practice to become a public defender? </p>

<p>I hear this expectation of veteran teachers to be grateful to have a job and don’t complain about conditions constantly. I am not a conscripted servant. I do have choices, but like many middle aged professionals, its not an easy or financially prudent idea to change careers at this time in my life. There are many other teachers out there who grow weary and uncertain at time. I would love to hear from those people.</p>

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<p>"Your comment about my opportunity to teach when and where I am really needed sounds so patronizing. Would you tell a physician in private practice for 27 years to work in an inner city ER or an attorney is private practice to become a public defender?'</p>

<p>Absolutely! I would, and have. I am glad that you have taught low, and special needs, and emotionally disturbed kids. Now you are being called upon to do that again. You aren’t a prisoner - if you choose not to do so, that’s fine by me.</p>

<p>Musicprnt - but the thing is, Gladwell missed the point entirely. The studies indicated that the gains were made by affluent kids when they WEREN’T in school, and this is the argument being made to keep poor kids IN school. Since the actual learning in school by affluent and poor kids was the same (according to the Alexander study Gladwell points to), shouldn’t the argument have been to ignore schools entirely, and enrich/enable the environment of poor kid when they are NOT in school?</p>

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<p>Hi Musicprnt,
What a thoughtful answer! You offer many fine suggestions, both practical and mindful. What makes me fearful for difficult to teach classes it how the nature of instruction changes. Given a finite amount of time to teach and do the work of the class and the school, a disproportionate amount of that time is given to behavioral issues. So, the academic gap just keeps widening for these kids. Teaching (and parenting) are relentless tasks. All I can do is keep trying. But when I give voice to how hard it is, it’s nice to not be shut down for telling about it.</p>

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<p>Mini-what is your profession? It sounds like you are passionate about altruism and social consciousness and I commend you for that. Not all people think of their careers as a platform for service to others or perhaps not to the degree of your committment.</p>

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<p>“Given a finite amount of time to teach and do the work of the class and the school, a disproportionate amount of that time is given to behavioral issues. So, the academic gap just keeps widening for these kids.”</p>

<p>Actually, the evidence from the Alexander study indicated that the low-income kids (single parents, etc.) learned just as much as the high-income kids during the school year for the first five years - that’s all the study covered (though beginning from a very slightly lower base). The widening occurs when the kids are NOT in school.</p>

<p>I work to provide alcohol/drug intervention and treatment services, through the state. And, no, my job is not fun anymore either - as it is all about budget cuts. My outside commitments keep me sane. But I am about done - it’s time to pass the torch to others.</p>

<p>I applaud you for your service, and maybe it’s time to move on.</p>

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<p>Teaching sure is and teachers are not fully compensated for the time, energy and money they spend to teach their students!</p>

<p>Minnymom–27 years is a LONG time to have been a teacher. Are you approaching burnout, exacerbated by the empty nest?</p>

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<p>Minnymom–
Everyone needs a minute to vent now and again, and you have my complete sympathy. It is hard work to teach a classroom of kids. And teaching a classroom of kids with lots of problems is hard, hard, hard. Not the least of which is realizing how much of an uphill battle these kids face in their everyday lives.</p>

<p>And it doesn’t feel good to know, in the later years of our career, that we are locked into our jobs by our pensions, benefits, and seniority. Yes, we are lucky to have those wonderful benefits, but it means we can’t leave. Maybe we wouldn’t leave anyway, but it would be nice to think we could leave if we wanted to. Nobody wants to feel they are boxed in.</p>

<p>I applaud you for being a teacher in the public schools. It is a difficult, honorable job, and you help young people every day. Kids need good teachers and you have my thanks for the job you do.</p>

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<p>minny… i agree with ellemenope…teaching is a service to others, but i would disagree with mini…there is no specific capacity of teaching that trumps another in terms of service!! higher income or lower income…our children are generally served very well by their teachers who are not very well compensated. You have ever right to teach in whatever setting you wish… it may be different in different economic settings but i would not call it easier just because it is more affluent… thank you for being a teacher that has dedicated 27 years to teaching others!!</p>

<p>eta crossposted with skyhook…looks like we both value a dedicated teacher!</p>

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<p>My son had excellent teachers that he learned a lot from. However, I am sure he made gains over the summer because I paid money, and participated in organizations, to provide enrichment activities for him every summer. He had camps, lessons, high adventure trips, and cultural experiences. </p>

<p>That does not negate the fact that he learned from good teachers during the school year.</p>

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<p>mini-</p>

<p>I noted what gladwell said about the amount learned and yes, that the drop off after school is over is significant (wasn’t arguing that). However, I am not so certain about your conclusion that kids don’t need school to learn. I think some kids could do fine without schools, there are homeschooled kids (leaving out the fundamentalist Christian ones) and unschooled kids who do fine, but Gladwells point wasn’t that kids learn outside school as well, what he argued I seem to recall is that kids from well off homes have re-inforcement for what they learn in school, not that they learned any better. One of the points gladwell made in his book was about a charter school in the South Bronx, where part of the success is that the school day is long, kids stay at school until almost 6 with tutoring and such, and the school year runs much longer then the typical public school, and they have shown the same kind of success more well off kids achieve. Where inner city schools fail, along with the discipline problems and such, is that for many of these kids, there just isn’t re-inforcement at home or in the community. One of the reasons, for example, that Jews achieved success despite being poor immigrants was that if the parents, who were probably ill educated, couldn’t help the child, there were kids or people in the community who were willing to help them, kids through the local temple would have a lot more then religious education…in Asian communities the same thing goes on with the kids from poorer families, there is a network there to help them from what I have observed. I heard an interview with him on NPR, and he said that basically to even out results, it would be better to make school year round for all kids, to level out the experience and that for poor kids in bad districts, it would mean longer school days to have more influence. </p>

<p>As far as getting rid of schools, it sounds like a soporific for all ills, but the reality is that some kids and families are equipped to handle this, others aren’t. It isn’t that I don’t have criticism of the schools, my S went to private school and then homeschooled because of issues I have with the public schools and the way they are run, but because my S homeschools I know it isn’t easy. If parents are 100% involved and are able to keep on top of what the kid is doing, making sure things are being done (or with unschooling, ‘facilitating them’), but there are a lot of indifferent parents out there, something gladwell never really addressed. As I mentioned in another post, I went to a suburban school district that was considered one of the better ones, lot of fairly well off parents, usually educated…and even in that environment, we had problem kids, kids who treated school as a joke, acted out, etc…and there were kids who did well, who knowing the parents, I suspect without school wouldn’t do well. There are also a lot of well educated, upper class parents who would be a disaster at education, my son went to a private school with a lot of parents like that, and their kids, despite coming from well off homes, very successful dads, were some of the most out of control and anti school kids I have seen, they didn’t care about school and quite frankly acted a lot more like stereotypes of inner city kids.</p>

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<p>Minnymom: I taught for ten years (high school chemistry). I taught in inner city schools (80% AFDC) and I taught in one suburban private school. We moved a lot and I always seemed to be given the worst teaching assignments. </p>

<p>Let me suggest that if you’re finding classroom management difficult with these kids, perhaps you need to find a more effective way to manage your classroom for the kids you actually have. The homework thing, for example: expecting daily homework to be turned in every day doesn’t work if both parents are working long hours. Consider changing the nature of your homework assignments so that there’s only one “big” assignment a week–that’s the one that the parents should help with–and there’s even some chance to work on it in homework club or whatever after school program your school has.</p>

<p>Imagine the stresses your students are under. They don’t understand why they suddenly have to move, or why mom and dad are fighting in whispers every night. They still need to learn to read well and do math well, but now it’s that much harder. </p>

<p>If the kids need to be taught how to behave in some way, perhaps part of your job is that they get taught those manners, which they will need if they are to attend college and move up economically. I remember all too well the moment my first year when a student thanked me for treating him with respect. From what he said, it was a rare occurrence.</p>

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<p>Minnymom, I can sympathize. One of my aunts, now retired, was an elementary school teacher, and she said that toward the end, the work just kept getting harder and harder, largely due to behavioral and emotional issues among the students entering her class.</p>

<p>On the other hand, you know that the students need you, and you will make a really major difference to some of them. One of my friend’s mothers was a 3rd grade teacher, some years ago. The principal noticed that she was very effective with boys who had some behavioral issues, coming in. So she kept having more and more of them assigned to her class. Although toward the end she probably had a few that she couldn’t get on the right path, still she made a big difference to quite a few of them.</p>

<p>There is a lot of anti-teacher rhetoric going around right now. The parents who are grateful to you probably won’t tell you so (too much like buttering up the teacher), but I am sure that a lot of them really do appreciate your work–and so will the students, as they look back on their experiences. Hang in there!</p>

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<p>Minnymon,
I am a teacher too and there are tomes when I am so exhausted I could put my head down on my desk and cry. I really do love my job but it has changed so much in the last decade. The demands keep getting more and the compensation doesn’t.</p>

<p>Yes, we are lucky to have jobs and it is very rewarding to make a difference but teaching has been ranked as one of the most stressful jobs in existence. It ranks up there with air traffic controller. If you have never spent a day (or better yet a month) in a busy classroom filled with a diverse group of learners, each with their own needs, many with IEPs and constantly changing demands from the board of ed, you will never really understand.</p>

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<p>I’m going to offer the radical suggestion of getting rid of homework. It doesn’t work in the setting you are in. Why set the kids, and yourself, up for repeated failures? </p>

<p>I wish the situation was different, for you, for the kids and for their families. But since it is what it is, you might want to reconsider your expectations. </p>

<p>Most of all, thank you for all your years of dedication in a very noble profession.</p>

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<p>[Amazon.com:</a> The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing (9780738211114): Alfie Kohn: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Homework-Myth-Kids-Much-Thing/dp/0738211117/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1316294134&sr=8-1]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Homework-Myth-Kids-Much-Thing/dp/0738211117/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1316294134&sr=8-1)</p>

<p>“A child who has been boxed up six hours in school might spend the next four hours in study, but it is impossible to develop the child’s intellect in this way. The laws of nature are inexorable. By dint of great and painful labor, the child may succeed in repeating a lot of words, like a parrot, but, with the power of its brain all exhausted, it is out of the question for it to really master and comprehend its lessons. The effect of the system is to enfeeble the intellect even more than the body. We never see a little girl staggering home under a load of books, or knitting her brow over them at eight o’clock in the evening, without wondering that our citizens do not arm themselves at once with carving knives, pokers, clubs, paving stones or any weapons at hand, and chase out the managers of our common schools, as they would wild beasts that were devouring their children.” – Scientific American, 1861</p>

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<p>I guess I’m making an assumption about homework. I’m assuming it’s things like reading a book that the whole class is reading, then talking to your parents about it (since it’s 2nd and 3rd grade). Or practicing your multiplication tables. Since much of learning is situational, kids who practice reading and math only in school… end up as kids who read in school and do math in school, and can’t figure out what else reading and math are good for.</p>

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<p>i feel young kids are being short-changed by volatile family situations. i think that they are being short-changed by parents who put themselves first–ahead of their children. i don’t think many problems in education can be fixed by putting more money into school facilities and/or teacher salaries. i think what we call “family” has changed and i am ok with non-traditional families–but i am not ok with parents not taking responsibility for raising their children. teachers just can’t take the place of parents. yet every single day teachers are expected to do so.</p>

<p>i have students who have not been taught basic manners and i have students who have no concept of consequences. </p>

<p>i look forward to my classes every day, but i concur with the op. more and more effort is needed to stay on top of the situation–and to remain calm, courteous and respectful and engaging in the classroom.</p>