The Thing About Teaching...

Here's the thing about teaching that no one talks about. Many people don't respect teachers. Oh, they say they do, but they do it at the same time that they quip about people do and people who end up teaching. Education in this country is dysfunctional. Kids must succeed to go to college, but teachers are often viewed as barriers instead of allies. All of it's tied up in politics and people out of the classroom trying to tell us what works in the classroom.

Respected or dismissed.

Barrier or Ally.

Loved and Hated.

It's all very mixed up and weird. Now there really are people out there that love and respect what we do. I'm not trying to paint the whole world with the same brush. Really. But even the people who respect us don't really get what it is we do. Which is why we find ourselves embroiled in the educational nightmare that this country lives in.

Of course, I work with one of the more stressful populations. Most of them are great kids, but the parents have often been through a tough fight before they ever get to us and they come out swinging. I get that. I can't imagine what they do every day. They've been fighting a system  that puts kids into boxes, and pastes on a new layer of bureaucracy every time they are legally challenged.

So, it's no wonder.

But the hard facts of life is that not everyone is born with the same native ability. Some kids can aspire to be brain surgeons and some just can't. That should be ok.  But it's not. I truly and passionately believe that success for a child means that they work and achieve to the best of their abilities. Success for me means I helped them get there (where ever there happens to be). That's what it should mean to be a teacher.

It's not about standardized test scores.

It's not about college enrollment statistics.

It is about helping a kid meet their potential. That's teaching. That's what I try to do. In the process I teach a lot of literature. I start my day at 4 AM and I'm often still going after 6 PM. I spend 9 hours of every day working with my kids. Mostly it's active teaching. Sometimes it's tutoring. Sometimes it's just listening.  That's what good teachers do.

That's what I do. And that's what's happening in all the classrooms in the countries that are beating us out in standardized testing.

Education shouldn't be about the test, it should be about the kid.