A bill of goods

The following is in generalities, not absolutes.

I was sold a bill of good. I was hoodwinked and bamboozled. I didn’t land on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock landed on me. Above isn’t just a line from a Spike Lee movie its how teachers all around the city, state and nation feel. Many go to work and think this is not what I signed up for.

What they did sign up to do was help children and to make a difference in their lives but instead they have been hamstrung by politicians and casual observers whose quick fixes have done more harm than good. They are constantly being told by disconnected administrations to do things they know are contrary to a productive learning environment or at best only have a peripheral relationship to the education process that don’t justify the time and effort put into them. They are forced to live pay check to pay check while working untold hours away from their families and along with many of their students are forced to toil in learning environments hijacked by an unruly few because they receive no support from the higher ups whose only job should be to support them.

In short they have entered a dystopian world where perception shadows reality and the reality is the school system is letting so many teachers and kids down. It’s pushing children along without the skills they need to be successful at the next level, it has replaced consequences for bad behavior with an altered view of the world where children feel entitled and like they can say and do whatever comes to their mind no matter how inappropriate and has lumped them all into the same go to college group whether they have the aptitude or desire or not. Then as kids fall through the cracks and aren’t successful, the system turns around and blames the teachers. Teachers aren’t fighting a losing battle where they attempt to just tread water; they are pushed blindfolded into the deep end of the pool with weights tied to their ankles. They live a metaphorical mob hit. Then when they raise their hands and go this isn’t right they are hit with bad evaluations and told their jobs are in jeopardy.

Is above filled with statements designed to fill you with both dread and anger? You bet it is and that’s because you should be both scared and mad so much that you decide you’re not going to take it anymore.

Undoubtedly every era has had problems but in the mid eighties the United States was considered the number one nation in the world in educating its children. Now just twenty-five years later we have slipped considerably as countries like Korea, Finland and Slovenia have zoomed past us.

What’s changed? How about the fact politicians and casual observers inserted themselves into the education process and started to meddle. These people in far off ivory towers or seats of government decided they not the teachers in the classrooms knew what was best and the education system has suffered for it. These people now make up the leadership in education and if you have read above you know how I feel. How do you feel? Do you like the direction that education is heading?

Teaching now is so different from what it was just a decade ago. Gone are creativity and flexibility replaced by unyielding pacing guides and learning schedules. Gone are multiple curriculums that serve more children, replaced by an everybody is going to college mantra. Gone is discipline replaced with toxic learning environments where teachers can’t teach and children that want to can’t learn. Gone is accountability because the system is so messed up it’s hard to tell who is effective or not. Gone is adequate funding replaced with lies about the lottery and tax breaks to yacht owners and bottled water businesses. Gone is leadership replaced with a sense of self preservation from the powers-that be as they massage data so they appear to look better, cajole teachers into passing children without skills and make changes just for the sake of making changes so they can shout, look at me I am doing something. Gone are generations of children’s chance to be productive members of society replaced with them becoming minimum wage workers with little or know potential for advancement, living off the dole of the government, locked behind bars or worse. Gone are the hopes and dreams of so many children replaced with the realization that they are unprepared for life whether it be college, the job force or even simple everyday interactions where either civility or critical thinking is required. Gone is the time when teachers were heroes to be looked up to, replaced with a lack of respect and being blamed for falling short when put in impossible situations.

It’s all gone, gone, gone.

Gone is my enthusiasm for heading to school realizing where I realize am part of a system run by disconnected observers that reward who they like and don’t even really pretend to do the one thing they are supposed to do, help kids.

Maybe that last part in absolute.