LITTLE ROCK — Responses from teachers invited to share their thoughts on what has been done to improve education in the last few years have ranged from the gratifying to the disheartening.
An excerpt from the latter category:
“We as teachers hold a high responsibility with low respect. We take our jobs very seriously and are rewarded by most children and parents and colleagues. However, we fear that we cannot speak to what a typical day on the job is like for fear of losing our job and the respect that takes so long and we work so hard to attain. I feel as though I am letting someone down even by writing this e-mail. However, I do believe that not enough people (not just the ‘right’ people, but society as a whole) know what we go through.”
What, one wonders, is so unsettling about a typical day on the job that a teacher would fear for that job, and the respect that goes with it, as a result of talking about it, at least with an outsider?
Another example of the less encouraging from a 22-year veteran:
“I feel the downfall of public education is the special education department. If a student is special ed, then most of the time they not only have modifications such as ‘need to have more time on a test,’ but they also have a behavioral problem.
“If he cusses me out, then he goes to the corner to cool down, etc. I feel this is doing the students an injustice. You have two sets of punishments, one for the regular student and one for the special ed student. When they get out on the street and get arrested, the policeman is not going to ask them if they are special ed.
“The special ed students know that they have a lot more rope to play with, so they take advantage of it. Also, the administrator’s hands are also tied by law about how many times andhow they can discipline a special ed students. The same kids keep getting into fights and disrupt the school but rarely are they dealt with.
“When the good students see the same students getting away with creating trouble and nothing being done to them, it hurts the morale of the school. Also, a lot of teachers are afraid to give a special ed student an F because if you give one F, you have to make sure you have all your I’s dotted and T’s crossed with all the modifications because if you fail one of them, you have to provide documentation to back up that you have followed every modification daily. It’s like you are being called before a jury and having to explain yourself. I think a long, hard look needs to be taken at special education departments.”
When first we broached this topic seven years ago, quite a number of responses came in from special education teachers. Judging by the handful of responses on that topic to my recent invitation it doesn’t sound like much has changed. We’re talking about educators here, not babysitters, bouncers or referees, for cryin’ out loud.
Onward.
“Your opening statement says that teachers are frustrated because they do not have the tools they need for students to succeed,” wrote a teacher at an alternative high school for students who haven’t had much success at regular high schools. “I would say for the secondary schools that they also do not have the staff that they need to teach the students to be raised above the very basic reading/math levels that many students find themselves categorized in.
“The last time I checked the statistic from the Little Rock School District, it was 56 percent of the LRSD graduates who went to public colleges in Arkansas who had to take remedial courses before they could get credit for other college courses. Now that is a very sick fact.
“Although this last $200,000+ Picus/Cohn study recommends large group teaching of reading/math, I know for a fact that it does not work. The math teacher will tell you . . . that he has to begin with basic math students to get them to know what one plus one is. He will respond that we cannot expect him to teach reading as well. And he has a point.”
There’s room today for just one more excerpt about a serious concern, that of parental involvement. It crops up a lot.
“I once had three parents show up in the course of five hours on parent/ teacher conference day. A good friend, and an ex-teacher, had a solution for that: parents had to show proof of attendance at conferences to take the child education credit on their taxes. Otherwise, they would have to pay.”
Sounds like a capital idea, no pun intended.
Associate Editor Meredith Oakley is editor of the Voices page.
Editorial, Pages 17 on 06/30/2010