"The Hard Part Of Teaching"

[Are_grits_groceries]

They never tell you in teacher school, and it's rarely discussed elsewhere. It is never, ever portrayed in movies and tv shows about teaching. Teachers rarely bring it up around non-teachers for fear it will make us look weak or inadequate.

Valerie Strauss in the Washington Post once put together a series of quotes to answer the question "How hard is teaching?" and asked for more in the comments section. My rant didn't entirely fit there, so I'm putting it here, because it is on the list of Top Ten Things They Never Tell You in Teacher School.

The hard part of teaching is coming to grips with this:

There is never enough.

There is never enough time. There are never enough resources. There is never enough you.
<snip>
But every day is still educational triage. You will pick and choose your battles, and you will always be at best bothered, at worst haunted, by the things you know you should have done but didn't. Show me a teacher who thinks she's got everything all under control and doesn't need to fix a thing for next year, and I will show you a lousy teacher. The best teachers I've ever known can give you a list of exactly what they don't do well enough yet.
<snip>
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-greene/the-hardest-part-teaching_b_5554448.html

Yep!
It's the educational triage that will get you because you want to save every student in your classes. It's not possible.
I'm sure those who triage the physically injured are haunted by memories of some they had to consciously choose to not treat.
It is gut-wrenching and it can break you.

[ananda]

1. It takes a village.

...

[melm00se]

2. The challenge is the basic fact

that resources (time, money, equipment and, most importantly, people) are and will always be finite.

the USA does spend quite a bit (in fact a surprisingly large amount).

the last numbers I could find (after an admittedly quick search) showed that, in 2010, the USA had the highest spend/pupil (~$15.2k) of the OECD nations:



This immediately begs the questions: is (just) funding the issue? Or is it the allocation of resources?

[Nevernose]

4. It's what we're doing with the money, though not exactly allocation

Those other countries aren't trying to create schools that are all things to all people. People who aren't going to go to college take a few core classes -- often not even in person -- and apprentice in a profession.

They don't force every kid to take calculus. In many of those countries, high school works more like college, with lecture three days a week and teachers having office hours. What's not on that chart, for instance, is that American teachers spend far more time in front of their students than in any other country. Most other countries don't spend resources on PE or athletics, either. No gyms or fields or equipment.

[Igel]

6. That's a lot of it.

Then again, that implicit threat--"study for that algebra test or you'll get your waiter's certificate instead of admission to that technical institute" is a real motivator. Both for students *and* for parents.

Other parts?

Spineless administrators. The loudest politician wins. Then it's the loudest parent in the room. Then it's the teachers who fight the hardest and make the most threats.

Unreasonable and overbearing helicopter parents. Smithy's brilliant, well behaved, artistic. And failing all his classes, even though he's lied to his parents about it for months. "Why didn't you tell us?" "Because Smithy forged your signature and changed your phone number in school records to a porn line, changed your email. He didn't take home the progress reports or report cards. Since the grades are available online and you both work in IT, why didn't you check his grades? Or ask to see his report cards?" Then, when the parents are offended and outraged, the spineless administrators assure the parents that, yes, all the teachers will call every week, and all the materials for the next week of classes will be made available the preceding Thursday in the counselor's office. They may even send the teachers an email telling them of the commitment the teachers made in their absence.

Politicians who facilitate overbearing parents and spineless administrators, while making sure that what's tested isn't necessarily what needs to be taugt. The kid who's reading grades below grade and who was put into a dual-language immersion class for Spanish immigrants for two years even though at age 11 he arrived from Vietnam? Yeah, he has to take the same test that kids in pre-AP English struggle with. But since most ESL students are Spanish-speaking, that's what's done with them to help maintain his "native language."

Unions who insist that if you just pay us more Smithy, IQ 80, age 19, and who reads at an 8th grade level when entering 11th grade, *will* be able to succeed taking AP Physics, AP Chemistry, dual-credit history, AP English, etc.

Then there's a true third-rail: A lot of that increase in resources went for special needs.

[Nevernose]

3. Not every teacher clicks with every kid

And sometimes it never clicks, ever. When I taught younger grades, I could always rationalize the triage with "maybe they'll do better with another teacher next year."

But now I teach almost exclusively remedial twelfth grade. I am their absolute last shot at learning the bare minimum to graduate high school. Because of weird class structures, I've had a few of these kids in one class or another for multiple years, and when they don't succeed, it's because I've failed. And I'm good at what I do -- really good. Mathematically verified thanks to the wonders of "data." But some kids I will fail, and it's depressing as hell.

Right now I'm thinking about a girl who I just couldn't help pass her proficiencies. Her scores always improved, but never enough. Her father got arrested for running a string of "massage parlors" and her mother took the opportunity to run off with another guy, leaving "Hilda" and Hilda's sick brother to fend for themselves. She always ditched last period so she could get home and give her little brother his insulin, a medication which was arranged by the school nurse. I got her a job in the cafeteria; she had to spend half her class time in their, earning minimum wage. This was all when she was 16 years old. She's also the girl who tried to turn in a book report on Fifty Shades of Grey, lol!

And now I'm sitting here in Paris, looking out at the Sacre Couer through the rain and I'm actually crying a little bit over this kid. Actual weeping because some girl I'll probably never see again failed a stupid test. Life is weird.

I'm going to walk over to Oscar Wilde's grave and ask the wonderful, witty man his opinion.

[Igel]

5. I've known teachers who didn't need to "fix a thing" for next year.

They still fixed some things, but they worked no less.

They graded more papers, gave more feedback, had time after school to set up labs and attend training sessions to learn how to teach better that they didn't realize.

They can just take a few minutes to do it intentionally and reflectively, unless a lot of teachers who are just kept running all the time.