Teachers in education – hard stuff

Is education unfair? I don’t know since I’ve never lived anywhere else but in NYC it’s definitely true. Many teachers are scared to go into the rough neighborhoods and work there. When I was in the youth group of our church a lady from our congregation spoke to us one time and she was a teacher who worked in the bronx teaching elementary school kids. I don’t remember anything she spoke on, but the only thing I remember was that she told us she got stabbed by one of her students. And she still teaches there. Knowing that some neighborhoods are full of kids in gangs from as young as 10 and are told to carry weapons, would you willingly go to work there? Many teachers would avoid it if they could. Why not work in a better area and get the same pay. It’s not like you’re getting paid more to risk more. You’re also more likely to deal with more troubled kids as well and have a harder time teaching them.

Not only that but good teachers are hard to come by, really hard to come by. When I was in middle school I was placed in the “smart” class which kept us with better or harder curriculum and really better teachers who challenged and kept on our butts. They not only gave us harder work but put in the effort and time to teach us and make it interesting. Even then, I didn’t go to a magnate middle school and I know there were one or two in the city. I was pretty blessed to be in that program. Even though we had generally the better teachers, we definitely came across some crap teachers that we honestly learned nothing from. If we came up with only a few of those, does that mean that was all everyone else got? Don’t get me wrong, teaching is a high calling and a hard one at that. What I’m trying to say is that like any other profession, there are good and bad. And like any other profession, good personnel gives good results, bad personnel gives bad results, even if the job is hard. If few students got the good personnel and became the decent or good results and everyone else got the bad personnel, does that mean they became possibly the bad results? It’s a sad thing to think about.

Another thing is what about teachers that know they’re getting the “bad” students? Do they feel more unmotivated that they’re getting the students they know are possibly a year or two behind than they’re grade level? Are they supposed to take on the responsibility of the previous teachers and catch each of these kids up to their respective levels? That’s almost impossible! With students that are behind, do you also end up slacking off and expect lower standards of them, even if unconsciously? I think that might happen to anyone.

Let’s be straight. Teaching is a hard profession and they don’t just work during the hours they’re in school. They definitely don’t get paid enough. Are they getting the proper training and evaluation year by year to keep them up to speed with today’s teaching methods and materials?

What can we do? We aren’t exactly in charge of which teachers to hire and apparently it’s pretty hard to fire some teachers as well. Sending your kids to school is an act of trust, especially in the hands of a teacher with whom they spend their time. I think that where possibly, we should encourage our principles to hire good teachers and encourage them to continue to make sure their teachers are doing their job. We can also be a great part of our school community and keep in touch with our teachers to see how we can help them as well. If we can we should also support legislation that would support the ability to choose good teachers, evaluate them well, train them, and fire them if needed.

The biggest part is to be an active part of the community and give back where we can and support the teachers because they’re people too who want to do their job well and are entrusted with our children. Love your neighbor, who can be your child’s teacher. Teachers are also under a lot of pressure and need the love and encouragement that parents can give.