David CookIn the last several weeks, much has been written about our public schools.
Much.
But not this.
What follows is a first-person account of what it's like inside one public school classroom. Written by an award-winning teacher of 12 years, it's full of honesty, love, vulnerability and frustration.
Great frustration.
"Many people outside of education say how much we need to fix our schools," this teacher said. "But these people have no clue or solutions to meet the issues of today."
This teacher? He makes about $49,000 a year. His school isn't inner city, nor wealthy suburbia. It's middle of the road, which means his experience, while not universal, isn't an outlier, either. He didn't want his name used because he did not want to harm the reputation of his school or violate relationships with students.
Wednesday, I'll present his list of solutions for schools.
But first, in his words, are the toughest problems:
"Today's classroom isn't what it was years ago. When I started teaching, I didn't see or hear things like I do today. Student attitudes are getting worse. I have never seen such a degree of cheating. Many work harder at cheating than they actually do on the assignment itself.
"Work ethic is a huge problem. It is hard to teach a student a particular subject when they do not want to learn about it. If they do not see the point of a certain school subject - foreign language, history, algebra - they are not going to try no matter how talented or relentless a teacher is, especially when we have large classes and cannot address the needs of over 100 students.
"Profanity is getting worse. The noise level is getting worse. The immaturity has never been worse. There are more instances of vandalism (busting out light bulbs, ripping things off the walls, kicking lockers), theft (even taking items off a teacher's desk) and littering (dropping wrappers as they walk by, leaving candy wrappers at their desks, tossing apples from lunch on top of buildings).
"I do not know how many times I saw a boy ball up his fist and strike a girl on the arm enough to cause pain. I wrote those students up, but nothing was done about it. It's domestic violence in the making. I had a boy completely wrap his arms around a girl twist her and slam her on one of my desktops. I wrote him up, nothing was ever done. I heard a boy harassing a girl about the size of her breasts. I wrote him up, nothing was done about it. I once had an upperclassman barge into my room to hunt down a girl. He was going to attack her for something she wrote in social media. If it wasn't for a few stout guys (this boy was big, the girl was rather small), he would have accomplished his mission.
"So many of the referrals we write and send to administration are ignored. Many teachers wondered if there was a moratorium on referrals. Yes, administrators may be swamped in dealing with day-to-day problems, which is perhaps why they don't respond to referrals. Either way, something has to be done.
"A typical classroom has around 30 students. Four or five will have ADHD/ADD. Two or three have a learning disability that requires state law for individual help in varying degrees. One or two may be English language learners or English language deficient. Two more are in a group home or foster home. Three-fourths of the classroom is either in a single-parent home, blended family or are being raised by their grandparent(s).
"Out of 120 or so students each semester, I might see 20 or 30 parents at parent-teacher nights. When I call my students' parents, many phone numbers are disconnected. One of my students was failing miserably. I did not see or hear from his parent until one-and-a-half weeks to go in the school year. I had one boy who was constantly tardy to my first period class. He actually was a really good kid. I found out that many mornings he would be driven to school by his mother and they would both smoke dope on the way to school.
"Usually, the most successful students have both parents in the home. Very few students are successful without parents who are active, supportive and attend parent-teacher functions. They're willing to discipline. They encourage their child to play a sport or musical instrument. There are many success stories coming from single parent homes, but the optimum situation is a home where both parents are involved and caring.
"Today's educational world is not completely bleak. There are many awesome students out there. I have laughed, cried, hugged, encouraged and confronted a multitude of kids. Why would we get into teaching if we didn't care?
"But the burnout and attrition rates are quite high compared to other professions when we don't feel supported or receive proper back-up on discipline, or put under intense evaluations, or feel criticized for all the behind-the-scenes stuff we do that the common person has no idea about.
"I see the money asked for as an investment into a better society. We are shaping a generation that can either make society better and safer or one that we will pay for dearly if we don't address some of these things."
Contact David Cook at dcook@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6329. Follow him on Facebook at DavidCookTFP.