Anonymous wrote:As a former teacher, I can tell you I love teaching, I just hated all the stuff that came along with it.
Working with kids, seeing them learn and grow? Best thing ever.
Dealing with ever-changing administrative demands, having to develop and maintain reams of worthless data, expected to teach to children years behind grade level and/or with significant learning disabilities with little to no support, being blamed for things out of my control.....that's the stuff that drives teachers out of teaching.
As a daughter of two teachers, I think that teachers loved teaching a lot more when they actually got to teach and didn't have to spend so much time proving that they are actually teaching, which takes away from instruction time. Training in the trend of the day, useless professional development, data gathering, administrative demands all take away from actually teaching students.
In my opinion, in the old days, teachers had more time to get to know their students and really help them. If a kid was struggling, the teacher was more likely to say, "why wouldn't I go out of my way to help?" Now, they are so busy trying to meet administrative demands, we, as parents hear, "why should I have to help?" more often than not.
I grew up in a very working class area with populated with students whose parents who were not well educated. Many families were large Catholic families with moms who were stretched thin and didn't have time to spend working with their kids on homework. My mother taught in this district, and watching her love for her students showed me that teaching is so much more than covering curriculum. Often, the biggest contribution is opening a kid's mind - to education, to his or her potential, to the prospect of a better life. That contribution from teachers isn't measured in standardized testing, and sadly, the more test focused we have become, the less able teachers are to contribute in this meaningful way.