I am always amazed at my job. Literally, AT my job. If you are a parent or teacher, you will find some of this eye opening. One thing I know is that when the time comes, I am going to do more for my teachers, assistants and school personnel who work with my child because they deserve more.
For those of you who don't know, I am a teacher. Not just any teacher, a special education teacher in a medium sized county in Tennessee. I do not think that a teacher is 'just a teacher' mind you, so my sentence before had no underlying meaning. Teachers are not just teachers any more. Teachers are the adults in your child's life who sees your child the most, in return has the most influence on your child. Now, I am not saying that parents do not see their own children ever- but mathematically speaking- on average, the average teacher spends 6.5 hours with your student a day, taking out the remainder of the school day (1+ hour), and travel time to and from school (average 1 hour)- that's a total of 8 and a half hours that your child is not in your care. Given the way the school day works, families spend most of their time together in the evening- from 5-8, so factoring in dinner and homework- the quality time that children spend with parents is minimal, until the weekend. Now, I say all of that because as a teacher, I REALLY try to do what is best for each student that I teach. Each child comes from a different background and each situation is different. Taking all those factors into account, I would want to keep my child's teacher as happy as possible- after all, that teacher is helping me to raise my child. In fact, many parents leave that up to teachers- raising their child for them. I would love to help parent the 20+ kids on my caseload, but Tennessee has only charged me with educating your child with the standards it sees fit for my grade level. Not only do I have a set of academic standards to teach your child but I also only have 27 weeks to fit 36 weeks of work into that time.... not counting snow days that are inevitable- which always occur before our 5th grade writing assessment. So let me be clear, I am to teach your child standards that the state feels appropriate, be accountable for your test score in the spring and raise your child for you- you know- teach him/her life lessons that you don't have time for. On top of that, the government, yes- government, has decided that I need to be perfect-100% of my kids need to be passing their state mandated test by 2014. WOW.... but wait, I unfortunately am not done. Here is where, 'not just any teacher' comes into play. I am a special education teacher, which means I am legally bound to EVERY child on my caseload, which is different than the regular education teacher. I have IEP's (Individual Education Plan's) for each student on my caseload and I am legally responsible for that student and his/her education. I, like all teachers, assistants, and most staff, are over worked and under paid. Lots of people celebrate the spring, but special education teachers loathe the time of year...only because it is the time of year when IEP meetings have to occur, and state testing occurs. Lots of planning goes into an IEP meeting-creating the IEP itself, gathering all the appropriate members who need to be involved, meeting at a time which everyone has 'free', and discussing one student with the team for at least an hour. My favorite is when parents forget that they have this meeting. No matter how many notices are sent out, no matter if the parent request the meeting, no matter how much I do behind the scenes, it never fails- its never enough.
Today, I had a parent not show for a 7:30 meeting this morning. Mind you, this parent requested the day because she is off on Tuesdays and she requested 7:30. So when she has not shown by 7:45, I know that she isn't coming so I have to call her to see if everything is ok and if she wants us to reschedule the meeting or if I can send the paperwork home. After waking the parent up, from apparently a decent sleep, I basically get yelled at for calling. I apologized for the early phone call for starters, and proceeded to inform the parent that we were supposed to meet at 7:30 and asked if she had planned on coming and if everything was ok. Got snipped at and laughed at when I asked if she was coming in. Our conversation did not last much longer and I hung up and was half-speechless at what just occurred. I have to constantly remind myself that I LOVE my job. I do love my job, I am just tired of busting my butt for the happenings that occurred today- because believe me- it happens often.
So when the government steps in and wants us to be perfect, and wants to start taking things away from us- I get a little perturbed. I want to scream because the legislature has NO IDEA what we go through on a daily basis. Do you think that the government is going to hold parents accountable for the poor living conditions that Johnny experiences, or the fact that Johnny never does any homework because parents are not home to help the kid, or Johnny doesn't get fed but for breakfast and lunch when he is at school- nope, none of that matters to the government. Its just us- the teachers, who need to be 100% proficient.
I know that there are many parents who are great and wonderful to their teachers, and for you- I THANK YOU! However, if you haven't today or this week or even this month- appreciate your child's teacher.
Enough teacher blah... I was just frusterated about the meeting this morning and thought that if more people really knew how schools work and the hardships we undertake, we could begin to make a difference. A bigger difference in the lives of our youth.
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