Home away from home
As a student, did you sometimes cringe when you got back a graded paper? Was there lots of red?
Early in my teaching career, I switched from red ink for grading papers to blue or green felt tip pens. My students liked it—such a small thing for me to do to help their day go a little better. My goal was for students to not just memorize facts, but be able to apply the concepts they learned. Since I believed in a variety of evaluation methods such as essay questions, papers, projects, (I seldom used multiple choice or true/false tests), my students did a lot of writing. Often the papers I returned had extensive blue or green feedback, but they would often say, “At least, you didn’t bleed all over it.”
This week is Teacher Appreciation Week
On the Today Show, this morning, I watched an interview with a young middle school teacher. His love and enthusiasm for his vocation and his students was vividly revealed in his sparkling eyes, bright smile, and the message he shared.
“Kids are sacred!”
Mr. Hall gave us a glimpse into the traits that make him such a remarkable teacher. He strives to help his students “embrace a positive view of themselves.” He demonstrates the importance of being kind and helps his students learn how to cope with stress.
One of his seventh grade students said of him, “He pulls the better part of me out.”
All these important concepts are outside of the prescribed curriculum.
This dedicated teacher is sharing life lessons.
As I mentioned in the second blog of this series, our children spend a lot of time at school. In their 13 years of enrollment in K-12 schools, every child is in school over 14,000 hours, just for the basic education program, not including extracurricular activities. Thus, we see the impact of schooling on the growth and development of our children. Every teacher, every class, every experience in school affects our students. This message, fourth in my series on American schooling, contrasts the positive and negative characteristics of our system of public schools.
There’s a lot of good going on in our public schools. Our teachers and administrators care about our children. They want to provide them with the best education possible, within the guidelines and limitations set up by the institutions which govern schools—local, state, and federal government. Before we get to the negative stuff, please join me in recognizing some positive aspects of our schools:
- For the most part, we have knowledgeable, dedicated and caring personnel in our schools.
- Educators are concerned about the health and well-being of our students.
- Neither teaching, not administration within schools is an easy task, yet these people love our children, work long hours, and take work home with them on a daily basis.
- Our public schools strive to educate every child with the goal to guide them to reach their fullest potential.
Now to the not so good…
What you find below are my opinions on where our schools fall short. On these particular issues, I have not sought viewpoints of experts. My thoughts are based on my 40 years of teaching experience in K-12 schools and at the university level and my beliefs about what is best for our children.
Next week’s blog will offer possible pathways to improve the situation.
Some of our weaknesses in American schooling:
- Inability to teach the child as unique individual
- Excessive emphasis on standardized testing
- Our prescribed curriculum stifles the creativity of our children
- Lack of discipline
- Lack of parental involvement and support
- Financial disparities in communities prevent children from receiving equal opportunities
- Lack of societal support
You may wish to add other aspects that you consider weaknesses in our public schools. Feel free to comment with your thoughts.
One final thought for today. Our schools have impact on every aspect of our children’s lives, basic educational knowledge—what our legislators and those chosen to be curriculum developers decide should be taught. But beyond the basics: Students learn values—a hard work ethic, or not; honesty and integrity, or not; treating others with kindness and respect, or not; and love and respect of our country, or not. Students decide whether to pursue the school’s definition of learning—or not. Schools seek to prepare students for a career to help them be stable, contributing members of society—or not. Students choose whether to take the high road—do their best, graduate, start a career or further their education—or not.
This is what the Lord says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.” Jeremiah 6:16
In their defense—educators are not totally responsible for all these outcomes—parents and peers have a powerful influence. But…educators have a major impact on which pathway students take.
Some students get lost or left behind. Are we—parents, teachers, society—doing our best to provide the best education possible?
As always, I welcome your thoughts. Thank you for caring about our children. They are our future.
During Teacher Appreciation Week, can you thank a teacher?
Previous blogs in this series on public schools in America:
I pray for our schools and teachers to train the children of the next generation things that will help them to seek after truth.
Thank you for your prayers, Joanna. Our students and educators need our prayers. We know that God is truth. The schools can help provide reading and reasoning skills so that our children, in other settings, have the ability to read and study the Bible, learn and understand the Gospel of Jesus, and have the knowledge and confidence to share their faith.
Praying for teachers is so important. Those teachers like the one you mentioned make an indelible impact on students who otherwise may not get any positive feedback at home or anyplace else. My respect for teachers grows each year the difficulty seems to get worse. Happy Teachers Day, Katherine. Thanks for the years you sowed into students!
Thanks so much, Barbara. Teachers need our encouragement and support. It’s a rewarding, but very challenging career and sometimes we feel so alone. I’m so grateful for your prayers for our teachers.
Great list, both good and bad, Ms. Katherine. I recognize my naivety is such that I’m not qualified to comment on the state of education as I don’t have a pedigree in that field; but have strived to share life lessons with young people for many years. I agree that (for the most part) educators are drawn to teaching not for financial gain but a desire to share, teach, grow, shape, and expand opportunities for their students. Sadly though, when you plant seeds in unfertile ground, few germinate and grow. I feel this is what is happening in many cases today. Society as a whole has become so self-centered, self-serving, and self-important that little is done in the home to prepare children to learn, grow, and explore. It seems there’s become more focus on investing in their 401K than their children. It’s become more important to have the large home, boat, and three automobiles than it has to teach values, morality, and ethical behavior. I think, its because life itself has become devalued. Thank you for sharing your insights and learned opinions with us ma’am. If we would all spend more time investing in our children, then I think more teachers would be able to reach more students because they would be prepared to learn. Teaching is an act of love; babysitting and parenting is a job. Parent and grandparents; allow our teachers to get back to teaching.
Your response shows your wealth of wisdom, my friend. You’ve hit the nail on the head! I believe, in many cases, that parents are so engrossed in their careers and the accumulating of material things that sometimes children get pushed into the background. These children may have all that money can buy, but are missing the most necessary of parental responsibilities–time with their parents–and, as you remind us, the teaching of values that should occur in the home is often overlooked. In other cases, families with less financial resources are struggling just to get food on their tables. I agree that our society is facing a crisis of selfishness, entitlement, and loss of morals. We all have a part in working to turn that tide. Thank you for sharing your powerful insights, J.D.
As a teacher in a small school, I struggle with teaching to the student instead of the class. I don’t know how some public school teachers do it with class sizes so large. Schools are so big now that kids get lost. And the most lost are the ones who learn differently.
More schools that are smaller instead of fewer that are larger would be a cost–that might save us a bigger cost in the long run.
I agree, Nancy. When a teacher has 25, 30, or more students in class, it is impossible to adequately meet the individual needs of their students. There are solutions that can help reduce this teacher-student ratio, but as you point out, this takes additional funding. Thank you for recognizing the challenge and voicing an important strategy to help us better serve our students.
I agree with each of your listed weaknesses. I’ve observed all of them firsthand. I’ve also observed many kind, creative, dedicated and “called” teachers in the profession. Thanks for highlighting Mr. Hall. Teachers such as he have embraced this truth: “Students don’t care how much we know until the know how much we care.”
This is true for students from kindergarten through college.
Thanking God for teachers today and their positive impact on the lives of so many.
Thank you for your prayers, Candyce. As an educator, I know you recognize the challenges teachers and administrators face on a daily basis. I’m so thankful that we still have so many outstanding, sincere, and dedicated teachers that face the challenges head-on and don’t give up. Thank you for your service to our children.
This is such an important topic to explore and pray about, and I think you’ve done a great job with these posts. I agree with your lists of what’s good and what’s not so good! Thank you for tackling this! I do think this last year of pandemic learning has shown many the importance of teachers and perhaps helped us see some of the things that need to be changed.
I’m grateful for your understanding and support, Kathy. Being a career teacher yourself, I know you have seen the challenges our students, teachers, and administrators face. Thank you for your many years of dedicated service to our children and your continued sharing of wonderful lessons for children and parents on your blog.