Why Teachers Suck

JUNE 10, 2017 / BERT FULKS

A friend and I were grousing about ignorance run amok.

Americans get their information from internet memes, I laughed. And in the true
spirit of democracy, dullards who have never cracked a book will cancel the votes of
people who actually have a clue. What could go wrong?

You know what the problem is? Tim challenged. Our countrys a mess because
teachers suck.

I bristled.

Although Ive been out of the classroom for a number of years, once a teacher,
always a teacher. Plus, I have family and friends still slugging it out in the trenches.
I know their battles and the wounds they carry.

Dude, do you know what teachers endure on a daily basis? I asked Tim. I found
that, no, he didnt. I fear most Americans might be as clueless.

I emailed a former colleague (shes two years from retirement) and asked one
question: How has education changed since you first started teaching? A week
later I received six, single-spaced pages.
When Susan started teaching thirty-one years ago, she had six class periods (about
twenty-five kids per class) and two preps (subjects to teach). We were expected
to do all the usual things like developing lessons, grading homework and tests,
handwriting grade cards, and contacting parents if and when necessary.

(That last part made me snicker. Teachers will get the joke.)

A lot has changed over three decades, and though they havent broken her, many of
those changes have bent Susan to the point where she is ready to retire.
While Tim condemns Susan as Americas problem, her own words reveal why she
and teachers like her suck

Gentle reader, teachers suck

1. because of paperwork
Reading through Susans career experiences, one word kept surfacing:
paperwork.

We have shackled our educators to a paper trail that, according to Susan, takes
hours and does nothing to help the students. Her state now requires documented
learning objectives for every single student, including all the steps to achieve that
goal. The same legislation saddles each administrator in her school with the task of
120 classroom observations, with the requisite pages of paperwork every time. The
teachers also have to submit paperwork for each formal observation.

All forms must be submitted by 3pm.

Papers, papers everywhere.

Susans school also has a mandatory mentoring program for new teachers. Not a
bad thing. Howeveryou guessed itit comes with an avalanche of forms. Both
mentor and mentee spend hours preparing and submitting documentation instead of
doing what theyve been hired to doteaching our kids.

Friends, teachers have always been successfully mentored. In my first year of

teaching, I received tons of help from experienced educators who actually had time
to share their wisdom with me because they werent buried in bureaucracy.

Susan sees new teachers trying to wrap their heads around their preps, classroom
management, fostering relationships, and learning the ART of teaching, but thats
hard to do because they must submit a huge portfolio filled with hours of
paperwork. Meanwhile, some wizard waits behind the curtain to evaluate those
documents and decide that young educators fate. Some teachers fail only because
they dont play the paperwork game well.
(Also, just so were clear, digital submissions might save some trees, but it doesnt
save our educators.)

2. because of unfunded mandates.

Our politicians are fond of making laws about education without any input from the
people in the classrooms, laments Susan. The result? Things like state and
federally mandated testing.

Great! More help from legislators!

Since we dont trust teachers to actually teach, we have accountability. Yes, her
sarcasm is delicious. Our kids spend hours [weeks, I would argue] testing rather
than learning.
As an employer, I see the fallout every day. We have a generation of high school
graduates whove been taught to worship some standardized test score but cant
think their way out of a corner. But we cant pin that on teachers. Theyre the ones
left holding the empty bag dumped on them by short-sighted legislators.

Susans school just completed another round of mandatory testing. It came with a
hefty price tag.

Because these tests are all online, our district had to retrofit each high school (there
are three) with more data ports / WIFI / whatever you want to call it, to be able to
handle hundreds of computers needing bandwidth at the same time.
Where did the money come from? Locally, of course. We had to spend our
districts money on a state/federal mandate without any recompense. Add that to the
loss of learning time and its a big, fat lose-lose.

A buzz-topic right now is school vouchers. In a nutshell, vouchers allow parents to

receive a tax credit equal to what might be spent on their childs education. They
can use that money to send their kid to any school they want. However, the money
always comes from schools which are already underfunded.

On the subject of vouchers, weve got to change our perspective. Youre not paying
taxes to educate your own kids. Youre paying to educate your neighbors kids, and
thats a terrific investment, because who wants dumb neighbors?

Friends, our educators are constantly being required to do more with less, and it has
to stop.

3. because of litigation from parents

I dont know what kind of catastrophic event would have had to happen in 1986 to
cause a parent to sue the school, Susan writes, but schools are now legal
tinderboxes.

Schools are filled with letters and numbers: IEP, 504, ELL, SLO, ESL, IDEA the
list goes on. (Google them if you dont recognize them.) They aim to provide a
quality education to every child, no matter their circumstance, deficiencies (or
giftedness), mental or physical challenges, etc. These are all good things, but they
come with a heavy cost and the classroom teacher pays the bill, spending an
excessive amount of time accommodating students who come in with these legally-
binding documents.

Administrators putting out fires: Look, another lawsuit!

I just talked with an educator whos dreading the upcoming school year. Hes
already under assault by a parent waving around her kids unrealistic 51-page IEP.
This guy knows, however, that if one letter of that document isnt followed with
precise satisfaction, mom will file a lawsuit (as she has before).
Susan says lawsuits are now common place, and schools usually settle out of court
to avoid expensive legal battles. One student in her school was recently caught
selling her moms prescription pills at school.

Cut and dried, right? Not so fast. The parents said it was the schools fault that
she stole her moms meds and sold them because the school didnt diagnose her with
ADHD. The parents filed a lawsuit and the school district settled out of court.

This happens all the time.

Teachers have to second guess everything they do and say, and the ever-looming
lawsuit threat only dims their brilliance as educators.

4. because of expectations from a broken society.

Teachers no longer simply teach their subjects. Our schools are now responsible for
raising children. Not many kids learn basic life skills and attitudes at home, so we
expect teachers to do what moms and dads wont (or cant). Oh, and theyre also
supposed to make sure the kids get fed.

Too many schools now have food / toiletry / clothing pantries for kids whose homes
cant provide basic necessities. These are run by volunteers and teachers, of
course.

We ask teachers to teach, feed, clothe, and parent our children, but refuse them the
resources, support, and time to do the job. Instead, we shame them for not saving
our fractured society.

Not only are schools and teachers expected to fix all of societys ills, we are also
expected to turn out a fantastic product, Susan says. It would be nice if it could be
remembered that we are working with human capital, not with a product whose
outcome we can control completely.

And therein lies the biggest key to understanding why teachers suck

Our teachers end up parenting a lot of kids, and that role comes with a costly
emotional and psychological investment. Teachers are often caring for students who
are functioning orphansand they do it for countless kids. While theyre teaching
their preps, answering emails and phone calls from angry parents, trying to ignore
what some yahoo has said about them on social media, and filling out an insane
amount of hoop-jumping documentation to help some politician get re-elected,
theyre also trying to get the girl whos been raped into counseling, making sure the
kid out of rehab stays clean and on track, and trying to tenderly engage that
discipline problem whos now living on the streets because his parents are both in
jail.

Friends, thats reality.

You still want to know why teachers suck ?

Let me finish the sentence.

Teachers suck it up and keep doing what they do because they love our kids.

They suck it up and keep fighting the good fight because they are professionals
with more heart, grit, and passion than anyone I know.

Teachers bleed for our nations children on a daily basis, and its time we unshackle
them from bureaucratic nonsense and give them the resources and support to do the
job they are calledand trainedto do.