‘i would love to teach but…’

8/13/2019 ‘I would love to teach but…’

1/13

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I recently published a post with various answers to the question: How hard is teaching?

Here is one response I received by e-mail from a veteran seventh-grade language arts

teacher in Frederick, Maryland, who asked not to be identified because she fears

retaliation at her school. In this piece she describes students who don’t want to work,

parents who want their children to have high grades no matter what, mindless

curriculum and school reformers who insist on trying to quantify things that can’t be

measured.

Here is her e-mail:

It is with a heavy, frustrated heart that I announce the end of my personal career in education, disappointed and resigned because I

believe in learning. I was brought up to believe that education meant

exploring new things, experimenting, and broadening horizons. This

involved a great deal of messing up. As part of the experimentation

that is growing up, I would try something, and I would either succeed

or fail. I didn’t always get a chance to fix my mistakes, to go back in

time and erase my failures, but instead I learned what not to do the

next time. Failing grades stood, lumpy pieces of pottery graced the

mantle, broken bones got casts. As a result of my education, I not only

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learned information, I learned to think through my ideas, to try my

best every single time; I learned effort. I’d like to say that in some

idealistic moment of nostalgia and pride, I decided to become a teacher,

but the truth is that I never thought I would do anything else. I come

from a long line of teachers and I loved school from day one.

To pursue this calling, I worked hard to earn the title of “classroom

teacher,” but I became quickly disillusioned when my title of teacher did

not in any way reflect my actual job. I realized that I am not permitted to really teach students anything. When I was in middle school, I

studied Shakespeare, Chaucer, Poe, Twain, O. Henry, the founding

fathers, if you will, of modern literary culture. Now, I was called to

drag them through shallow activities that measured meaningless but

“measurable” objectives.

Forced to abandon my hopes of imparting the same wisdom I had

gained through my experiences and education, I resigned myself to the

superficial curriculum that encouraged mindless conformity. I decided

that if I was going to teach this nonsense, I was at least going to teach

it well. I set my expectations high, I kept my classroom structured, I

tutored students, I provided extra practice, and I tried to make class

fun. At this point, I was feeling alright with myself. I quickly rose

through the ranks of “favorite teacher,” kept open communication

channels with parents, and had many students with solid A’s.

It was about this time that I was called down to the principal’s office

with a terse e-mail that read only, “I need to speak with you.” Clueless,

I took down my grade sheets, communication logs, lesson plans, and

sat down as an adult still summoned down to the principal’s office. “I

need to talk to you about these students.” She handed me a list of about

10 students, all of whom had D’s or F’s. At the time, I only had about

120 students, so I was relatively on par with a standard bell curve. Asshe brought up each one, I walked her through my grade sheets that

showed not low scores but a failure to turn in work—a lack of

responsibility. I showed her my tutoring logs, my letters to parents,

only to be interrogated further. Eventually, the meeting came down to

two quotes that I will forever remember as the defining slogans for

public education:

“They are not allowed to fail.”

“If they have D’s or F’s, there is something that you are not doing for

them.”

What am I not doing for them? I suppose I was not giving them the

answers, I was not physically picking up their hands to write for them,

I was not following them home each night to make sure they did their

work on time, I was not excusing their lack of discipline, I was not

going back in time and raising them from birth, but I could do none of

these things. I was called down to the principal’s office many more

times before I was broken, before I ended up assigning stupid

assignments for large amounts of credit, ones I knew I could get

students to do. Even then, I still had students failing, purely through


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their own refusal to put any sort of effort into anything, and I had

lowered the bar so much that it took hardly anything to pass.

According to the rubrics set forth by the county, if they wrote a single

word on their paper, related or not to the assignment, I had to give

them a 48 percent. Yet, students chose to do nothing. Why? Because we

are forced to pass them. “They are not allowed to fail,” remember?

Teachers are held to impossible standards, and students are

accountable for hardly any part of their own education and are

incapable of failing. I learned quickly that if I graded studentsaccurately on their poor performance, then I have failed, not them. The

attention is turned on me, the teacher, who is criticized, evaluated, and

penalized for the fleeting wills of adolescents.

Everyone received at least a C that year—not earned, received—and I

was commended for my efforts. In the time to follow, I gave up. I

taught the bare minimum and didn’t feel like my students learned

anything of value, but they all got good grades. I got frequent praise

for being such a “good teacher.” It made me physically ill. These empty

words were in no way reflective of my capabilities as a genuine

instructor nor the true capabilities of my students, but rather, they

were akin to the praise you give a beloved pet: you did what you were

told, “good teacher.”

Despite this gilt of success, I was constantly prodded both inside the

classroom and out by condescending remarks like, “It must be nice to

have all that time off.” Time off? Did they mean the five or less hours of

sleep I got each night between bouts of grading and planning? Did they

mean the hours I spent checking my hundreds of e-mails, having to

justify myself to parents, bosses, and random members of the

community at large? Did they mean the time I missed with my family

because I had to get all 150 of these essays graded and the data entered

into a meaningless table to be analyzed for further instruction and evidence of my own worth? Did they mean the nine months of 80-hour

work weeks, 40 of which were unpaid overtime weekly, only to be

forced into a two-month, unpaid furlough during which I’m demeaned

by the cashier at Staples for “all that time off?”

I continued to wrinkle through the sludge because I wanted to believe

that it would get better, and for a brief moment, it did. I got a new

administrator who preached high standards and accountability, and I

decided to try to hold my students to a standard once again. Combined

with a brand-new curriculum that I had to learn basically overnight, I

took the chance to set the bar high, especially when it came to the gifted

and talented program. I was now teaching these “highly able learners,”

and all of the training I received told me to challenge them, push them,

take a step back in order to “tap the genius inside our schools.” So, I

did. I created an intense environment that required students’ best work.

I created opportunities for students to rise to the challenge. I provided

choice and tapped creativity. And I required that students take

ownership of their work and be proud of genuine effort. I felt like a

“good teacher” then.

However, as the whipping boy for society’s ills, I could do none of these


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things. I was lambasted by parents as being ineffective because their

child had a B or a C. “S/he has always been an A student,” they

screamed at me during frequent meetings. “How dare you give them a

B?” Give them? Give them? In my silly attempts to assign grades based

on what students earned according to the rubrics I was given and the

high standards I set forth for student achievement, I was told that “I

will not accept a grade of 50% because my student did not turn in an

assignment on time.”

I wanted to tell them to tell their child, then. Tell Johnny that you will

not accept his lack of responsibility, and quell any of his excuses. The

reality however, is that I had to apologize, hang my head, and give

Johnny another chance to earn additional credit, as if that will

somehow benefit him in the real world. Johnny planned poorly, and it

somehow became my fault. I thought back to my new administration’s

stock phrase that had initially given me a glimmer of hope, “We’re not

in the business of changing grades.” Although I heard these words a lot,

each time parents complained enough, I ended up having to change

grades. I was confused. To me, this was akin to going to a hardware

store and demanding that they make me a cake. They would try to tell

me that cake baking wasn’t their business, but I would scream and be

nasty over and over until I got that cake. If this scenario were to really

happen, would that hardware store bake me a cake? Probably not.

They would most likely call the police and ban me from the premises.

So if we accept that modern education is a business (a modern tragedy)

and that our business is not changing grades, why am I expected to

cave to the insane ravings of confused and misguided consumers?

I thought back to my own education, incredulous. Had I dropped the

ball, my parents would have been wildly disappointed in me and

apologized to the teacher, and I would have learned what not to do next

time. However, education has abandoned us. Some may want tobelieve that my incredulity stems from defensiveness, a sort of “this

wouldn’t have worked for me, so it’s only fair that it doesn’t work for

you” because this is an easier truth for deluded people to accept. The

real truth is that I wouldn’t have changed my failures for the world

because I learned something, really learned something, and I always

believed that part of my job was to help students learn things. We

cannot concern ourselves so much with “fair.” As the old adage goes,

“life isn’t fair,” and education should prepare students for life. Life may

not be fair, but it is predictable in a statistically significant way;

success generally follows hard work, doing something is typically more

effective than doing nothing, and asking questions leads to answers.

But remember, just because I am a teacher does not mean that my job

is to help students learn things of value.

My job is to be debased by an inescapable environment of distrust

which insists that teachers cannot be permitted to create and

administer their own tests and quizzes, now called “assessments,” or

grade their own students’ work appropriately. The development of

plans, choice of content, and the texts to be used are increasingly

expected to be shared by all teachers in a given subject. In a world


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where I am constantly instructed to “differentiate” my methods, I am

condemned for using different resources than those provided because if

I do, we are unable to share “data” with the county and the nation at

large.

This counter-intuitive methodology smothers creativity, it restricts

students’ critical thinking, and assumes a one-size-fits-all attitude that

contradicts the message teachers receive. Teacher planning time has

been so swallowed by the constant demand to prove our worth to thedomination of oppressive teacher evaluation methods that there is little

time for us to carefully analyze student work, conduct our own

research, genuinely better ourselves through independent study instead

of the generic mandated developments, or talk informally with our

co-workers about intellectual pursuits. For a field that touts

individuality and differentiation, we are forced to lump students

together as we prepare all of these individuals for identical, common

assessments. As a profession, we have become increasingly driven by

meaningless data points and constant evaluation as opposed to

discovery and knowledge.

Originality, experimentation, academic liberty, teacher autonomy, and

origination are being strangled in ill-advised efforts to “fix” things that

were never broken. If I must prove my worth and my students’

learning through the provision of a measurable set of objectives, then I

have taught them nothing because things of value cannot be measured.

Inventiveness, inquisitiveness, attitude, work ethic, passion, these

things cannot be quantified to a meager data point in an endless table

of scrutiny.

I am paid to give out gold stars to everyone so that no one feels left out,

to give everyone an A because they feel sad if they don’t have one. I take

the perpetual, insane harassment from parents who insist that theirchild’s failings are solely my fault because I do not coddle them to the

point of being unable to accept any sort of critique; if each student is

not perfect and prepared for college and life by age twelve, then I must

be wrong about the quality of their work. I lower my own standards so

much that I have been thinking my grades were generous. After years

of being harangued, I gave Bs to D-quality work, but that is never good

enough. All I can do is field the various phone calls, meetings, and

e-mails, to let myself be abused, slandered, spit at because that is my

career, taking the fall for our country’s mistakes and skewed priorities.

So if you want your child to get an education, then I’m afraid that as a

teacher, I can’t help you, but feel free to stop by if you want a sticker

and a C.

I sample educator Kris Nielson when I say that: I would love to teach,

but I refuse to be led by a top-down hierarchy that is completely

detached from the classrooms for which it is supposed to be

responsible. I cannot integrate any more information about how

important it is to differentiate our instruction as we prepare our kids

for tests that are anything but differentiated. In addition, I totally

object and refuse to have my performance as an educator rely on

“Domain 5.” It is unfair, subjective, and does not reflect anything about


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the teaching practices of proven educators, rather it is one more vain

piece of administrative busywork that I do not have time for.

I would love to teach, but I will not spend another day under the

expectations that I prepare every student for the increasing numbers of

meaningless tests that take advantage of children for the sake of profit.

I refuse to subject students to every ridiculous standardized test that

the state and/or district thinks is important. I refuse to have my

higher-level and deep thinking lessons disrupted by meaninglessassessments (like the Global Scholars test) that do little more than

increase stress among children and teachers, waste instructional time

and resources, and attempt to guide young adolescents into narrow

choices. It is counter-productive to watch my students slouch under the

weight of a system that expects them to perform well on tests that do

not measure their true abilities, only memorization and application,

and therefore do not measure their readiness for the next grade

level—much less life, career, or college.

I would love to teach, but I will not spend another day wishing I had

some time to plan my fantastic lessons because the county comes up

with new and inventive ways to steal that time, under the guise of PLC

meetings or whatever. I’ve seen successful PLC development. It doesn’t

look like this. I’m far enough behind in my own work that I will not

spend another day wondering what menial, administrative task I will

hear that I forgot to do next.

I would love to teach, but I will not spend another day in a district

where my coworkers are both on autopilot and in survival mode. I am

tired of hearing about the miracles my peers are expected to perform,

and watching the districts do next to nothing to support or develop

them. I haven’t seen real professional development since I got here. The

development sessions I have seen are sloppy, shallow, and have no real means of evaluation or accountability. I cannot stand to watch my

coworkers being treated like untrustworthy slackers through the

overbearing policies of this state, although they are the hardest

working and most overloaded people I know. It is gut-wrenching to

watch my district’s leadership tell us about the bad news and horrific

changes coming towards us, then watch them shrug incompetently,

and then tell us to work harder.

I would love to teach, but I’m tired of my increasing and troublesome

physical symptoms that come from all this frustration, stress, and

sadness.

Finally, I would love to teach, but I’m truly angry that parents put so

much stress, fear, and anticipation into their kids’ heads to achieve a

meaningless numeric grade that is inconsequential to their future

needs, especially since their children’s teachers are being cowed into

meeting expectations and standards that are not conducive to their

children’s futures.

I quit because I’m tired of being part of the problem, and as only one

soul in the river Styx, it is impossible for me to be part of the solution.


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Could I be part of the solution? Of course. But no one ever asks the

teachers, those who are up to their necks in the trenches each day, or if

they do, it is in a patronizing way and our suggestions are readily

discarded. Decisions about classrooms should be made in classrooms.

Teachers are the most qualified individuals to determine what is

needed for their own students. Each classroom is different. It has a

different chemistry, different dynamic, different demographic, and the

teacher is the one who keeps the balance. He or she knows each student,

knows what they need, and they should be the ones making thedecisions about how to best reach them. Sure, using different resources

and strategies among schools may make data sharing more difficult,

but haven’t we gone far enough with data? Each child is not a number

or a data point. They can only be compared to the developmental

capabilities set forth by medicine, not education, and to their own

previous progress.

In addition, teachers cannot and should not be evaluated on the grades

of their students. Who then would try to teach the boy who will never

progress past third grade due to a brain injury? Who then will teach

the girl that refuses to complete any work? Who then would teach any

special education classes? What stops me from skewing my grades to

keep the world off my back? Education cannot be objectively measured.

It never could, and our problems began when we came to that

realization and instead of embracing it, decided to force it into a

quantifiable box that is much too small and too much the wrong shape.

Teachers are called to teach because they, like me, believe in potential.

We are gardeners. We can plant the seeds, water, fertilize, but then we

wait. Students don’t always grow under our watch; it may not be until

years later that something we said or did takes root. As a result, it is

impossible to hold teachers accountable for what amounts to students’

physical development. I cannot make them grow any faster; I can only provide the foundation for them to grow upon. I can provide

opportunities for students to stretch and reach for the sun, I can

provide them a scaffold upon which to rest on their way up, but it is up

to them to try and it is up to our leaders to support us and our

decisions. Like the growth we expect from our students, policy needs to

be driven from the ground up, starting with teachers in order to

provide the supports we need. How can we be told what we need from

those who are not in our position? It is counterintuitive. Let teachers

assess the needs of students so that these results can tell us what we

need. It is not the place of outsiders to make one-size-fits-all mandates

to a world of different shapes and proportions. In doing so, they create

an atmosphere where pebbles are polished and diamonds dimmed.

Though I referenced Robert Greene Ingersoll formerly, Clifford Stroll

has already addressed our country’s educational misgivings in a single

sentence: “Data is not information, information is not knowledge,

knowledge is not understanding, and understanding is not wisdom.” It

is time that we fall on our sword. In our rabid pursuit of data and

blame, we have sacrificed wisdom and abandoned its fruits. We cannot

broaden our students’ horizons by placing them and their teachers into


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5:25 PM CST

The idea of "metrics" in teaching - and many other jobs where you can't actually quantify success with arbitrary

numbers - needs to GO.

I know that coming up with a more accurate form of measuring teachers' success would be harder (and lord

knows school administrators don't want to do actual work), but seriously, not everything can be reduced to

numbers. We aren't all economists and statisticians.

undercover_hon wrote:

5:16 PM CST

Please consider finding a homeschool co-op that needs a language arts teacher! You sound like a wonderful

teacher and I'd love my son to be in your class! Oh, and he and I have a deal: he gets to be homeschooled only

if he puts in his best effort on all that I (or co-op teachers) assign. If he wants to slack off, he is free to attend our

neighborhood school, where he'd be bored and miserable, but at least he'd be getting straight A's.

GlennaJ wrote:

4:59 PM CST

Maybe try teaching English in China. You have total freedom, the kids are great (or adults depending on your

positions), and you see a new culture. Of course, the pay is really bad, but it's far less stressful than teaching in

the US.

dmblum wrote:

5:24 PM CST

If you take account of the much lower cost of living in China it's not too bad. An experienced English

teacher in a major city (Shenzhen or Shanghai) could make $15-20,000/year, which is the equivalent

in the US of about $30-50,000. Plus the students work hard and respect their teachers and their

parents also respect you.

Douglas6 responds:

4:52 PM CST

GOP_Moderate wrote:

narrow boxes, unless we then plan to bury them.

Add your thoughts...

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That very well summarizes my eight years of teaching as a career changer, entitled children, ignorant parents,

cowed administrators....one child or parents(s) with their panties in a wad is a career killer no matter how much

growth the vast majority are experiencing, The system is completely broken.

4:24 PM CST

That is the result of Obama's education system, and the Ted Kennedy/neo-con Bush, "no child left behind", aka

no child allowed the real education that would free him/her from the crushing ignorance demanded by the

multiKKKultists. Parents and teachers are harassed, threatened with termination and/or jail for speaking out

against the fraud that is common core. If you love your children, home school, or send them to a quality private

school that offers a true classical education.

jenn3 wrote:

4:22 PM CST

One of the more subtler points the author made was how we as teachers are constantly preached to about the

necessity and value of differentiation while students all take the exact same standardized tests.

As Einstein was attributed to say, "If you judge an animal by its ability to jump, a fish will spend its whole life

thinking it is stupid."

mstrchef13 wrote:

5:15 PM CST

"more subtler"

"exact same"

"Einstein was attributed to say"

Differentiation is not your friend.

gardyloo responds:

4:13 PM CST

Thank you for articulating so well how thousands of educators are feeling.

I just completed my masters of art education and I did some research as to how the performances visual arts

teachers are evaluated. I am interested in continuing this research because the core of my being yearns for

education to be reformed in a bottom up way, and I believe that starts with how teachers teach.

I agree that teaching should be (and it just is) a process involving differentiation. Just as students learn and

have differing strengths and abilities, so do teacher teach.

I have written a manuscript for an article I hope to publish with the Journal for Social Theory in Art Education on

teacher evaluation (based on my thesis findings). I would like to see if there are any avenues you and/or peoplecommenting would suggest in order for me to continue this conversation.

Much appreciation, you have been serving education in a way that transcends classroom instruction,

Jill Palumbo, MAE

Virginia Commonwealth University

jillpalumbo wrote:

3:44 PM CST

"I continued to wrinkle through the sludge because I wanted to believe that it would get better, and for a brief

gardyloo wrote:


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moment, it did."

Can anyone spot the punctuation error?

4:18 PM CST

Why not suggest the Post stop outsourcing their layout work to the quasi illiterate 3rd world countries,

if you're offended by punctuation?

jenn3 responds:

4:28 PM CST

You need a hyphen in "quasi illiterate."

My assumption was that the letter was cut-and-pasted as the MD English teacher wrote it.

gardyloo responds:

5:16 PM CST

Great example of the old adage about forests and trees.

nunyabizness77777 responds:

3:27 PM CST

Here's an in-depth response to this article if anyone is interested:

http://pipedreamsandpessimism.wordpress.com/2014/0...

EZTch wrote:

3:21 PM CST

THIS IS THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH! BRAVO to this teacher for

telling it like it is! This person needs to be in a classroom, go find a private school that will let you be the teacher

that you deserve to be and that your students deserve to have.

I left the classroom 11 years ago and never looked back. I was an administrator who was still teaching when I

left the small Christian school I was at in the Los Angeles area, and I never, ever lowered my standards.

I thank my former students, now college grads, all who were reared in South Los Angeles, who graduated from

top notch colleges, and had parents who cared, Thank You. Thank you for always staying in my life and telling

me that in hindsight you wanted to kill me, they thought I was too strict, but, when they got to high school and

college, they were prepared!!

Teachers, never waver in your standards, hold the parents, the student, and the administration accountable for

their part in the educational process.

Bravo again for telling the truth!

KimPitts1 wrote:

3:16 PM CST

This is what happens when liberalism takes over your country. Good job leftists! *thumbs up*

Chris Ffr wrote:

Face022 responds:




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3:22 PM CST

Really? Because NCLB was signed into law by President Bush.

4:03 PM CST

NCLB was co-authored by Ted Kennedy and George Miller, whose liberal cred could not be

challenged.

GRILLADES responds:

4:26 PM CST

For some reason there is no option to select allowing one to reply to "Face022", Ted Kennedy & his

flunkies crafted NCLB,

jenn3 responds:

4:33 PM CST

Hey Rhoda Miller, Finland requires it's citizenry be armed, that said, substantiate the claim there is no

poverty in those countries, cos that's a lie. Both Scandinavia and Finland have crushing poverty and

their healthcare systems are degenerating due to their countries embracing open borders to third

world, mainly Muslim "immigrants". Their social safety net is bankrupted to the point the countries are

now releasing tv spots in African and Middle Eastern countries advising that people looking for a free

ride stay home, because they can't afford to take them.. apparently that is what Brussels is advising

them to do.

jenn3 responds:

3:10 PM CST

As a teacher with more than a decade of experience at Roberto Clemente MS in upper Montgomery County,

Maryland; I can honestly say that any teacher on this staff could have written this exact same letter. Many of us

have been summoned to the office to be scolded like a misbehaving child for holding our magnet and general

education students to an honest grade. The unspoken rule we all learn the hard way is keep the letter grades

above a C for general education students and think twice before giving a magnet student anything other than an

A on anything. That means, like the author of this article said, you will " ...ended up assigning stupid

assignments for large amounts of credit." Grades are meaningless. So here, have an A if it keeps your parents

and the principal off my back.

Teacher57 wrote:

2:48 PM CST

As far as I can tell, this teacher is upset that others (administrators, parents) are arbitrarily judging her efforts. Itmakes the teacher feel exasperated, frustrated, and unappreciated. Makes sense.

However, what the teacher wants is free reign to arbitrarily judge the efforts of children. I would bet that if the

kids who got D's and F's in this classroom could get an essay published on the Washington Post's website, it

would look a lot like this one. "I'm trying. Everyone is telling me what to do. I can only take so much of being told

I'm a failure. I quit."

The only difference is the kids can't walk away. They have to endure that judgement year after year. Of course

some of them stop trying. This teacher has that prerogative. Why shouldn't they?

Morgan Emrich wrote:




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3:13 PM CST

The teacher is an "arbitrary" judge of a student's performance by definition. Most D and F students

are either not trying or have problems outside the teacher's scope of responsibility. They are, as they

should be, judged by their performance.

Rhoda Miller responds:

4:42 PM CST

I don't think the point the teacher was making was that she wanted "free reign". She just wanted her

opinions regarding her students to be given more credence than the opinions of those who did not

know or even observe her students. And letting students "walk away" if they received poor grades is a

very bad idea. Educating oneself should be of the highest priority and doesn't often happen easily for

most. This fact has to be made clear to students. The old adage "something worth doing is worth

doing well" is true and doesn't often happen the first time.

elsiepea responds:

4:42 PM CST

"The only difference is the kids can't walk away."

Umm, no, Morgan, that isn't the only difference; teachers have actually finished high school, college,

and often have graduate degrees and experience. Students, by definition, are still students.

PLMichaelsArtist-at-Large responds:

5:22 PM CST

Why are students so often seen as victims of education? THIS is the main problem - no one is

oppressing these kids, just trying to get them to LEARN.

OY.

undercover_hon responds:

2:29 PM CST

As a teacher in her 38th year of teaching special needs kids and still loves it, this article made my heart ache. I

have told many that thank heaven I'm close to retirement, not because I want to lay back, but because what has

happened to education since I began is so sad. I pity my daughter who is a new special education teacher,

having gone into it because she saw how much I loved it and felt a kinship to this population. I doubt she'll make

it as long as I did even though she's making a difference and is acknowledged by her administration and her

school district as being stellar. If you love the kids, if you love learning, if you believe in teaching, and in hard

work, and in making difference, American education is not the place to be.

bbowers18 wrote:

1:40 PM CST

Amen.

quiteacher2014 wrote:


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