Teachers

Ten years into my career, I've developed a host of beliefs about education that I wouldn't have the courage to speak aloud in a staff meeting. The one I'm mulling today? Why do we spend so much time and energy pretending that the primary focus of American public education is education? It just isn't. I hate feeling like we're the ones who get stuck with giving a shit about society while everyone else is frolicking with their six figure work from home social media marketing jobs and annual bonuses (I know that's hyperbole. Humor me).

I've sat through countless pd sessions about how "grades should only communicate student achievement towards standards." Really? Then why aren't we graduating millions of advanced kids early? I have freshmen who could get a 34 on the ACT and seniors who graduate but can't scrape out a 10.

At best, we let kids graduate a year early, and a lot of those aren't academically advanced students; they just want to get out of high school and into the work force as quickly as possible.

By the time students get to high school, many of them are absurdly behind grade level in core skills. Day after day, we go about the irrational work of trying to teach Shakespeare and trigonometry to students who don't want to be there and can barely recite their address or spell the name of the school they attend. If we actually put learning first, we'd invest enough in the system to retain those kids who haven't learned, and provide enough accommodations and support to meet their needs. But we don't.

The primary purpose of American education is to keep the kids somewhere while their parents work. I would argue that the second most important purpose is socialization and the development of accepted cultural norms. Somewhere down the list is actual academic knowledge and skill development. I wish we could be more honest about that. If we were, we'd accept that tracking/streaming makes a ton of sense. We'd accept that part of the purpose of grades IS to rank and sort students. We'd accept that at some point, students DO become partly responsible for the decisions they make, and it's not reasonable to ask a school to counteract 100% of the effects of poverty and misfortune, or even just kids with bad attitudes. Even with double our current resources, that might not be a feasible goal.

Instead, we all just survive the cognitive dissonance of seeing ourselves as educators in a society that sees us crowd control. Anyway, happy teacher appreciation week everybody.