A Teacher's Idea

Imagine you send a group of students on to the next grade level. You have tried your best to prepare them especially since you have had them for a year. You have watched them blossom, whether it is a small measure of growth or a mammoth leap forward. You have communicated every aspect of their learning with their parents. You send them forward with your blessings and with great anticipation for the successes to come. Very early into the new level things do not seem to be working out for most of them. What? What is going on? This isn’t what you expected, it most certainly isn’t what anybody expected and there isn’t a single reason to surface other than you were disingenuous in your communication with parents. You deliberately painted a grand picture of success and masked an entire class of students' true performance, for what?.... they could not say. Wow! Is that the only reason to account for a whole class performing badly?  This scenario isn’t all that different from

Why do teachers stay in teaching till retirement? I'm already in 26 years and ready to give up. Teaching has become a hassle, a hustle and a juggle of blame and defence.  School administrators want accountability while giving teachers little support. Parents want success with little or no involvement. Dangling between these expectations are the teachers and children. The teachers are stressed out. The children are saturated.  So what are teachers to do? It is time for school officials to put down their clipboards and really show their support for teachers who do so much. It is time for parents to walk the walk by taking full responsibility for their children's failures. Teachers get the short end of the stick because they are the ones in direct contact with children more than anyone else. Oh yes!! Its the teacher blame game!!!! Blame the teachers for everything!!! When officials want better student performances, target the teachers! When parents want straight As on their ch