Per request by Jim: @ Evie: After reading a series of your posts, I’ve come to the conclusion that you are a caring teacher—one that I would have enjoyed being a member of one of your classes. The biggest problem with the education profession is the bull’s-eye. Criticism comes with the territory because of the source of funding—so be it. It’s been my experience that children—even beyond their need to satisfy the two major issues of life (identity and fit—in other words, “who am I” and, “what am I doing here?”)—they have been bombarded with finalizing life-plan decisions that come with a separate corresponding curriculum, all by the time the back of their ears have begun to dry as they enter high school. All due to critics (who erroneously believe that America is not competing on the world stage and is churning out idiots—all the while, foreigners can’t wait to come to America to take advantage of our post-secondary educational institutions). Kids hear: “You’ve GOT TO PASS THIS TEST, or your future will be in jeopardy!!” No wonder why they feel disconnected to their own education! Could it be that we are pushing too much onto kids before they’re developmentally ready? During the mid-80s, experts were down on the “what’s wrong with our schools” bandwagon . . . yet; someone forgot to ask the question: “What’s right with our schools?” What was working was also suspect, dissected and eliminated due to the time factor. Gone was the spirit of each content area where each teacher could easily legitimize why their discipline was essential for life skills (Mathematics enhances a logical mind; English Language Arts enhances one’s ability to communicate; etc.). I don’t believe that anyone is adverse to content standards and accountability but, how does one judge the effectiveness of public education by a mere test? The best caption that I have ever witnessed that answers this question was on a “T”-shirt—it said: “A Child Is More Than A Test Score!” The “knee-jerk reaction,” that I had mentioned before, was the gutting of the content areas to exclusively teach “essential” information, resulting in a systematic “intentional dumbed down” curriculum where everyone could pass. Although, Michigan recently announced that the test would be toughened because too many students were passing!! All this accomplished was a loss of valuable information (assumed that the child would pick-up missing information eventually). In my own content area (social studies) the overall curriculum became spread so much across K-12 that there has been a disconnect resulting from various developmental friendly deliveries of complex concepts to a retentive loss of information due to sequencing and scheduling. No wonder there’s a national problem with amnesia regarding our common heritage! While I have moved onto the next phase of my life (retirement), I hope you continue to fight the good fight, knowing that criticism is not something to take exception—however, actually serves as an opportunity to do what you do best—teach!!
Last, in a roundabout way, I believe that John Irons got it right, relating to “heart.” What I learned from my 34 years in the classroom was that effective teaching comes from the professional relationship you have with your students—if they know you care, they’ll run through walls for you and enjoy the learning.