It doesn’t seem possible for teachers to do it all

My viewpoint on teachers has changed completely in the last couple years. It started when I had a chance to chat with my SIL who is a teacher. I asked her to tell me if teachers tell the teacher who will have their students the following year about the students – like how is their disposition, strengths, etc. So, she said yes. But to my surprise, she also said that one of the big things they tell eachother about is when the kids have difficult parents. So, it made me think twice about haranguing the teacher when my child gets a bad grade or something because I don’t want my kids to carry a legacy of overzealous PITA parent because of me. So, it was pretty much about that time that I started to keep my mouth shut and not pester the teacher about every little thing my child did not do correctly.

But now my biggest realization is that there can be now way it’s humanly possible for teachers to teach all those children. Kate’s teacher has 21 children in the class. They’re in the third grade. I worked in the classroom this morning for 2 hours. During that time, the teacher asked the kids to turn in 2 things. On the 2nd thing, there were 6 turned in and 3 had no names. So the teacher had to stop teaching and give the 3 3-rd graders personal best awards because they turned in a simple paper that was requested of them.

So, it’s nearly impossible for her to even get through her list for the day when the kids don’t even do simple things like turn a paper in and write their names. This wasn’t even a paper they had to fish out of somewhere. It was something right there in their desk.

Then there were all the kids that needed help. She had to keep about 8 kids from going to computers because they were so behind in their work. She asked me to help one boy who could barely read. I know he has learning disabilities but he was supposed to look for 4 dates in a reading passage and it took us about 30 minutes. There were other students that were having tremendous difficulty on other things. If she took even 10 minutes to work with each of them, and had no other interruptions, we would be talking about 80 minutes she would have to take out of her teaching time.

She is just sick and so completely sad that so many of the kids are not doing well. It’s not for lack of great teaching. It’s not for lack of care. I can’t see anything else at all she could possibly do more than she’s already doing. And, this doesn’t even count grading homework which she must spend HOURS on each weekend.

But I know there is no solution to this problem. If your child is able to do well, you and your child are SO fortunate. If your child needs someone to be with them for extra help, and the teacher does not have an assistant, then who is supposed to help the kids? If the one teacher is giving personal assistance to one child, then she can’t be available to teach the rest of the class the new lesson. It makes me so sad.

I have this other friend. She says the most terrible things about her son’s teacher. She complains constantly that her son needs to learn in a self-directed manner. Of course she doesn’t put it that way. She says the teacher just runs through the lessons and doesn’t take time to make sure the children really learn. I get so frustrated with her but I don’t say anything because I figure if she feels that way, she’s not going to change because I give her my insight. I think all parents should be teacher for a day. Teachers are heros.