One thing that I’ve heard from students and parents alike, as well as random people in the world, are that teachers don’t do enough or we don’t do our jobs. For the first year of my teaching job, I thought the number of people who hated us was very small, but it’s not. It’s an extremely large number and after reading several Takes on G@G, I see the trend is still continuing. Now, I don’t speak for every state or district because each place has a different set of teachers, different contracts, different laws, and various union powers. But these are some things that I, as I start my 4th year at an urban district on August 16th, have no control over that most people think I do.
1. Bell and Class Schedules
Teachers have no say over the bell schedules of a building. I’m not really sure where the myth comes from that we do. In fact, as of today, August 13th, we don’t even have a master schedule written so I have no clue what students will be in my room on Tuesday. A huge complaint among students that I have had is the lack of time between classes to get anything done. Last year, students had 5 minutes, which I thought was a fair amount of time.
However, students this year now only have 3. And the teachers were not asked for any input. In fact, I’ve never been asked what I thought about the schedules (that in my building have been changed 5 times since I started working there) and the amount of time students spend in a classroom. And from what I’ve heard from teacher friends in other districts and states, they have not had a different experience.
2. Student and Building Rules
Again, we have zero say in the rules for the building. Sure, we get to make signs that say ‘Be respectful’ or ‘Keep your hands to yourself’ for our rooms, but as far as hall passes, bathroom passes, and cell phones, we usually don’t have a say in how that works. I used to allow students to listen to music in my room with their own headphones or look up information online with their phones for classwork due to the lack of computers available, as did other teachers.
That is, until several administrators told me we are a ‘no cell phone’ school and docked me points on an evaluation, a policy that was never relayed to me when I started working there and is not in the Student Code of Conduct. It was quite literally an ‘unwritten rule’. I then had to tell my students that if they used their phone, I had to confiscate it and give it to the Principal. I told them why and was then told by administration that I shouldn’t have told them the administration instructed me to do so. Why? According to them, it negatively effects how the students view and respect them and it was my fault for not following the rule in the first place (that very same rule that wasn’t communicated to me nor written down anywhere in a rule book).
It then became policy that teachers cannot tell students if the administration is responsible for a rule change unless the administration gives permission to do so. Several friends I graduated with have reported their schools did the same thing to them with the 'unwritten rules'. So if your teacher does something out of the ordinary or something really dumb, 8/10 times, it was probably the administrations idea and you just didn’t know it. And, no, that cell phone 'rule' was never added to the Student Code of Conduct or Employee Handbook.
3. Student and Building Consequences
At most, a teacher can assign a detention. That’s the most I can do. I can’t do anything beyond that. For example, the high school I teach in had a rule last year that if you had ‘3 strikes’ for the day, you went home the rest of the day and it was documented as a suspension. The student was permitted to come back the first day. Stupid, right? Yeah, don’t look at teachers for rules like that. If there’s ever a stupid rule, there’s always a stupid consequence that follows, and I promise you, teachers had little say in it.
Also, some students have something called an IEP, which means they are a part of the special education program and they therefore get a different consequence because it’s a law. Yes, a law. Most students that have an IEP cannot be suspended for more than 3 days unless they do something extremely stupid like bring a knife to school. That means that Johnny can be suspended 10 days, but Jack only 3 if they got in a fight simply because Jack as an IEP. Doesn’t matter who started it.
4. Standardized Tests
I teach sophomores. Here are the tests my sophomores will be taking this year: MAP, Achieve3000, STARS, AIR, SLO, ACT End of Course, ALEKS, ACT Prep, Common Core… There’s probably more, but I don’t feel like searching through my email to find out because I already have enough of a headache. Only one of these tests (AIR) is mandated by the state for graduation requirements, but our district has opted for more, and some of these programs, like Achieve3000, has to be implemented once a week throughout the year.
The means at least one day a week, I’m given a lesson plan by the program to teach and the students must test on the lesson immediately afterwards and show a certain percentage of growth. These tests require computers that we simply do not have and I don’t even make the questions. In fact, the only test listed that I make the questions for is SLO. That means, with just one program, my students will take between 30-35 tests during the year in my room alone. And these same programs are implemented in every classroom. 6 classes multiplied by 30 tests is 180 tests and that’s not including the rest listed.
And, once again, no one asked the teachers. Here’s the worst part: Our district doesn’t even offer the most tests, not by a long shot. And most tests require the district to pay the programs to use them.
Oh, I forgot to mention, Achieve3000 and SLO are the only tests the directly impact the student’s grade.
5. Snow Days
I hate this one so much. It sounds funny, but it’s actually really stupid. Students and parents have asked me why the teachers decided to have school with dangerous road conditions due to snow, ice, and weather. One day, we went to school when the temperature was -10 degrees with a wind chill of -32 (will never forget it because students complained all day about it) and they blamed the teachers because we didn’t want to have extra work days at the end of the year so we could ‘start enjoying our vacations’.
Newsflash: We didn’t want to be there, either. The only people who have to go in on a snow day are administrators. Teachers and students have a free day off. I mean, come on, common sense should tell you teachers do not control whether or not a district closes for the day. I mean, think about it: Who the f*** turns down a paid day off? No one, I tell you, NO ONE.
So…if you guys could stop blaming teachers for AT LEAST some of these things…that would be great.
You can add class placement up there as well. I've had kids complain to me that they did not need my class to graduate, did not want to be there, and I should not "torture" them by having them do math. No matter how many times I explained I am not allowed to drop them, it never quite sunk in. Admin decided everyone needs 4 years of math no matter what. Exposing students to content is better than not exposing they say. I'm am sure those who barely squeaked through algebra would see great benefit from calculus.
I don't get some people, you never blame the teacher because as you stated you don't have a say in what happens. I was in a very odd middle/high school so I know when to put blame on a teacher, administration or the student. I remember one teacher sent a kid to the office for farting, I thought that was a bit much.
Nice take, wish more people knew what teachers can and cannot do.
This is something that I always thought was common knowledge. The only thing that threw me off was that you teach only sophomores. At my hs alma mater, there was no such thing as a teacher that teaches just one class (fresh/soph/jun/sen) of students. All teachers taught a specific subject. English teachers taught 9th grade English as well as 12th grade English.
But I've always known it was the school administrators that were to blame, but then again I don't think the teachers when I was in HS got docked points for stating a fact. I do remember that when I talked to teachers about me going into teaching and earning a secondary education degree that almost every single one of them advised me not too because of how bureaucratic it is getting year by year. That they were slowly losing what they had control over. And this was back in 2008.
So, in that sense, I can definitely see the shit you're going through when it comes to the administrators... I just can't believe that the kids and the parents are clueless to this. I can see the kids more so than the parents but still... I thought it would be common sense that the teacher doesn't make the rules, they are just forced to enforce them.
I guess when I think about it, I shouldn't be surprised because in a lot of the same ways it's the same thing with police officers getting blamed for making an arrest on a dumb law. They don't make the laws, it's just their job to enforce them.
Here is what I learned from Teachers in Florida...
- Kids come to school and don't have the school supplies. - Spanish speaking only kids in the same class as English speaking kids. Now, thats a headache. - The same Spanish speaking kids are children of migrant workers. The children move to a lot of different schools in their lifetime. - Parent that don't give a damn about their kids. They have behavioral problems and problems at home. When the Teacher speaks to some of the parents about their kid's problems, they say "Thats not my problem, its your problem today". - School violence. Female Teachers are outsized by their students. Youtube has way too many videos of Teachers being attacked by the students.
I worked on the student council for 3 years under the principal of the school where I reviewed and debated those budgets and site plans. I know full well that teachers are actually the most innocent party. The true culprit is first and foremost the state for all of the hoops we have to jump through just to receive basic funding, and then the principal among other administrators for caring only about receiving that funding, even at the expense of teachers.
The worst thing is that almost all parents think their kid is special and "My kid told me so I know it's true." Sometimes I've wanted to just say, "You're kid is one of the worst liars in my class. They probably get it from you don't they?"
I usually have pointed out to the students what I get to control, and what isn't up to me.
I uh... I have to say... Maybe it's simply due to the fact that I possess a full set of wits, but it would've never occurred to me that any teacher was responsible for any of these things...
I wish I knew it but since I never go to school anymore (aside from university but that's a whole distinct place) I have no use for this provided information, aside from just knowing :/
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