Don't Complain When Good Teachers Leave the Profession
Currently, where I work is a daily struggle to maintain my dignity. I have heard many teachers, that are not people of color, complain about students of color. They complain about their behavior more so than how far they are behind academically. More than likely, the reason why they are so behind is due to their out of control behavior.
There are many reasons why children of color misbehave. Granted, many of them do come from broken homes. They have parents in jail or on drugs. They live in poverty. They have parents who do not know how to discipline and establish structure. Or some are very harsh in their discipline. Some of these children never received health and wellness. Therefore, their acting out is a result of a less than fully developed social structure. Some are homeless. Many are raised by other family members who are overwhelmed with their own problems.
On the other hand, part of what I see is simply "group think." In some of the students' minds, if my fellow student is acting out, disrespectful, bored and does not care, I need to fit in so I have to perform in a similar manner so I will not stand out as different. Heaven forbid I act like a "good kid." I will forever been called a "teacher's pet" or a "nerd."
Whatever the reasons may be, they still have a need to be educated. Yet, I am soon to join the ever growing number of teachers who are leaving the so called "noble" profession to go into something else. It's not that I do not like teaching. Previously, I taught at a local university and I taught adults. I enjoyed those levels. I also was at a local high school and making progress. Our SAT scores were better than a few of the well known public schools of repute. Yet, once my state's department of education basically destroyed the school due to a personal beef with the superintendent, I left. In the grand scheme of things, knowing that the department of education does not want to see children of color, from one of the worst neighborhoods in this city, educated so much so that they permanently disabled a school that was making progress, is truly depressing.
I guess I am finding it hard adjusting to the mindset of this current generation of teenagers. Some, not all, are just so rude. They swear like sailors out of port all day long. They use language that people use at 3 am who are getting put out of a bar for drunken and disorderly conduct.
I was so hopeful and positive during the first week. That hope and positivism is long gone. During my interview for this school, I was told that they believe in "discipline and structure." I was told that administration will support all of your efforts and that if you have students with behavior issues, by the time you type the online conduct referral, someone will be at your door to remove the disruptive student. Yeah, that has not happened. It is even hard to track down the members of the behavioral team to even let them know that you need assistance, let alone expect them to help you with disruptive students.
I get that they need to be taught. I get that their frontal cortex or whatever is not fully developed. However, I KNOW that they KNOW how to act in certain situations, yet they CHOOSE to not act like they have a modicum of manners. For instance, they do not act or talk like they do in my room when they are in front of the principal or any of the administrative staff. I had one say, "I went on a job interview." The assumption being that the student did not have his ear pods in, phone out, did not swear and over talk whomever the interviewer was. So the exact opposite of how he acts in my class. What I am saying is, these same rude and uncouth students know how to behave when they in front of the principal or at church. Nonetheless, they will come to my class and be as uncivil as they possibly can. Maybe they do it for the shock value. Maybe it is done for the credit they receive from their so called friends or fellow teens.
Some will say that educators and schools need more funding. The state of education does not need more money. I make a decent wage. I have access to resources. I have technology. What I do not have is a magical way to make students not be mean and unkind to an adult that they just do not like or trust despite my efforts.
I do not agree with the establishment, i.e., Marzano, that indicates that EVERYTHING that is wrong that goes on in the classroom is the fault of the teacher. Nor do I agree that if the entire class is acting insane, the teacher has no classroom management skills. What Marzano and others like him fail to realize is, when you are dealing with children of color, who have no respect for themselves, it is close to impossible to teach them to have respect for you as an adult.
I have tried to use ice breakers. I have tried to "build relationships." I have tried to "create" these opportunities. At each time, I am shut down by the students themselves. Don't get me wrong, it is not all of them in each class. Mostly, it is just one main class that is the longest, loudest and largest that is the bane of my existence. Furthermore, it is maybe 25% in each of the other classes who come to school to play and not to learn. It is truly unfair to those who try. Eventually, they will give up trying.
You would think that after the cry of complaint that came from the students about the former teacher, they would be happy to have someone who looks like them. Someone who cares about them and who is trying. . . daily. . . so hard. . . to teach them. They said that the former teacher, a White person, was prejudiced and that they "weren't learning anything." They, then, get a teacher who has grown up in the same city that they have, has gone to public schools, paid for college personally and stays late into the night preparing to teach, but they are so unappreciative.
I have written conduct referrals, put them out of class, called parents, given low grades for low work and nothing reaches them. Although this is my first year at this school, it is not my first year of teaching. I do not think I can make it to ten years. I am barely scraping by nine.
It is hard not to take all of this personally. It really is. Some days I do leave from work, get home and burst into tears, mainly due from exhaustion but also just from sheer frustration. I am so very unhappy but I feel like my degree has me stuck. I have attempted to go on interviews to be able to move somewhere else but it is like when you date, it is very easy to find people interested in you when you are already with someone else. So if I were happy at my job, I could easily move somewhere else but if I were happy, why would I want to leave?
This situation reminds me of the scripture wherein Jesus wept over Jerusalem because he knew their fate (Luke 19:41-44). I know for a fact that NONE of them are ready for the SAT nor are they ready for college and or a decent career. I can barely get them prepared for the day to day routine work of common core because there are so many behavioral issues. There is constant backtalk. There is constant interference from those who would prefer to just talk and be on their cell phones. I was not hired to entertain them but how do you keep students engaged when who had sex last night or what restaurant they want to go to or what thug rap song is the best with the most swear words is way more entertaining than Poe, Hughes, Angelou, Shakespeare, or Hemingway. Even if I find modern authors, it still requires them to sit still and read. Even if I play audio books or find clips of films from the same books, it does not hold their attention if it is longer than 60 seconds.
I go online and look for innovative ways to reach students but all I ever see is for younger children, not teenagers in high school. I believe in teaching them where they are but how in the world do I break down or chunk an entire book? I am at a loss. I was not prepared for these particular inner city students. I am not Michelle Pfeiffer, nor am I Morgan Freeman. I honestly do not know how to reach these children of color.
I have never been a person to easily give up and I do not feel that I have easily given up. I do not feel regret for saying that I want to leave other than feeling that I wish I could be benefiting some third world country that is in need of teachers.
All the same, I am ready to go. I no longer want to teach and it is a loss because I do like kids. I do want to help kids. Still, I feel hamstrung by the lack of cooperation on their part. Life is too short to feel this way every day. . . it is just not a good feeling.
There are many reasons why children of color misbehave. Granted, many of them do come from broken homes. They have parents in jail or on drugs. They live in poverty. They have parents who do not know how to discipline and establish structure. Or some are very harsh in their discipline. Some of these children never received health and wellness. Therefore, their acting out is a result of a less than fully developed social structure. Some are homeless. Many are raised by other family members who are overwhelmed with their own problems.
On the other hand, part of what I see is simply "group think." In some of the students' minds, if my fellow student is acting out, disrespectful, bored and does not care, I need to fit in so I have to perform in a similar manner so I will not stand out as different. Heaven forbid I act like a "good kid." I will forever been called a "teacher's pet" or a "nerd."
Whatever the reasons may be, they still have a need to be educated. Yet, I am soon to join the ever growing number of teachers who are leaving the so called "noble" profession to go into something else. It's not that I do not like teaching. Previously, I taught at a local university and I taught adults. I enjoyed those levels. I also was at a local high school and making progress. Our SAT scores were better than a few of the well known public schools of repute. Yet, once my state's department of education basically destroyed the school due to a personal beef with the superintendent, I left. In the grand scheme of things, knowing that the department of education does not want to see children of color, from one of the worst neighborhoods in this city, educated so much so that they permanently disabled a school that was making progress, is truly depressing.
I guess I am finding it hard adjusting to the mindset of this current generation of teenagers. Some, not all, are just so rude. They swear like sailors out of port all day long. They use language that people use at 3 am who are getting put out of a bar for drunken and disorderly conduct.
I was so hopeful and positive during the first week. That hope and positivism is long gone. During my interview for this school, I was told that they believe in "discipline and structure." I was told that administration will support all of your efforts and that if you have students with behavior issues, by the time you type the online conduct referral, someone will be at your door to remove the disruptive student. Yeah, that has not happened. It is even hard to track down the members of the behavioral team to even let them know that you need assistance, let alone expect them to help you with disruptive students.
I get that they need to be taught. I get that their frontal cortex or whatever is not fully developed. However, I KNOW that they KNOW how to act in certain situations, yet they CHOOSE to not act like they have a modicum of manners. For instance, they do not act or talk like they do in my room when they are in front of the principal or any of the administrative staff. I had one say, "I went on a job interview." The assumption being that the student did not have his ear pods in, phone out, did not swear and over talk whomever the interviewer was. So the exact opposite of how he acts in my class. What I am saying is, these same rude and uncouth students know how to behave when they in front of the principal or at church. Nonetheless, they will come to my class and be as uncivil as they possibly can. Maybe they do it for the shock value. Maybe it is done for the credit they receive from their so called friends or fellow teens.
Some will say that educators and schools need more funding. The state of education does not need more money. I make a decent wage. I have access to resources. I have technology. What I do not have is a magical way to make students not be mean and unkind to an adult that they just do not like or trust despite my efforts.
I do not agree with the establishment, i.e., Marzano, that indicates that EVERYTHING that is wrong that goes on in the classroom is the fault of the teacher. Nor do I agree that if the entire class is acting insane, the teacher has no classroom management skills. What Marzano and others like him fail to realize is, when you are dealing with children of color, who have no respect for themselves, it is close to impossible to teach them to have respect for you as an adult.
I have tried to use ice breakers. I have tried to "build relationships." I have tried to "create" these opportunities. At each time, I am shut down by the students themselves. Don't get me wrong, it is not all of them in each class. Mostly, it is just one main class that is the longest, loudest and largest that is the bane of my existence. Furthermore, it is maybe 25% in each of the other classes who come to school to play and not to learn. It is truly unfair to those who try. Eventually, they will give up trying.
You would think that after the cry of complaint that came from the students about the former teacher, they would be happy to have someone who looks like them. Someone who cares about them and who is trying. . . daily. . . so hard. . . to teach them. They said that the former teacher, a White person, was prejudiced and that they "weren't learning anything." They, then, get a teacher who has grown up in the same city that they have, has gone to public schools, paid for college personally and stays late into the night preparing to teach, but they are so unappreciative.
I have written conduct referrals, put them out of class, called parents, given low grades for low work and nothing reaches them. Although this is my first year at this school, it is not my first year of teaching. I do not think I can make it to ten years. I am barely scraping by nine.
It is hard not to take all of this personally. It really is. Some days I do leave from work, get home and burst into tears, mainly due from exhaustion but also just from sheer frustration. I am so very unhappy but I feel like my degree has me stuck. I have attempted to go on interviews to be able to move somewhere else but it is like when you date, it is very easy to find people interested in you when you are already with someone else. So if I were happy at my job, I could easily move somewhere else but if I were happy, why would I want to leave?
This situation reminds me of the scripture wherein Jesus wept over Jerusalem because he knew their fate (Luke 19:41-44). I know for a fact that NONE of them are ready for the SAT nor are they ready for college and or a decent career. I can barely get them prepared for the day to day routine work of common core because there are so many behavioral issues. There is constant backtalk. There is constant interference from those who would prefer to just talk and be on their cell phones. I was not hired to entertain them but how do you keep students engaged when who had sex last night or what restaurant they want to go to or what thug rap song is the best with the most swear words is way more entertaining than Poe, Hughes, Angelou, Shakespeare, or Hemingway. Even if I find modern authors, it still requires them to sit still and read. Even if I play audio books or find clips of films from the same books, it does not hold their attention if it is longer than 60 seconds.
I go online and look for innovative ways to reach students but all I ever see is for younger children, not teenagers in high school. I believe in teaching them where they are but how in the world do I break down or chunk an entire book? I am at a loss. I was not prepared for these particular inner city students. I am not Michelle Pfeiffer, nor am I Morgan Freeman. I honestly do not know how to reach these children of color.
I have never been a person to easily give up and I do not feel that I have easily given up. I do not feel regret for saying that I want to leave other than feeling that I wish I could be benefiting some third world country that is in need of teachers.
All the same, I am ready to go. I no longer want to teach and it is a loss because I do like kids. I do want to help kids. Still, I feel hamstrung by the lack of cooperation on their part. Life is too short to feel this way every day. . . it is just not a good feeling.
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