Reflections of one veteran teacher - responsibility and respect
What are teachers seeing in their classrooms
and in their school buildings this year? How do they feel about a range of
issues?
We hear them protest against inadequate funding, as in last week’s rally at the Colorado Capitol. We hear of other concerns in various surveys. I include such accounts here.
They are useful. But brief quotes, or data
and percentages, these cannot capture what is in the hearts of our teachers, as
they experience school life in 2024-25.
This
past year I have been fortunate to hear a high school teacher open up about her
deepest worries. She has taught for over three decades. I also taught for many
years; not everything she tells me is new. But I found her words powerful.
When we sit down, she talks about student
behavior and how expectations and standards have fallen. Immediately after
COVID, she suggests, understandable. But not anymore.
|
Hearing teachers’ concerns - the media & surveys From the March 20 rally at the
Colorado Capitol, where many teachers spoke to the media of concerns related
to a lack funding and their work. Addendum A – three teachers. From surveys: · Results from the Colorado Education
Association’s latest annual report (State of Education – 2024-25) can open
our eyes to what teachers see this year. The January report tells us: “More
than 40% of those who completed the survey said they feel significantly or
somewhat less safe than they did last year.”[i]
· Education Week reported on a
national survey, conducted in December. It found that “nearly half of teachers, school leaders, and district
leaders this school year—48 percent—said … that students’ behavior was a lot
worse this fall when compared to their pre-pandemic behavior…” (Jan. 9,
2025). Such “misbehavior … is hurting staff morale.”[ii] · A more recent Education Week survey, “What Teacher Morale Looks Like in Every State,” includes state-by-state results. I summarize key
findings from the report in Teacher Morale in Colorado - at Another View's website. It notes several large gaps between U.S
average results and what Colorado teachers have to say.[iii] |
“There are a few students who disrupt the
learning for others.” In her view, without consequences. “I think the district
is limiting what schools can do.”
“We’ve had kids who threaten staff and still go to their class.”
She sees timidity. Fear of parents, or fear of “looking too harsh.”
Her own school could do more to set clear expectations.
“I think they are afraid to hold kids
accountable.”
“Kids mouth off to teachers.” A teacher
speaks to students roaming the halls during class time, and apparently “they
think it’s OK not to answer” – and walk on.
“I think there are a fair number of teachers here who do not feel safe in this building … because of the way kids can talk to us.” [See the CEA survey.]
It affects how willing the faculty is to take
a stand. “Too many teachers are afraid to speak up.”
“The building has a right to create an
environment in which all kids can be educated. But no one's willing to do it.” In
her experience, “when you start enforcing the rules, it’s bad for a while,” but
in time, she says, it becomes the norm.
She believes schools should be more
transparent about what is happening. Such information, she believes, would
motivate parents to expect something better. “Parents should be appalled at the
learning environment other kids are creating for their kids.”
“Why,” she asks, “is the bar so low? Is it
because we want to graduate kids?”
Academics
Academic expectations have suffered, too. “So
many students who don’t even try to do homework … If we keep accepting no work
from kids and they can get away with that, if that’s what kids see,” she says, they
won’t feel motivated to do the work.
This is compounded, she believes, by “terrible
grade inflation.”
“How can students have a B and they haven’t
been to class half the time?”
“We are doing a tremendous disservice to the
kids by lowering the bar. We’re not helping them learn to be good adults, good
members of society, educated members of society.”
I try to change the topic. But when I ask
about the current push to educate-for-the-workplace, she returns to her theme.
“To me the two are the same.” Even if we see
our role as preparing students for a job, she says, students need to learn to
be responsible. To show up and do the work. Whatever their future after high
school, she says, “our students need to show respect for other people. I call it being a
human being.”
Leading to a simple question she believes good
schools will ask of their students: “How are you learning to be a human being?”
“You have to be a decent human being. You
don’t get to infringe on other people’s education. Be respectful, watch your
mouth, treat people decently.”
She
tells me this in a calm voice. She has seen a lot. At present, she is clearly
disheartened.
I ask how young teachers respond to this
lack of respect from a number of their students. How does it make new teachers
feel about the job, given this environment? Do they question staying in the
profession?
Her response is immediate. “Not just young
teachers – mid-career teachers too.”
Leading to this devastating remark. A
warning – if current trends continue.
“I
couldn’t in good conscience recommend anyone become a teacher anymore.”
**
These words from one teacher in 2024-25, alone, might not move you. What if she speaks for many educators?
Recently two of my favorite former middle school students (from 20 years ago), who have been teaching most of the past 10 years, tell me they are planning to step away from public education.
I have followed their careers with great interest. I admire their skills and passion. I am sure their students have been well served.
Their districts, I can assure you, are lucky to have such remarkable young adults working in their schools.
So I ache to hear of their frustration and disappointment. The experiences they share with me reveal why many teachers today are desperate for more support, why many feel overwhelmed. They don't have the historical perspective of that 30-year-veteran, above, but there is some overlap in their outlook. That “old pro,” if you will, can no longer make the case that a 20-year-old should go into teaching. My two former students seem disillusioned enough to agree with her.
Tough to swallow, at age 33, when
you had dreams, fresh out of college, that teaching might be the career for you. When you have given your very best for a decade. When you know the kids need good teachers in their lives. But it has become too much.
I hope we are listening. I hope we are searching
for answers.
Addendum A – three teachers speak up – March 20 rally at
Colorado Capitol
Jason Malmberg - teaches music at four elementary schools
in Adams County School District 14.
“‘You can only do so much, and even with that we still have teachers
living in their aunts’ basements who have been to college in America. We should
all be appalled. That doesn’t match up to the American Dream.’”
“Malmberg said the state’s inadequate funding of schools has trickled
down to directly impact his students. At one elementary school, he teaches
music out of an office space. Another school converted a stage to a classroom
for his music classes. And many of the district’s school buildings are in
desperate need of significant repairs and replacements.”
“If the state better prioritized educating funding, he added,
teachers could have smaller classes, schools could hire more trained
professionals to meet the escalating needs and school facilities could have all
the amenities they need to accommodate students’ learning.” (The Colorado Sun)
**
“Stories of crowded classrooms, little
support”
Jill Massa, a special educator in Pueblo.
Massa “oversees 10 high-needs students including children with cerebral
palsy, severe seizures and children with severe autism.”
“She said they really need one-on-one support and she has two classroom
aides. ‘We just don't have enough help.’”
“She said she lacks an adequate curriculum for her students and must
develop a lot of it herself. She wants her students and teachers to get the
support they deserve.
“‘You can only get so much blood out of a person, and it's not
working. We have to fight it. We need to fund education.’”
Lisa Dameron, an instructional coach at Carbondale Middle School.
“There is a lot on teachers' minds. We are all very stressed for a
multitude of reasons. We want to focus on the kids and educating them and
having to do the same job with fewer dollars makes everything harder.” (Colorado Public Radio)
Endnotes
[i] Colorado Education Association, “State of Education -
2024-25” (Jan. 2025), https://coloradoea.org/state-of-education.
[ii] Is Student Behavior Getting Any Better? What a New
Survey Says,” by Caitlynn Peetz, Education Week (Jan. 8, 2025), https://www.edweek.org/leadership/is-student-behavior-getting-any-better-what-a-new-survey-says/2025/01#.
[iii] “Teacher Morale in Colorado – 2024-25” (from Education Week), https://anotherviewphj.blogspot.com/2025/03/teacher-morale-in-colorado-2024-25-from.html
“What Teacher Morale Looks Like in Every State,” Education Week (March 2025), https://www.edweek.org/state-of-teaching/teaching-learning/what-teacher-morale-looks-like-in-every-state/2025/03
