Thanksgiving issue – November 2026
“Those who
educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them;
for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.” Aristotle
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AV #306 showed the disturbing decline in the number of students enrolling in and completing traditional teacher preparation programs in Colorado since 2020. AV #307 gives a more hopeful picture. For we still find young people like Kelly who feel they are called to teach. |
She helped lead a summer camp for young boys
and girls during her high school years. We first chatted as she was about to begin
12th grade in the Littleton Public Schools. She sensed that teaching
might be her goal – and perhaps her gift.
Senior year she enjoyed several classes at
Littleton’s EPIC Campus – Explorative Pathways for
Innovative Careers. She chose the pathway for Future Teachers, specifically the
Early Childhood Education program. This included interning once a
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We can learn from Kelly’s story. Let’s find ways to enable more high
school students to tutor younger boys and girls. After 12th grade,
Kelly was so happy to have helped a child, unable to read in September,
become a reader by May. Such rewarding experiences can lead one to say – I
want to teach! |
By spring she
was certain. She applied and was accepted at the School of Education at the
University of Oklahoma. She was thrilled.
I have been
eager to follow her story. We have talked a few times after her freshmen year
and again this fall. Is the program all she hoped it would be? What is she discovering
about the teaching life. Any second thoughts?
No doubts
at all. If anything she is even more enthusiastic. At the same time, her
eyes are wide open. Few illusions about the demands of the job. Well aware that
society today does not honor the profession. To Kelly, that doesn’t matter.
“I know
what I’m going into. I know teaching is not the best profession… so if I am
treated badly,” she says, as if preparing herself for that possibility,
“I also know that is what I signed up for.”
“I hear a lot about teacher burnout and pay
concerns, but I know there’s nothing I’d rather do than to be working with
kids.”
She doesn’t pretend it will be easy. She
sounds determined not to let the downsides of this profession stand in her way,
to be a teacher who is able to dismiss much of the negative noise, and to do
her very best by her students.
“I’m an optimist. I won’t let these
things get me down.”
“Teachers want to be teachers solely for the
opportunity of loving kids. This is what gives me peace about what I want to
do.”
I ask how she
views teaching in a public school versus a private school.
“I want to be in public education. That is
where they need the best teachers right now.”
“My role is to teach these kids to the best
of my ability. If you want to work with kids, the money isn’t the best, but it’s
what I’m passionate about.”
Her faith
She has spoken of her faith. I ask her about
its connection to her sense of mission.
“Yes, faith is a driving force behind my
motivation. This is what God is calling me to do. It’s why l’m not anxious as I
enter this profession. I think God will put me where I’m supposed to be.”
“I know
God is in control and He will take care of the rest.”
What she is learning about the state of teaching
She is surprised to hear about so many teachers
leaving the profession.
“I’m not hearing of many successful
teachers.”
“There’s a lack of resources and support for
teachers. It’s really sad. People with a passion and talent for teaching,
they’re getting so burnt out.”
I ask what she thinks is the cause.
“I think tech plays a role in all this …
Kids are having a hard time …”(The omni-present technology, as she sees it, “is not
healthy for the developing brain, for the social/emotional health of the boy or
girl. It has a huge effect on kids’ behavior.”
That perspective makes her wary of bringing a lot of
technology to her classroom when she becomes a teacher.
“I
know the technology is a really good resource for some teachers,” she says,
but she is not eager to see her young students sitting in front of a screen.
“I want kids to physically write and physically read …”
COMMENT: Technology played a huge role in the K-12
education Kelly and her classmates experienced. Older folks might fear that’s
the model they might wish to replicate. How encouraging to hear a member of Generation
Z determined to create a classroom that will not depend on laptops on the desk
of every 7-year-old. As a college freshman, Kelly wrote several papers on the
role of technology in schools, perhaps a way to articulate what her ideal
classroom will look like.
Children’s
well-being – and how public education is perceived and supported
But her concerns go beyond technology. It is
a larger anxiety about how young boys and girls are doing, with their academic
skills as well as with their social and emotional development.
“I worry
about the kids who were infants during Covid. They didn’t have any interaction;
they didn’t leave the house.”
Overall, what she has seen with elementary students, as a tutor and as a
volunteer in schools, leads her to this conclusion:
“I don’t believe we’re setting these kids up to succeed as adults."
“Education needs a lot more attention. A
good education sets you up for the rest of your life.”
“I’m not
sure why [education] is not getting the attention it deserves. It upsets me
that children’s education is put last… Education needs to be a much
bigger priority than it is.”
**
As a sophomore this fall, Kelly is taking
several classes that are designed for future teachers: elementary math, world
geography, and world culture among them. She tells me, “I love all the
professors I’ve had this year.” She feels they are preparing her well.
At the same time, she remains terribly eager
to be get into the classroom. She is wiser than many of us were – “I know
there’s so much I have to learn”
– aware that it is in the doing, in teaching, where we figure out what does and
does not work.
The sequence ahead sounds impressive. Next
semester, observations in one classroom. Junior year, working in classrooms quite
frequently. Senior year, in a classroom five days a week, teaching lessons, being
mentored by her lead teacher.
She can’t wait.
“I’m
so excited to start!”
**
AV #306
highlighted the large decline, in Colorado, in enrollment in elementary
education programs. Kelly would love to begin her career with first or
second graders. (Some far-sighted school should sign her up now for the fall
of 2029!!)
A million best
wishes to Kelly.
How fortunate we
will be to find more young men and women like her, eager to give their all,
determined to MAKE A HUGE DIFFERENCE IN THE LIVES of the boys and girls they
will teach.
And, again, how
fortunate those children will be!
