Crushing the passion

In his most recent post Dave Warlick discusses the need for our schools to have teachers that are understanding of the fact that students need to learn to learn not learn to be taught. I felt it fit to share my story so far with him, his readers and mine. I feel it is an interesting insight into why teachers are leaving the classroom disheartened or are simply allowing their passion for innovative classroom teaching to diminish. So here is my story and some thoughts on my move out of the classroom only after 4 years of teaching.

I finished high school in 1997 went straight to college and graduated 4 years later. I was offered a job 3 months before I graduated in a very popular area in my state and had many other job offers before graduating. I was told this was due to the lack of young male role models for our students in today’s society. I later found that it was probably more due to the fact that schools are seeing young graduates as keen and willing to do whatever it takes. Over the past 4 years I have become somewhat of a very popular teacher at my school, with parents always requesting their students to be in my class. I do the job well and I am regarded highly by my peers. (Apologies for the self-flattery)

On Friday I finish my 4th year at the same school and I will not be returning next year. I am taking up a position as an educational manager in a company that will be producing curriculum programs for schools in the area of Math, Science, Technology and Music.

The question that I wish to explore that may just add some thought to Dave’s post today is….. “Why would someone leave the classroom so early in their teaching career if they are seemingly doing a good job?”

I have struggled with this over the past few months. I believe that it has come down to some very simple facts.
1) There is no recognition for what I do until the end of the year when a parent says thank you for a great year – Or until I leave and expressions of regret from the school community are shared.
2) School’s are not handling the how and what of teaching students…. Those who make decisions are not teachers; they are administrators who may have been teachers many years ago. Yet in fairness to them, much of the time they are just demonstrating a knee jerk reaction to what the bureaucrats of education departments are feeding and demanding of them.
3) Joy of teaching is lost when teachers are expected to conform to regimented systems. I have slowly seen my passion for the classroom diminish as the expectations of school leadership have increased in areas such as assessment. The increase in demands from administration to assess and demonstrate student levels is getting out of control. I don’t blame my principal for this, he is simply responding to the demands of a Government that likes to think that being able to place every student in one of 4 or so boxes/categories is what our education system needs.

When I look over the complements I received from parents I cannot help but notice that most parents are grateful for the way I encouraged their student to think and find joy in learning. Many parents have shared with me that, their desire for their children is not straight ‘A’ results in their exams, rather a young man or women that can think for themselves and have a passion and value of learning, for it is these skills that many parents can see are vital for the society their children are growing up into. My frustration with the classroom stems from this very point, my passion for encouraging these skills is very quickly squashed due to a lack of time once we have satisfied all state or government requirements.

I am in the middle of reading “The world is flat” by Thomas Freedman and I must say that we need to understand that it is mostly the people who are adaptive that will succeed in this world and we therefore as educators need programs that will facilitate these needs.

Thomas Freedman says, in The World is Flat, that there are four kinds of people who will prosper in a flattening world. People who are:
Special — Michael Jordon, Robert Redford, Katherine Hepburn
Specialized — Know things or can do things that others can’t
Adaptive — able to learn and relearn easily and quickly
Anchored — direct services

From my short experience I noticed that my school did a very good job at looking after the students that had the potential to be in the “Special” category but it probably fails in the other 3. Most importantly, I believe that we need to make sure that schools get the skills for adaptive learning right. I could only wish that I were freed up to be a teacher who could help students become more adaptive.