Where do teachers get judged for their performance? Every single day! Our principals, vice principals and directors walk around and can enter my room any minute. My students judge me every single day. Whether it's "Why do we need to know this" or "This is boring" or "This is my favorite class". There are evaluations, meetings, committees. Trust me, everyone knows who the "good" teachers are and which ones are not doing their jobs. Then, there's the people who do not bust their tail every single day like I do, who also feel that they can sit back and judge us.
To be honest, there are several teachers in my particular school, who, without question are doing a terrible job and should be fired. It seems to me that "good" teachers are under far more scrutiny, than certain others who have done inappropriate things. However, for every one of those teachers, I see a dozen teachers who are getting to school at 7:45 like me, dragging bags of papers home like me, spending 100 dollars on Halloween candy, or Christmas candy or Valentine's Day candy like me, or helping revise dozens and dozens of college essays on their "free time" like me. My point is- the majority of teachers are doing their best. Those that aren't usually aren't teachers for long.
It is truly laughable, though, to blame teachers and to say that they are not held accountable. Teachers are afraid of the administration. Administration is afraid of the Superintendent. The Superintendent is afraid of the government (where the money comes from). The students, however, are afraid of NO ONE. Students need more accountablity. They don't need people making excuses for them. Our government is telling us how many students learned the material by forcing us to pass a certain percentage on state tests. These percentages include students who are emotionally or learning disabled. That is unfair. We should not be teaching to a test, or judging teachers and students. We should be doing hands on learning in a supportive environment. The whole system is set up backwards. When you spend so many hours devoted to preparing children to pass the HSPA, only to find a gross mistake on the exam, it is difficult to see how what we are doing is the right thing for our children.
As a high school teacher, my perspective is a little different from when I taught preschool age children. In high school, cheating, drugs, sex, and violence are battles I fight every single day. I have students whose parents have kicked them out of their homes. Students whose parents refuse to even have them tested for a learning disability, or who refuse to medicate them consistently. Students whose parents abuse them- and even after it's reported, investigations are dropped and problems continue. I have students who got pregnant in seventh or eighth grade. I have students with problems that I cannot fix.
There are problems that are due to parents who simply should have not had children. There are problems due to students who have recognized that "passing is good enough" or "school doesn't matter". There are problems due to lack of money. There are problems due to unfit teachers. There are problems due to silly laws and governmental practices. There's enough blame to go around, but very little changes being made. Change must start at the top, that's all I can say. The saddest part is that this is something that impacts everyone. Just like in the Prince's See What A Scourge Speech (Romeo and Juliet) "All are punished!"
