Obviously, if you've been reading my facebook posts, I haven't seemed very happy to be in an educational conference the past two
days. In actuality, I have appreciated
the information, the resources, research, practices and as usual, the
opportunity to meet and network with other educators from around the
Northwest. And it always makes me so
proud to see teachers, one of the hardest-working group of people I have ever
known, take their own time to better their skills and increase their
knowledge.
The title of this conference or "summit", was
"When Struggling Readers Thrive... Dreams Come True" and for two days
all I heard from the over 500 teachers around me was how to do things better so
our kids can succeed. As a teacher,
married to a teacher, and the mother of a teacher, I can assure you that this
is what good teachers do - on the weekends, throughout the summer, during
lunch, in their dreams at night - we are constantly problem solving - How do we
teach better? How do we make the content
more comprehensible? How do we reach
more kids in a deeper and longer lasting way?
It never stops.
I’m not really trying to sing praises to the teaching
profession, and I’m certainly not going to say that it is a thankless job with
little recognition from those who make the laws and sign our dwindling paychecks,
although it is. All I want to say is
that we are a fine group of people. And
that we are a fine group of people who are becoming an endangered species. Fewer and fewer college students are graduating
with teaching degrees and I’m hearing of more districts who are having to hire
non-certified teachers in order to fill the gaps in their classrooms. That is scary.
I overheard one teacher say today that her district couldn’t
even “scrape the bottom of the barrel”, that there simply weren’t any
applicants for several of the positions in her district this year. The word is getting out. Teaching is becoming a dying profession, one
that isn’t worth the price, or worth the stress and the effort to meet the
growing expectations and demands of our society. More pay might help, but I think even more
than that, we need the joy brought back into our classrooms. If the KIDS are burning out by second grade,
what do you think is happening to the teachers?
Not a day goes by that I wonder if there is another job I
could do with my skills, education and talents.
I love what I do and I really can’t see myself doing anything else, but
I feel a slippery slope imminent. And I’m
not sure how long I will be able to dig my heels in and hang on.
