Wednesday, April 14, 2010

nix six

if you don't live in florida or know a teacher then you probably don't know about the madness surrounding teachers and public education. there is a bill that has been passed that will base teacher's pay on how their students do on the fcat, which is a standardized test in florida. this is the craziest thing i've ever heard. one thing that i have learned this year as a teacher is that if the parents don't care about how their kid is doing there is a 99% chance that the kid won't care, no matter how amazing of a teacher you may be. i can't tell you how many letters and phone calls i've made to certain parents and they just don't care and neither does their child, so is it fair for me to be penalized? not only that but teachers in low income schools don't get nearly enough resources like a teacher in a high income school would get. a teacher can seriously only do so much on their own. 

for a kid to have the best chance at being successful they need a good teacher, caring parents, and a good school that is providing the child with the appropriate resources to learn. if one of those components are missing it's going to be rough. sometimes you do get those kids that come from horrible parents and horrible schools and they do amazing things but come one, thats the exception, not the rule.

i think the main factor is parenting, i know i did well in school because my parents demanded it. i remember getting a "c" for the first time and i was terrified to come home.
people don't realize how hard it is and unless you're a teacher you never will. this year has changed my whole view on teaching. i came in with that idealistic view of changing kids' lives and although i still believe that to a certain degree, it's not as easy as i envisioned it.
i think i am a very positive influence in my student's lives but i do see that no matter how hard i try some kids just don't care. and i get it, i work in a very poor neighborhood and some of these kids have it very rough, so school is at the bottom of their list of worries.

 i can't tell you how many days i've come home crying. but even so i still love teaching. i love my students and every now and then you have moments with them that make everything worth it.
but will most of these kids kick ass on the fcat, probably not. not only do i have to deal with uncaring parents but i get no support from my school. anything i need for my classroom or for my students for lessons i have to buy it with my money. i still don't have basic things like dictionaries and math manipualtives so lets not even talk about technology, like a class computer.

and now the state wants to punish teachers like me instead of help us.
another bad thing is that they will not be paying teachers more for higher education degrees. which is so dumb to me. shouldn't you be encouraging educators to be the most educated! 

well i will not be one of those people who complains and does nothing about it so monday i attended a protest which other teachers from dade county. it was nice to see so much support and so many people standing up for what they believe in.
kill the bill!

this is what my master's degree will be worth, garbage!

thank God for good co-workers!

there is still hope though, governor crist has until friday to veto this bill.
pray hard.

2 comments:

  1. I TOTALLY agree with every word you said! And you are so right. You don't get it until you become a teacher. This is UNBELIEVABLE to me. I have said that is that if this is the kind of crap that is going to happen in our country I will NEVER teach in the States. And there is going to be a major crisis with teacher shortages. I also love teaching, but you are right. I heard the analogy that education is like a stool. You need the teacher, parents, and students. If one piece is missing it will be unlikely that the stool will continue to stand.

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