Super Teacher

Super Teacher

            Has the quality of teachers changed or is it the value?  Teachers have really been coming under fire these last few years. School grades across the country have dropped and the question that is being asked is it the fault of the teachers or the students. In today’s schools there is a lot for teachers to deal with. A student’s home life, I.Q. level, and the classroom make-up are all factors that play a role in a child’s ability to learn.

Take a child’s home life for instance, whether there are both parents in the house or one really takes a toll on a child. You could take most of the children that I interact with on a daily basis and decide which ones come from two parent or one parent homes based on a lot of their behavior. In 2000, 27% of all United States children were living in single-parent homes”(Barajas).  Children who come from single parent households tend to have more behavior problems in school. They are often confrontational and more emotional, especially males who have no positive male role model or “father figure” in their lives, than most other students. When you have students who only have one parent they do not get as much attention at home, if there are other siblings or the parent is working multiple jobs to make ends meet then the parent’s time and focus is taken away from that child and placed elsewhere. At low income schools this tends to be especially true and then it becomes solely on the teacher to work with and try to give this student adequate attention. There is no problem with a teacher doing this, but when you have a classroom of twenty or more students it becomes difficult to give one student extra attention without taking attention away from the others.

            I.Q. level also plays a big part in a student’s ability to learn. There was a point in time when the slow learners would have a small classroom with other students who were similar to them. Now, in most schools, there are no longer special classrooms and the ESE students are being placed in classrooms with regular students. It is not just the slow learners but also the advanced kids who suffer. You get a student who is ahead of the class and they get bored because their minds are not being stimulated enough. Teachers are now expected to teach below, on, and over grade level. This proves difficult for a lot of teachers, how do you successfully move children forward without losing the ones who are already behind or boring the ones who are ahead?

Once you start putting too many different students into one class issues will arise. I work in a class called the STAR class, which is an acronym for students taking academic responsibility, the children in this class are overage and we work with them to try to get them double promoted. A few years ago we had a student who was in fourth grade, she should have been in middle school already, and she could only read at a second grade level. Even with extra help this is a student who will probably never make significant academic achievement and more than likely will drop out of school in a couple of years because she is so far behind. You have classes that have 35 students in them and because there are two teachers it is fine, but even with two teachers that is too many kids in one room to effectively learn.

I am not saying the fault lies totally on the students because there are some teachers who just should not be teaching. To me teaching is one of those careers that you have to have a passion for. No matter how many or what kind of kids some teachers get the kids will never learn but that does not give a teacher the reason to stop trying. Not all kids are slow learners some just need an extra push but some teachers just are not willing to put forth the effort. I agree with Michelle Rhee that students not adults should be our top priorities (Waiting for Superman).

Law makers should take into consideration how some classes are made up before they pass laws that effect education. You can have the most super teacher in the world in a classroom but there will be no super gains if you do not address the student’s issues. Look at home life, and the I.Q. of the students. Then, look at the make-up of the class before you try to evaluate whether or not a teacher deserves to teach.