As I think about my 7 years in education now, I think of so many great stories, coworkers, students and growth but I cannot leave out all the hardships and challenges that those around me have gone through. I remember writing my blog in 2020 about taking advantage of the opportunities that 2020 provided instead of complaining about the year and I am here to say from my perspective and plenty of other educators around the world, 2021 has been more challenging than 2020.
I have compiled some quotes and takes from recent articles I have read about the world of education in 2021. The first article is from Alan Borsuk in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. While I am not the biggest fan of a lot of his work, they always make me think and question things. One of his most recent articles, The kids are watching. What are they learning from adult behavior lately?, brought up some interesting quotes and ideas to me.
The first is from a school board member who was selling raffle tickets at a football game near Milwaukee.
He was selling fundraising raffle tickets at a high school football game. A parent came up to him and said, “Are you the guy who voted to mask our children?” The board member said yes. The parent called him several names. The board member said, “Have a nice day.” The parent called him some more names. The board member again said, “Have a nice day.” The guy left.
A student was standing nearby and said, “All that just to buy a raffle ticket?”
That story to me is all that needs to be said. Students and children are watching us at all times as educators, neighbors, parents, and friends. They see how we interact with each other at school, at home and in the community and they can see the divide that is not only shaping our schools but our country. How can we expect the students to act appropriately, feel safe, be positive and learn if the adults around them cannot model that behavior?
The next couple quotes have a personal tie to my job and what I do every single day. As a Special Education teacher for students with Emotional Behavior Disorder, I see the lack of social-emotional health all day, everyday. Whether it is students showing that they need attention and love or if they are showing they need someone to care for them and believe in them. Every student has their own social-emotional needs that need to be met and need to be at the forefront of all education. This cannot just be a priority for students in Special Education; the last year and a half has taken it's toll on so many children that we cannot expect them to learn, grow and make up the academic progress they missed if they do not have their personal and social-emotional needs met first.
“Socio-emotional health of everyone, lack of staff across the board (subs, bus drivers, teachers, paraprofessionals). The wherewithal of employees to maintain this pace, along with the uptick in behaviors being demonstrated by students related to trauma before the COVID experience and due to COVID.
“We are being forced to rethink schools through this pandemic, yet continue to forge ahead without acknowledging that we are in the midst of a pandemic. It has impacted everyone from the standpoint of overall loss (instructional loss, family loss, job loss, housing loss, economic loss, structural loss, food scarcity, etc.). Collectively, something has got to change.”
In another article I recently read from Education Weekly, a teacher of 25 years who retired this summer had this to say.
“I’ve never burned out on the kids. I’ve never burned out on my subject,” said Anne Sylvester, a former high school English teacher who left the profession this summer after more than 25 years in order to protect her mental health. “I’ve always enjoyed teaching, but the rest of it is exhausting and chronic.”
The article in Education Weekly focused on the growing demands placed on teachers in the last 10 years and how the pandemic has caused even more stress with these demands. The following quote from the article gets at the fact that teachers feel like there is nothing anyone can do to support them and give them what they need. Whether they are struggling with larger class sizes, teaching virtually and in person, lack of resources, lack of time, growing demands of test scores, or lack of training to support students social-emotional needs, educators are drowning and they feel like there is nothing administrators can do to support them. How are the students supposed to feel safe and enjoy learning if the educators around them cannot wrap their head around what they are supposed to be focusing on every single day?
Encouraging yoga or meditation can’t make up for systemic issues that cause stress, experts say. “You can’t deep-breathe your way out of a pandemic; you cannot stretch your way out of terrible class sizes; you cannot ‘individual behavior’ your way out of structural problems,” said Chelsea Prax, the programs director of children’s health and well-being at the American Federation of Teachers. “Those are effective coping measures, but they don’t change the problem.”
Another article I read recently was a blog post about How Teachers are barely hanging on and one of the interesting takes from that was about all the responsibilities teachers have and their thoughts:
For most teachers, this level of micromanagement is completely unnecessary; whether their work is documented or not, they’ll still do good work. Ironically, the time it takes to document their work is more likely to weaken its quality than improve it. The time lost in writing full, formal lesson plans every day is time that could be used to conference with a student, watch a video about an innovative technique, or restructure an activity that isn’t quite working.
This blog came back to two huge concepts for me, Trust and Time. Whether that was the reason for the pain educators are feeling currently or if that goes into the solution. Those two concepts are hand in hand and need to be addressed for educators to feel safe and supported again. Some interesting notes from the blog to help support Time and Trust:
- Cut back on Testing and Data Analysis, focus on the relationships and trust built in the classroom
- No new initiatives, again just focus on what educators can do to support students in this post-pandemic time
- Hire help for administrative, clerical and supervisory work: Whether it is more coordinators, coaches, specialists to support teachers and bounce ideas off of for each other. Providing a school with someone to help with scheduling so it does not fall on secretary, principal, teacher every single day as they deal with teacher, aide and substitute shortages. (This is a personal favorite of mine as people have no idea the amount of time spent on schedules and changes that need to be made daily based on staff shortages.)
- Compensation for extra work- If teachers are covering another teacher because there is no sub, compensate them for it!
- Talk to the educators: Get their feel for what is going on and what they are drowning with then include them in decision making so they feel valued!
I will finish with this quote from Alan Borsuk's first article that was mentioned. I think it just reiterates the fact that the students are watching us at all times, whether it is in the classroom, in the hallway, at a football game or at the grocery store. What do we want to show them?
One of the highest-impact lessons parents – and all adults — teach their children is how to treat other people, how to handle disagreements and stresses, how to navigate life and its problems each day, how to set and pursue our priorities. And they teach all this by example, whether for better or worse. These are classic do-as-I-do matters.
