The real reason so many teachers burn out! (professor, skill, uniform)
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I've heard that some teachers have principals who micromanage teachers; teachers who are very good and have lots of experience, as well as plenty of education. Micromanaging is not a good idea.
I've heard that some teachers have principals who micromanage teachers; teachers who are very good and have lots of experience, as well as plenty of education. Micromanaging is not a good idea.
Keeping in mind that most administrators spend a minimum of time in the classroom before moving into administration. My system used to be a minimum of five years, then a few years ago we hired people straight out of college and made them principals (not VPs, principals). We had a first year provisional teacher this past year who was slated to be a VP this coming year.
Keeping in mind that most administrators spend a minimum of time in the classroom before moving into administration. My system used to be a minimum of five years, then a few years ago we hired people straight out of college and made them principals (not VPs, principals). We had a first year provisional teacher this past year who was slated to be a VP this coming year.
My school still does this. Some of our administrators spent as few as one year in the classroom.
Fortunately, they do not micromanage. In fact, I think they're too hands off.
I've heard that some teachers have principals who micromanage teachers; teachers who are very good and have lots of experience, as well as plenty of education. Micromanaging is not a good idea.
I have had principals who micromanage. It was really hard to work for them. If you were sick, you had to call them and ask if it was okay for you to take the day off. Then, you had to ask if you could go to the bathroom. I had a principal who ripped up a teacher's lesson plans because they were "wrong." I had a principal who forced teachers to write 15 page lesson plans for the week. I felt sorry for my subs!
When I was in school, once upon a time, subs usually didn't do much. I imagine most of the time, they were called at the last-minute. Also, kids could usually get away with a lot more, discipline was a little looser.
I don't know how much has changed since then, but it might make a huge difference what state they were in, or what area in a given state, or even how big the school was...lots of different scenarios.
Keeping in mind that most administrators spend a minimum of time in the classroom before moving into administration. My system used to be a minimum of five years, then a few years ago we hired people straight out of college and made them principals (not VPs, principals). We had a first year provisional teacher this past year who was slated to be a VP this coming year.
Wow, in California you need to have 3 years of classroom experience then you can become a VP. Typically my district requires a person to become a literacy coach something that is semi managerial before actually moving up to a VP slot. How can anyone who has not had any classroom experience manage other teachers, that makes no sense to me. But, there is a great need for administrators, and not too many people want to take on that challenge, and lack of job security. Principals have no union to protect them like teachers do. I think the wording in their contracts says something to the effect that principals work under the pleasure of the school district.
I never thought I would be crazy to want to become principal, but after starting my 17th year, and being the principal designee when my boss is off campus, being grade level lead, being on the leadership team, and providing support for new teachers in my school district, I am ready to venture out and try administration.
The structure of the operation is the same in many ways. Now what does that mean? Restrictions on when you can go to the bathroom and when and where you can eat. Working school based and working at central office afford very different experiences. At central office you can get up and urinate when you need to and can eat lunch when you need to and leave the building easily if you want for lunch. Do school based teachers have the same luxuries? Do you? Must you get coverage to use the rest room? Is your lunch time usually the same time every day unless you have planning to back it up etc etc etc. For both students and staff there is a fairly regulated time schedule without the flexibility afforded many other professions. Not all but many other. Public schools have a routine structure of operation that is comparable from district to district. That routine is similar for students and staff.
As a teacher of 15 years, I agree that the lack of change in routine does become a grind. My 3rd trimester doesn't provide an opportunity to use the bathroom from 7:45 am to 1:15 pm. Needless to say, I don't consume any liquids which isn't healthy. Forget about getting someone to cover your class for a minute to use the bathroom. Behavior issues can arise in a split second and the teacher absent from the room or the covering teacher could end up liable for improper supervision.
My former business job afforded many opportunities to change up the routine. Teaching in a public school fortifies routines. Changes in routines for many students, especially those with special needs, can be problematic.
The difficult part about being a teacher besides the heavy focus on maintaining discipline and the routine grind is the fact that there is less and less freedom to put your individual talents to work on lesson design and delivery. Since NCLB our lessons have become very standardized with teachers being required to provide nearly identical experiences by subject area/grade/level. All tests and graded assignments need to be the same and have to be graded on an approved rubric. Honestly, it makes one feel like little more than a meat puppet. Our in services are predetermined infomercials for some NCLB test boosting program where we are led to believe that our input matters but in the end the "closure" requires everyone to have the output reported in a packaged format on pre-printed forms to be widely distributed and possibly used in someone's dissertation (along with volumes of data that will be gathered during the school year).
I'd like to go back to teaching elementary-level students but NCLB has even taken the fun and excitement out of the learning experience with children as young as kindergarten having monthly writing prompts and reading tests This is a far different experience than the one that Friedrich Frobel envisioned when he created the first kindergarten as a "children's garden" for exploration and discovery.
My goal is to find a smaller school district where the testing is less of an issue and one can help children discover and connect with learning and experiences in the world around them.
As a teacher of 15 years, I agree that the lack of change in routine does become a grind. My 3rd trimester doesn't provide an opportunity to use the bathroom from 7:45 am to 1:15 pm. Needless to say, I don't consume any liquids which isn't healthy. Forget about getting someone to cover your class for a minute to use the bathroom. Behavior issues can arise in a split second and the teacher absent from the room or the covering teacher could end up liable for improper supervision.
My former business job afforded many opportunities to change up the routine. Teaching in a public school fortifies routines. Changes in routines for many students, especially those with special needs, can be problematic.
The difficult part about being a teacher besides the heavy focus on maintaining discipline and the routine grind is the fact that there is less and less freedom to put your individual talents to work on lesson design and delivery. Since NCLB our lessons have become very standardized with teachers being required to provide nearly identical experiences by subject area/grade/level. All tests and graded assignments need to be the same and have to be graded on an approved rubric. Honestly, it makes one feel like little more than a meat puppet. Our in services are predetermined infomercials for some NCLB test boosting program where we are led to believe that our input matters but in the end the "closure" requires everyone to have the output reported in a packaged format on pre-printed forms to be widely distributed and possibly used in someone's dissertation (along with volumes of data that will be gathered during the school year).
I'd like to go back to teaching elementary-level students but NCLB has even taken the fun and excitement out of the learning experience with children as young as kindergarten having monthly writing prompts and reading tests This is a far different experience than the one that Friedrich Frobel envisioned when he created the first kindergarten as a "children's garden" for exploration and discovery.
My goal is to find a smaller school district where the testing is less of an issue and one can help children discover and connect with learning and experiences in the world around them.
We're on a rotating schedule so my prep comes at different times different days and some days, not at all. I give up coffee from September through June. I also wear a girdle which helps keep the fluids out of my colon. Yeah, not healthy but what are you going to do? If my students have an emergency, I can write them a pass. There are no passes for teachers. I WISH the time constraints were the same when I was a student. They're worse.
Eating lunch at the same time every day has put about 10 pounds on me. I either eat when time is allotted or not at all. My room doubles as a lab so there's no even grabbing a bite from a granola bar between classes. Food isn't brought into my room except on rare occaisions when I've scrubbed the room down myself. I also don't take sick days. There's too much of a mess to clean up after a sub.
And people think that part of burn out is being a teacher is the SAME as being a student. Nope. Students can get a pass if they need to go to the bathroom and not come back to a disrupted class. They can stick a granola bar in their locker and grab a bite between classes. They can take a sick day and not have a mess to clean up when they're done.
Out of curiosity, how would you fix this?
As to standards, here I have to disagree and agree. I think you need standards and I think there is flexibility in how you teach them. As a former engineer, I'm used to working to standards and rather baffled when I hear teachers object to having them at all. My issue with them is they're unreasonable in their number. I have 153 (might be off by one or two there but this number is really close) standards I'm supposed to teach during the year. The state did a good job of breaking them up into 12 sections they expect to be taught in 3 weeks each. That's 36 weeks. This would work if we actually had 36 weeks of teaching time. Problem is we have only 36 1/2 weeks of school scheduled. Now take out labor day, thanksgiving and the day after, records days, three days for the ACT, Martin Luther King's birthday, Good Friday, Memorial day and days for pep assemblies, school picnics and such and we have no hope of teaching them all and that's before I take a sick day or we take a snow day and you account for the fact that kids check out the week before a break and don't check back in until a week after the break. I find teaching the day before they have time off a waste but there has to be a day before the break so I do my best.
I do think the state should recognize that we can't teach them all and allow us to pick which ones we don't teach. I'd rather teach what I teach well than try to cram too much into too little time and have my students half learn everything. There should be core standards that every teacher teaching that subject is required to hit and then a second level of standards we can pick what we teach best from. Either that or add about 6 weeks to the school year so we can fit everything in and hit them all. Of course, I want six more weeks pay to do this. (That would actually put me just about in a position to pay my bills too)
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 08-09-2009 at 08:15 AM..
I'm not talking about state objectives and standards. Those are essential. I'm talking about teaching to specific test standards in a strict, inflexible format that is uniform among all teachers. These tests have become "the curriculum" for many school districts. Those students who are capable of much more are not having their needs and abilities addressed due to the obsession with getting students not meeting the test standards up to par.
If one is teaching a math class where half the kids are capable of grade-level or above work and the other half have functional abilities up to 5 grade levels below it is not surprising that a good portion of the class would find the grade-level based standardized test "challenging." I have students who do not understand how to make 10 with addition facts and repeatedly need to count out simple addition on their fingers (often inaccurately). I go over "making 10", showing how adding 10 doesn't affect the ones place, doubling and halving numbers, using manipulatives, etc., each year but there are a large group of students who just don't buy in as they don't see math as important in their vision of their lives despite me providing numerous connections to real-life on a daily basis.
In my state, those who do see the importance (interested parents) have chosen to relocate to school districts that have high test scores where remarkably there is less attention in teaching to the test. These districts have challenging curriculums and repeatedly send in excess of 80% of their graduates to college with many attending Ivy League colleges and top universities. Since RE values are much higher in these districts there are very few people who live in poverty, a demographic that has a disproportionate number of students not meeting a NCLB standards.
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(That would actually put me just about in a position to pay my bills too)
