Starting my 30th year teaching math I’ve seen so many crazy changes during this time. I have seen no end of year test, (we just called them semester tests), to a Gateway Test, to EOC (end of course) tests. They started out with nothing to count against the teachers, then to see who was actually doing their job by getting growth from their students and counting it 20% for the kids as their semester tests. Are we doing both teachers and students an injustice in this?
Students are not always good test takers. They have seem to struggle more since COVID and it just seems to be getting worse. What is going to happen 10 years down the road? Is it going to get better when the COVID kids have graduated and we do not have that hanging over our head?
What can we as teachers do? Our hands are tied by the state department. We are told what standards we teach and what we need to cover during a semester or a year. Is it really benefiting out students? Are they ready for the “real world”? I personally do not think we are helping them. There are classes in high school that students do not need to succeed in the real world. What happened to common sense? The basics? (reading, writing, and arithmetic)? It’s so sad to see a high school student who has to pick up a calculator to do simple math, or who can’t sign their name in cursive, or who can’t write a complete sentence. Is this the teachers’ fault? Parents? where has the failure started with this?
There may not be a right or wrong answer. I grew up in the time when parents didn’t work two jobs to make ends meet. My mother stayed at home and took care of neighborhood kids or babies from Holston Home. I was not a “latchkey” kid. I always had someone pushing me to do better in school. I honestly believe that is gone from the majority of kids lives. Parents have to work 2 jobs to be able to survive. They always want better for their kids, which is not always a bad thing. But are we making their lives better by “giving them too much material things” and not the love and support they truly need?
This may be a rambling for me but it’s how I think at this time. I love my students and always want the best for them no matter where they are. I’ve followed many of my former students and watched them succeed when they thought they couldn’t. I have also watched students make the wrong choices in life. Does that make me love them less? no it doesn’t. It makes my heart hurt for them, that maybe they didn’t have the love and support they really needed to not go down that wrong path.
I guess what I would love to see in this world is for kids and students to be more motivated, not just in school, but in life. support them, love them, and show them that they can do and succeed.