Blockey: Yea… Education is Saved

(Jim Blockey) – GREAT NEWS everyone, education has been saved. Governor Sandoval is getting rid of teacher tenure so all is saved. That makes about as much sense as the government having a five percent cut in pay without cutting back on any of their unnecessary expenses. Teachers are not the problem in education… the attitude towards teachers is.

So much focus is put on teacher tenure, salaries and evaluations, why don’t we focus on the real problem; student insolence, student anarchy, students disrupting other students education. There is way too much credit given to teachers, therefore way too much blame is given them. The teacher’s responsibility is to disseminate information from themselves to students; not to raise them, not to socialize them, that is the parent’s responsibility.

Using student achievement to assess a teacher is not only a bad idea it is an insult to every teacher that has ever earned a teaching certificate. Can you imagine going to college for 4 to 6 years, spending tens of thousands of dollars and having a 7 year old decide your worth? Do you have any idea how offensive that is to teachers? Do you really wonder why teacher recruitment is so difficult?

The way media, administrators and parents talk about teachers (intentional or not), it’s little wonder why student achievement is so low. You have given them an excuse to fail. I cannot tell you how many times I have had a student tell me that, I or some other teacher sucks, “My mom even said so,” or “They even say on TV (or radio) how terrible you teachers are.”

The first and most important thing we ALL can do to improve education is to change the attitudes of how we talk about teachers.

Just remember, every time adults talks about getting rid of bad teachers, how we need to improve our evaluations of teachers or removing teacher tenure, you are saying that education is failing because of teachers. It does not matter what your intentions are, that is how a child is going to take it. Changing teachers will not change education, changing attitudes will.

Jim Blockey, Teacher/Author of”Teachers… It Ain’t Your Fault”