In the health care field you learn early on that you cannot save everyone. You use the best tools you have available, but sometimes things do not go well. Fortunately, we do not loose students to illness and death in the classroom, but we still try to save them all. We have staff that includes many non teaching positions such as social workers, psychologists, therapists, counselors, grief counselors, graduation coaches and dietitians to name a few. Yet despite all of these helping professionals students still get in trouble, get pregnant, get drunk, use drugs, go to jail, & are disrespectful (not a good day today !) Why is that? Why is it the more support we give to students and the community, the worse things seem to get?
Bottom line is that we are not their parents. We are outsiders trying to do a job. That job is to give students the tools that they need to learn and be successful in the process. All this in the few hours a week that we see them. Yes ,we make an impact on a lot of lives, but I do not believe an impact that supersedes parents. We hope that we are teaching them to be successful adults, but in reality we are only a small part of that process.
In this economic climate some of those helping support services may go by the wayside. I fear that even more will fall in the teacher's laps, or will that force families to retake the responsibility that is theirs anyway?
Well stated!
ReplyDeleteHi, Emily - very thoughtful and impassioned post. I am thinking of all the students who don't have both parents or whose parents have their own challenges and are neglecting their children - those kids need a stable force in their lives. Keep after them!
ReplyDeleteWow Emily this was very well put! I agree! Sometimes it is hard to remember that we are only responsible for TEACHING these students, not RAISING them! We do have a huge impact on a lot of them though and must remember no matter what they are still watching our every move to see how we will handle certain situations. I enjoyed reading your post!
ReplyDeleteEmily, I agree with everything that you stated. I believe that there are too many expectations placed on schools to "raise" these students. I do try to guide my students to always make wise choices and to do the right thing, however, what consequences are there if they don't? None from me because I'm not the parent! The sad part is, for some of these kids I see them more in a week than their own parents do. Unfortunately, I fear that you are right about more falling into teachers laps. =(
ReplyDeleteEmily,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your blog. I agree with your comments about parenting. Teacher responsibilities have always been great. Now, with budget cuts, the responsibilities will more than likely grow. Some of the most important jobs in the world are teaching, law enforcement, and fire fighting, yet in our society, are now the least financially rewarding. This is not new to our generation however; I don’t think it was the case in our great, great, grandparent’s generation. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Melissa
Emily, I enjoyed reading your post. The connection you made to the health care field and trying to reach all of our students made so much sense. I haven't thought of it that way before, but we are all trying to "treat" each student in our own way. One of the first realizations I made as a teacher was that I could never correct bad parenting, or total lack of parenting. The best I could do would be to take the really bad kids and teach them what I could so they could survive high school, then college or career, etc., etc. It's amazing what SIMPLE lessons they sometimes need, all career field aside, skills like punctuality and professionalism might make a huge difference for them one day. Our schools feed students and keep them safe for 8+ hours each day and for some that's enough, but, sometimes the kids who show up for free lunch are the ones who need the lessons from a CTAE course the most. Giving them the tools is definitely the key to their success as students and as decent human beings.
ReplyDelete