How Has Teaching Changed?
Posted by Debra Liverman on 13 Nov 2008 | Posted in: Teachers and Teaching
As I was going through some old photos, I ran across a picture of my fifth-grade class from my very first year of teaching. I tried to imagine what some of those students, now in their midtwenties, might be doing. I’m sure they’ve changed so much that I may not recognize them. Then I started reflecting on all the changes I’ve seen in teaching over the years. There have been many of them!
So here’s a question for all the veteran teachers out there: how has teaching changed since you started your career?
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32 Responses to “How Has Teaching Changed?”
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Happy Thanksgiving!
I am a fifth grade teacher, but over my 10 year career have spent a little more than half of my career in primary grades. I too am frustrated by the need to complete numerous test preps and computer programs on a weekly basis. What always interests me is that we as teachers never seem to be heard! No one ever asks my opinion about what my students need to be successful. I get a chuckle out of the legislators who feel schools would be more successful if run like a copropate business. It is presented that if we teachers were somehow more organized and regulated we could take all children regardless of natural ability, interests, and IQ, and make them into fortune 500 business men and women. What’s the new saying? Every child college bound. In fact, we should have merit pay and be challenged to meet quotas and goals regardless of whether we feel called to teach gifted students or special needs students because if we were doing our job all children would progress and learn at the same rate and at the same time. Frankly, I would prefer enough social studies books for each student in the class, or enough glue, paper, and staples to make it through the school year.
The thing that bothered me when reading these blogs was the constant use of the word “fun” when referring to creative activities. These activities are not meant to be fun. As I recall, the highest levels of learning come when one uses knowledge in an origional and new way. It used to be that the worksheets were the lowest level of initial practice before the students was asked to create a story, project, or presentation to show that he/she has really assimilated the new skills. Now the worksheet and mandatory multiple choice test is the curriculum. Having a classroom projects are valuable lessons in cooperation, US history, time management, organizational skills, and ,yes, actual learned skills. Making a physical map, presenting oral presentations, making the solar system out of styrofoam balls all have the ability to encourage the higher level thinking skills and creativity that this country will need to change our currently floundering economy into a system that can compete with the global economy. The problem is that to be a truly inventive and innovative thinker takes time. Teachers can not cram truly meaningful activities into the allotted 30min. writing block, or 20 min. social studies block. Meaningful activities may even stretch out over several days. At the end of the day the larger question is not about whether or not the activities are fun, but is sitting in front of a computer completing Successmaker, Lexia, Compass, or Accelerated Reader tests after a long day of reading non-fiction passages and answering multiple choice questions and learning how to read the ever looming expository reading prompt really going to create a nation of inventive thinkers ready to solve the challenges of the future?
Testing has offered educators valuable tools for assessing the needs of our students. As we all know assessment drives instruction. NCLB has offered new more equitable opportunities for title I schools. However, as with any movement it has swung too far from a balanced educational experience. NCLB has unfortunately been renamed in my area as No Child Left Behind but also No Child Gets Ahead!
I see a lot of dissatisfaction with teaching to the test and I understand the frustration. Although it is tough to have to cater to the whims of legislators who know very little about life in the classroom, NCLB in some ways has improved opportunities for many of the children in this country. Before NCLB, many schools, such as my child’s school, which is a Title I school, were ignored by the system and did not receive adequate funding to meet the needs of its very diverse and disadvantaged population. Since NCLB, this school has become a shining star of the county we live in and the large number of children who come to school unable to speak any English now leave able to read and write on or above grade level. Before these children would have been lost in the system and many would not have ever even finished high school. It would be nice, however, if the legislation allowed some leeway as to how we assess students, using more authentic assessments, such as portfolios and teacher evaluations and looked at how much progress individual students are making as opposed to raw test scores. The system may not be perfect, but it is helping open up opportunities for children where they didn’t exist before. NCLB is a necessary evil in that it keeps the school systems from ignoring those schools with a large low-income and ESOL population.
Oh, my gosh! I really didn’t realize that these changes and activities with tests is all over. All I might want to add is the government isn’t their to help, but to hender our school’s growth! Every year new things are added, expected of us, and we are harrased to do parper work as it seems to us all as busy work of proof. Proof we are teaching what THEY want. I say why don’t they just place cameras in all classrooms and get it over with. (No, I feel that would be just horrible, but maybe the parents would not appreciate or approve their child to be under such a microscope.)
I live, work, and give each day as it comes, what ever I can!
I teach fifth grade in Florida.
Have a wonderful, peaceful holiday of thankful giving!
I’ve only been teaching for three years now, and in just three short years the amount of paperwork has increased tremendously. Also, we’ve begun the tier process as I’m sure you are all aware of.. I think it’s wonderful and these kids get the extra time they need for remediation, however, when kids are on computers their instructional time is decreased. I have three children this year that are all on tier three for one subject and tier two for another, which is an hour and a half on the computer for remediation. This prohibits me from moving on in class with the others because I can’t leave those kids behind. I wish their was some way to remediate these children after school so it wouldn’t take away from instructional time in the classroom. The paperwork that follows is also extremely time consuming in our district.
When are we going to let the parents assume some responsiblities for these kids also? I have parents who do their children’s homework. What is this teaching the kids? It’s so frustrating. These are kids who are already failing. They are not benefiting at all from their parents. Yet, if they fail it will all be on my back to assume their failures. It’s so frustrating.
1st Grade Teacher
As I spend a another Sunday writing lesson plans for the week I got sidetracked to this blog.
It interest me greatly that all of us are basically in agreement.The continuous testing and emphasis on only teaching those items that are tested ,have left little room for teachers to be creative and students to enjoy being children.
I too lament those days when we as teachers could take responsibility for our children’s’ days.We could take opportunities and seize the teachable moments that can’t always be planned and may never be tested on a state test!
A walk on our nature trail, birthday cards for the cook, a craft item they could proudly take home.Those days are sadly gone.
As we approach our Thanksgiving Holiday,this absence of control over content is extremely apparent.I cannot spend a day recreating a traditional feast. The students cannot dress in traditional attire.We cannot invite a classroom to eat with us as our Thanksgiving guests.
In all respect I don’t profess that all of these activities are extremely educational.I do know that they are the activities that my students remember and commit on as they grow up and leave school.
I believe that there is a need for both,the tested items and the teachable moments.Our job as educators is to find the happy medium and to then find leaders at the state and national levels who will work to put these ideas into law!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Vivian
26 years
Our public school system is selling out our children and taking the joy of educating children away from the teachers! We continue to lose valuable teachers who know it isn’t best for the kids and simply can’t do it any more. We need to return to offering what kids really need. I wish the governmental decision-makers could take a look at all of these passionate messages from long-term teachers who love their jobs, but are sharing their frustrations about what the whole teaching experience has become! Maybe they would see what a mistake has been made, and how young children are being stressed out, when there is so much emphasis on worksheets and test taking. Too many teachers are doing nothing but trying to manage unacceptable behavior. My own situation is a bit different. I have been offering a private preschool for 29 years, so I have the freedom to offer all the art, large motor skills, projects, hands-on science and open, child-directed, exploratory play opportunities that are supported by appropriate developmental practice. Eager, open, self-directed, socially respectful children go off to kindergarten after two years in our program. Then, a year or two later, they come back to visit and tell me they never get to paint or do a craft project or look at worms, and that there are no blocks and puzzles in their classroom, only worksheets. When are we going to wake up and put the children’s needs first? It just breaks my heart.
Wow!!! Must be the same everywhere. I’ve been in the system for 30 years. 18 of which have been first grade. We used to have 30 and 35 kids in a room and believe it or not , were able to accomplish so much more. Kids were allowed to be kids . Recess was 30 mins. and we could go outside and run even if the temp. went below 40*. Now we can’t. Teach to a test !! Yes we do. Do I like it, you’ve got to be kidding me. Where’s the fun and the natural love of learning? Gone to a TEST! Let government and higher ranked school officials that have not been in a classroom, Sit back, relax, collect their high saleries and PLEASE Let us do the job we all entered the profession to do. TEACH CHILDREN!!If they want tests, Test Parents !!
In a nutshell, teachers are not treated like the professionals we are and were trained to be.
The purpose of education is NOT to pass a battery of tests that do not measure what they are supposed to measure- they are not valid. Period.
The entire notion is tragically absurd!
Wow…interesting to read all of your responses. I have been teaching for six years, and I have done a little bit of everything from kindergarten to sixth grade. To me, the biggest way that teaching has changed is that social skills and values are no longer taught in many of the homes our students come from. By the time I done teaching the children to be kind to each other and how to sit on the carpet without purposefully bothering the child next to them, there is really very little time for real teaching. Forget the fun projects…I have to get through the meat before we can ever do any of those! Our district developed a science benchmark test this year starting in first grade. When I saw it, I thought, “Great! Let’s give our kids another test…woo-hoo!”
When I read Carla’s response I smiled. I have been a kindergarten teacher for 7 years and I seem to remember doing art projects at some time. I have files of cute projects for each holiday and months that just sit in my file cabinet. I honestly cannot remember the last time I took one out. I am just trying to get throught the new content expectations that we are to teach. There is no room for the fun little projects people associate with kindergarten. Kindergarten does seem to be the new first grade, but in my case only a half day first grade. It is impossible to fit everything in to my half day along with specials, snack and our 7 minute recess. However, I do love kindergarten, there is never a dull moment and you never know what is going to happen.
I think that children (and teachers) are pressured to do too much and parents are taking very little responsibility for their children. I have been teaching less than 5 years and I am already considering the possibility of another career. We can’t have fun in Kindergarten because they need to be reading, writing, etc. However, they come to me and barely know their name or why they are here. Many children are behind from day one and cannot catch up. And in trying to catch these children up I have little time to adequately stimulate those children who are advanced. I hear similar complaints form higher grades- too much teaching to the test and no fun.
And I, for one, am tired of being ruled by children. Children are physically and verbally abusive to teachers and it is allowed to go on with little to no punishment. A visit to the principal or ISS means nothing to these children and they are allowed to go on thinking that abuse of adults it ok. Kindergarten needs to go back to lessons of respect, caring and being a good friend.
When I started teaching in 1999 I really enjoyed teaching 3rd grade and as the years went by the state and the school focused more and more on Teaching to the test. Another thing that I as a teacher have taken on is more parenting responsiblities and having really young parents does not help matters. I have also seen an increase of behavior problems from students.