I worked for a principal who was noted for saying she wished she taught in an orphanage. Her reasoning, of course, was that she easily could achieve longer school days without the occasional meddlesome parent. I suspect she may have also preferred it if all the teaching staff lived in nearby barracks, where we could spend all our remaining waking hours bent over illuminated lesson plan books. Don’t get me wrong; she was a truly wonderful principal, but she had her odd dreams too.
The only sure things in life are death and taxes, they say, but in America, I believe the other sure thing is never being satisfied with the state of our K–12 education system. No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, Common Core State Standards, charter schools, magnet schools, vouchers, tablets, and student-directed learning—what’s really working and what’s not working?
When was the last time someone asked you, the teacher, for your opinion? Whether it was yesterday or six years ago, let’s all start fresh. What do you want to see done to improve our K–12 education system? If your idea is teaching only orphans while living with your colleagues in a dormitory, say so. Or are we simply making our current system look bad when it’s actually working pretty well?
Share your thoughts here at The Mailbox blog.