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I've been retired from teaching and administrating for a decade. And I keep reading things in various places, including here, about how terrible the teaching profession has become.
And now I live in a state where my impression is that schools are not that good, and yet here comes this survey:
I took myself out of the game (at least as far as traditional K-12 classroom instruction goes, I continue to have educational components of what I do, which is by choice) about four and a half years ago, and, at least where I was, the overall atmosphere was rapidly changing for the worse then. And, following education issues at a national level as well as state and local since then, I'm inclined to believe that there hasn't been a sweeping wholesale improvement since then.
You're going to get a lot of opinions, obviously, which are colored by all sorts of things, but I think it is fairly reliably evident that there are significant problems in the way public ed is handled on a national level. There will always be outlying districts that, often due to the socioeconomic situation where the are located, manage to float above the fray (I live in one such area, though my children are not yet school-aged), and educators in those situations are overall more likely to experience and express satisfaction with the profession. But wholesale, yeah, there are problems that do deter people from entering, and staying in the field, in relatively high numbers, and affect overall career satisfaction for those who do stay. If you want to write it off as people complaining for complaining's sake when they really have it pretty good, that's your (or anybody's prerogative), but it is pretty widespread.
Having worked in several fields besides education, I can honestly say that I absolutely loved instructing, mentoring, and guiding young people and found it fulfilling...and found really nothing else about working as a teacher to be highly rewarding. I found enough of the "rest of the job" to be off-putting enough that it wasn't ultimately worth staying in the field, for me. I also found that many aspects of the systems in place were set up in such a way that I didn't find them to be optimal for student learning, and that was quite troublesome to me on a philosophical/values level.
Is it much different now than it has been in the past? Personally, yes, I think it is. Expectations are different, the job is different, the accountability is different, the structure is different, the parenting is different, students' lives are different...there have been global shifts that impact what it is like to teach and learn via public ed in the current environment, yes, and while there have been a number of positive innovations, the most powerful impact has been made, unfortunately, by negative trends in all those things.
JMO, as former educator married to a former educator and both of us children of educators.
I think it's a case of the same thing you see in politics, "Our guy who's been in Congress is not the problem, it's that guy over there that's the issue".
You and I both taught in the same decades long of dysfunction Maryland school system. The parents, though, think it's great. Against all objective measures of failure (2nd worst, sometimes the worst system in the state for test scores, graduation rates and, recently, allegations of grade fixing, falsification of student records, massive raises for upper level Central Office personnel [36%, while the School Board voted down 4% over three years for teachers], evidence that multiple school based administrators covered up allegations of abuse at multiple schools, and on and on) the parents are happy with the product.
Then you have the school system where I live and from which all four of my personal children graduated. Always in the Top 3 in state school rankings, lots of academic high achievers, Blue Ribbon schools coming out the ying yang. Yet the parents here do nothing but ***** and moan about how bad it is and how much money it wastes. That's exacerbated by a couple County Commissioners who are morons. One of them has a doctorate in something or other. The other one wanted to close the County Library system a couple years ago because it has too many books without pictures.
IDK, OP. I have a friend who's now semi-retired (from a teaching career), and subbing. She struggles with it, because, she says, there are a lot of kids with mental illness in the schools. It's hard to deal with the day-to-day classroom stuff. And I don't think she's talking about special ed classes, or students who have been identified with a disability. She's talking about just regular classes, in a rural area. I have no idea if that's something that's fairly typical nationally, or not.
IDK, OP. I have a friend who's now semi-retired (from a teaching career), and subbing. She struggles with it, because, she says, there are a lot of kids with mental illness in the schools. It's hard to deal with the day-to-day classroom stuff. And I don't think she's talking about special ed classes, or students who have been identified with a disability. She's talking about just regular classes, in a rural area. I have no idea if that's something that's fairly typical nationally, or not.
Our school has an in-house counseling center staffed by an outside mental health agency. All the students needing such services are assigned to our school. I've had to explain to my very elderly mother that I really do teach at a school where we have certifiably disturbed teenagers. (I didn't say crazy kids.)
A large number of my students do request to go see their counselors, usually when they want to get out of class. It's a huge distraction. I suppose that for the students who really benefit from the service, it could be useful, but I don't always observe any improvement in the students' ability to handle life as they are dealt it.
IDK, OP. I have a friend who's now semi-retired (from a teaching career), and subbing. She struggles with it, because, she says, there are a lot of kids with mental illness in the schools. It's hard to deal with the day-to-day classroom stuff. And I don't think she's talking about special ed classes, or students who have been identified with a disability. She's talking about just regular classes, in a rural area. I have no idea if that's something that's fairly typical nationally, or not.
I would want to know how she knows.
As a person who has taught special education in a behavioral facility with students with diagnosed mental disorders, and who was privy to their medical information due to the scope of my position as IEP case manager, it would surprise me if a sub in a traditional public school setting had access to protected information, particular about students who, as you note, are not identified as having any special needs, or are under IEPs.
I would also note that having a mental health diagnosis in and of itself is of course not grounds for disallowing someone from attaining their legally protected access to free and appropriate public education.
As a person who has taught special education in a behavioral facility with students with diagnosed mental disorders, and who was privy to their medical information due to the scope of my position as IEP case manager, it would surprise me if a sub in a traditional public school setting had access to protected information, particular about students who, as you note, are not identified as having any special needs, or are under IEPs.
I would also note that having a mental health diagnosis in and of itself is of course not grounds for disallowing someone from attaining their legally protected access to free and appropriate public education.
Yes, I'm curious to find out more about it, too. She lives in another state, so I don't see her very often, but when I have an opportunity, I plan to ask more about her experience.
The questions on the survey referred to in the article weren't very specific. The wording was something like asking teachers to rate the statement, "My school is a good place to work and learn." That doesn't take into account issues with pay, benefits, amount of work outside of contract hours, student behaviors, etc. My school has "issues" but I answered the above question positively because I wouldn't say that my school isn't a good place to work or learn, especially in comparison to the last school I worked in. Despite significant challenges, we do a lot of good for students, IMO. For me, the biggest concern about staying in the profession is worrying about the pay and keeping up with the COL, especially housing, in this area. That concern doesn't factor into a question asking if my school is a good place to learn.
The questions on the survey referred to in the article weren't very specific. The wording was something like asking teachers to rate the statement, "My school is a good place to work and learn." That doesn't take into account issues with pay, benefits, amount of work outside of contract hours, student behaviors, etc. My school has "issues" but I answered the above question positively because I wouldn't say that my school isn't a good place to work or learn, especially in comparison to the last school I worked in. Despite significant challenges, we do a lot of good for students, IMO. For me, the biggest concern about staying in the profession is worrying about the pay and keeping up with the COL, especially housing, in this area. That concern doesn't factor into a question asking if my school is a good place to learn.
Clarity is always helpful and this makes prefect sense. One of the problems with relying too much on polls and surveys is that questions can be asked in ways that distort what should have been the responders true feelings or only addresses part of what should have been their response. Not all “research” is valid or reliable. Most issues are far more complex than can be explored by a limited number of short little agree/disagree questions.
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