The Exhaustion Of The American Teacher
With the 2012-2013 American school year still in its infancy, it’s worthwhile to note that the people doing the actual educating are down in the dumps. Many feel more beaten down this year than last. Some are walking into their classrooms unsure if this is still the job for them. Their hearts ache with a quiet anguish that’s peculiarly theirs. They’ve accumulated invisible scars from years of trying to educate the increasingly hobbled American child effectively enough that his international test scores will rival those of children flourishing in wealthy, socially-advanced Scandinavian nations and even wealthier Asian city-states where tiger moms value education like American parents value fast food and reality TV.
The American child has changed, and not necessarily for the better. Many shrill voices argue that teachers must change, too, by simply working harder. The favored lever for achieving this prescribed augmentation of the American schoolteacher’s work ethic is fear, driven by a progressively more precarious employment situation.
But teachers by and large aren’t afraid; they’re just tired.
Meanwhile, no one is demanding American non-teachers change anything. Michelle Rhee wastes none of her vast supply of indignation on American public policies that leave a quarter of our children in poverty while, not coincidentally, the profits of Rhee’s corporate backers reach new heights. And no one but Paul Tough dares to hint at the obvious-but-politically-incorrect reality that a swelling army of kid-whipped or addiction-addled American parents have totally abdicated the job of parenting and have raised the white flag when it comes to disciplining their children or teaching them virtues like honesty, hard work, and self-respect. Americans have explicitly handed off character education to schoolteachers. Such a practice says a great deal about our nation’s expectations of its parents.
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“Waiting for ‘Superman’” told teachers they were terrible, callous, and incompetent, that only magnanimous charter school operatives could save victimized children from their rapacious clutches.
NCLB told teachers they would only be considered successful if 100% of their students passed 100% of their tests.
Condoleezza Rice told teachers they were so ineffective that they were a national security threat.
Chris Christie told teachers that when two or more of them gather, they are thugs. Suddenly, the apple-themed knit sweater is a symbol of American menace rivaling the leather biker jacket.
“Won’t Back Down” actors Viola Davis, Maggie Gyllenhall, Ving Rhames, and Holly Hunter used their art to communicate that teachers only want union protections so they can lock poor children in closets, and that the only way to protect children from the plague of heartless unionized miscreants mal-educating them across this land is by letting their parents hand over local schools to wholly benevolent charter school operators led by the friendly Mother Teresas behind Parent Revolution.
Teachers learned from Bobby Jindal that public schools are so lousy that Louisiana is better off paying for its children to attend private schools that no state official has ever visited, that teach any curriculum whatsoever, and that are exempt from any accountability mechanisms at all because, you know, the free market will ensure their quality. (Though choice will allow children to vote with their feet by leaving public schools too, you can bet that arcane accountability measures will remain firmly in place for them.)
StudentsFirst told America to distrust its teachers. Eric Hanushek told America that larger class sizes will improve education and, gee-whiz, they’re cheaper too, so why wouldn’t we grow them? Bill Gates seconded the motion.
Barack Obama told teachers he hated teaching to the test, and then he built Race to the Top of Test Mountain.
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And so we fix nothing. The American schoolteacher is exhausted. I am exhausted. Tom Petty once sang, “Let me up, I’ve had enough.” That. Please.
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http://teacherpoetmusicianglenbrown.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-exhaustion-of-american-teacher-by.html?m=1
As Fanny Lou Hamer said, "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired."
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...if there's a heaven or hell either, but I do know that karma is real. But I'm even losing faith in karma these days. Karma is way behind. You put a real face in this whole education dilemma we're in. I am not a teacher. I don't have any children or grandchildren in school. My children are grown. But my heart goes out to all of our teachers who are being put thru this maddening privatization crap. And that is all it is. Privatizing our precious teachers and children. It's evil. Period. Hang in there. 
...because this needs to be read by everyone.... 
