"When will "the ask" overburden teachers?"....editorial

[Heartstrings]

[Nay]

1. Great letter. I know some teachers who are at their wits' end. nt

[CRK7376]

7. Yeah, I'm one of

those teachers. Only I deal with the teenagers that think they are invincible. I think it will be nearly impossible to keep the highschool kids in masks &socially distant. Luckily, our first 9 weeks will be done remotely, then the Governor and the system will reevaluate if it's feasible to open schools....I don't see that happening. In the mean time we are trying to learn a new learning platform,improving our teaching while being in the barn or basement or dining room, wherever teachers go to do remote classroom learning. I went to our barn to use the chalk board(4x6) which I put up probably 25-26 years ago for our three kids to write and draw on. Never took it down and now it's coming in handy. Shot 2 wevideos in the past two weeks, a self introduction as their teacher and a quick outline for what we will cover in American History 2 for the fall semester. Two of the barn cats decided to stroll by during filming. Luckily it was during my self introduction and not the course outline....Remote learning sucks, at least I have a chalkboard and I'm not in a basement...

[unblock]

2. i don't like the way this letter to the editor is structured.

i'm all for teachers getting paid more and treated much better than they are. they should be given the proper tools to do everything we need them to do, and they should be respected for doing a very hard job.

and right now, they should be given the equipment and support to teach from home. in-school learning during a pandemic is dangerously stupid for everyone, teachers included.


but i don't care for the setup, that teachers are there just to teach the core subject matter (reading and writing in this case) and the suggestion that all the rest is just incremental asks that shouldn't be part of the job.

no, they are part of the job, and teachers are (or should be) receiving resources and training for this. this particular teacher has "two degrees and multiple certificates". that can't all be about getting really good at reading and writing and how to teach core subjects. that training certainly should include psychology and behavior and safety and so on. the school itself should provide fire safety drill and so on as well.

that's all part of the job of teaching because unless you're coming to the student's house while a parent is there, the student is *in your care* for a period of time. that means you're responsible for *everything* that comes with taking care of a child for a period of time. that includes most of the things a babysitter would be responsible for, including getting the child to safety in case of fire, stopping fights among the kids, etc.

those aren't additional asks, those things are part of the job, and should be part of the training as well.


again, i'll certainly agree that teachers are underpaid and not given enough resources or respect. so i hear the frustration and i agree with it, but the implication given the way the letter is set up is that they shouldn't do any of these other things and should just teach the core subjects, and i don't agree with that.

[Heartstrings]

3. So, accordingly

teachers are glorified “babysitters”? The brunt of what the editorial boils down to is what else are teachers going to be “asked” to do? The other aspects take away from what they were hired to do...teach. Will they be “asked” to cook meals, read bedtime stories, find adequate housing, do laundry, etc. for their students because their parents are too overburdened to do any of those and it’s a teachers “job”? Where does it end? Teachers already subsidize their own classroom funds and willingly would take a bullet for their students....

My parents were both educators,
My father had a masters degree however that didn’t qualify him to analyse his students Psychologically. He taught high school math, Calculus, Trigonometry, etc., expectinghim to be an expert in bullying or socialization would be unconscionable. But he would have been expected to take a bullet....
My mother was an English major, with a minor in music, and certified K-3...it wasn’t her job to teach a child manners, respect, or to disciple the children in her classroom For bullying. Infractions were sent to the principals office to be dealt with, as taking time out to address them during classroom time took time away from children who were actually taught those basic fundamentals at home and were in school to learn to read, or write, or count. And my mom would have been expected to take a bullet as well.....

Way too much to “ask” of teachers these days and I’m glad my parents aren’t around to see and hear the disrespect their chosen profession is being given these days....

I do understand where you’re coming from on some aspects (Lack of funding especially), unblock....just can’t agree on the it all....

[unblock]

4. my brother is a teacher and my mother used to teach as well

so i certainly "get" the teacher's point of view. and as i said, it's a very hard job, impossible to please everyone, and they should be paid more and given more resources and respect.

i hope we're in agreement substantively. my only problem with the post, as i was trying to make clear, was the implication that anything other than teaching the actual subject matter is an annoying incremental "ask". no, these things are part and parcel of the job. and it's precisely because there are so many such things that teachers should be paid more and respected more and given more resources to do these things properly.

my mother used to have to break up fights and discipline kids. and she had to figure out a way to do it without sending them to the principal's office because she knew the kids would get paddled if she did that. my brother has to deal with all kinds of learning and psychological and behavioral issues his students have it's just part of the job.

i'd just prefer it if the letter to the editor explained that the job simply *is* much harder than lecturing out of a textbook and assigning a handout for homework, *because* there's a ton more involved, all these other things the letter lists. and we haven't even gotten into paperwork, state requirements, assessments, continuing education requirements, and never-ending complaints from parents.

there's a lot to the job, people who haven't seen that side of it don't realize how hard it is, and should have a lot more respect for the people who do it.

[Heartstrings]

5. We're in complete agreement, there are not enough resources and no

concrete solutions to any of this...

Enjoy the rest of your weekend! I was looking forward to watching some baseball but all our games for the weekend have been postponed. I have a feeling this season will be very short!

[lindysalsagal]

6. Can't argue with anything here.

Universal Healthcare is no longer a luxury: we need it to move through this.

[rusty fender]

8. This is a very powerful letter

I sent a screenshot of it to my brother, who is an occupational therapist for an elementary school district, and he wanted to know in which newspaper that it was originally published. I would sure appreciate knowing its provenance

[Heartstrings]

9. Unfortunately that was never identified....

It was posted by a friend on Facebook.