“I don’t love teaching because my job is no longer teaching.”
North Carolina teacher Kris Nielsen wrote a provocative and lengthy essay for his blog Middle Grades Mastery.
It begins: “I love teaching. Or, I did love teaching. I loved teaching when my job was to teach. Now, I don’t love teaching, because my job is no longer teaching.”
Nielsen began teaching in 2006. He taught sixth grade earth science, writing, “I created my own curriculum, based loosely on the New Mexico state standards. My kids loved it! I kept them busy with hands-on, student centered learning that built vocabulary and concepts along the way.”
Nielsen moved to Oregon and a job he enjoyed, but was let go after two years when his district slashed 350 jobs to cut costs.
Nielsen chronicles a frustrating job search that led him and his family to move cross country to the vaunted Charlotte-Mecklenburg system. He shares his growing disillusionment with the profession.
Here is an excerpt of his blog. Please try to read the full essay before commenting:
What they didn’t tell me in orientation was that I would not have time to teach anything meaningful. I was hired to teach science and the exact same math I had taught in Oregon, but this was different. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools is a district that is drowning in its own mandates, risk-taking, and testing culture. I think CMS is a microcosm of what’s to come in American education. It’s depressing. I didn’t like it, so I did some research. An adjacent district was hiring some math and science people and I was attracted to two main things: it was closer to home and they had rolled out a one-to-one laptop initiative recently. Every student was carrying a laptop in class every day. I had to get into one of those classrooms!
To make that story short, I did. It’s no different. Despite the lofty ideals and motivating speeches from administration, everything is the same. I’m not an educator, by the definition I had comes to terms with; I’m an employee of a system that has an agenda. My job is to frontload a small encyclopedia of knowledge to a group of students so that they can pass a test at the end of the year. There are now more shallow and meaningless tests, and my job now depends on the scores. That’s not teaching. That’s not what I do.
I’ve heard this several times already: “If you’re teaching students to learn and letting them discover the knowledge, then shouldn’t they be able to pass those tests easily?” At first, I thought, “Yeah! Totally!” But after trying it, I don’t think it makes sense. Standardized tests are rigidly specific in the knowledge kids should have. They are bent way over into the realm of vocabulary and multiple-choice answers and they don’t even come close to teaching 21st century skills. If I teach my kids how to think and how to learn, then they will not be prepared to pass state tests, because that’s not what those tests are measuring. The tests measure two things: memory and application. The second one is important, but not in a multiple-choice or short-answer sphere.
I’ve gotten to the point where I feel good about how a lesson played out, only to check my email afterwards to find no fewer than five menial tasks that I must dedicate my time to. This is time when I should be planning more lessons, conferencing with parents, and learning.
My students are falling apart. They have little hope. I don’t blame them. They are reminded every year of their failure to pass meaningless tests and they watch the news that tells them they are dumber than the rest of the world. That piece of information is not true, by any means, but you can tell it affects them. And no one stands up to tell them they are doing fine.
I wanted to be part of the fix. I wanted to save the world. But every day I see powers greater than me stomp us down and tell us to get back into the classroom and be glad we even have jobs. If this is the way that public education treats professionals, then it’s time for me to find a new field.
I give up. They win. I have joined the ranks of parents who have come to realize that we are only empowered to do one thing: take care of our own. I hope that things change, but I don’t have the energy, the money, or the time to continue beating my head into a wall. And if the choices have run out for my toddler when he’s ready for school, I will do it myself. Maybe I’ll do it for others, as well. Who knows.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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135 comments Add your comment
William Casey
October 31st, 2012
3:35 pm
HEY BUBBA: In 20 years you’ll be importing math teachers from NORTH KOREA because nobody else who can do math will put up with this mess. Good luck on them speaking English.
bootney farnsworth
October 31st, 2012
3:36 pm
@ William
one of my kids is seriously thinking about going into teaching at the SH level.
I have -I’m not kidding- suggested they consider either
-gang banging
-ritual suicide for political reasons
as both are more respected and better paying than teaching
bootney farnsworth
October 31st, 2012
3:40 pm
@ William,
not gonna happen. when the NK teachers realise they can’t do anything about the behavior issues in the classroom, they’ll chose to go back.
funny thing- teachers from a famine stricken, despotic land get more respect in the classroom than we do.
Beverly Fraud
October 31st, 2012
3:56 pm
From Ole Guy: When you, the teacher corps, can dreage up a few leaders within your ranks, visionaries who can truly see the big picture behind your (collective)…dillema…well, maybe your essays will be understood for their true value.
@Ole Guy, this might not be “the problem” but it sure is INDICATIVE of the problem; why on Earth would teachers join organizations (GAE and PAGE) that serve the interests of ADMINISTRATORS???
Isn’t that a little like chickens (no pun intended) looking to Truett Cathy as their advocate?
And what does it say about education these days that an organization whose (common sense) mantra is “You can’t have good learning conditions until you have good teaching conditions” is considered “radical”?
bubba
October 31st, 2012
4:00 pm
Socialst Science teachers:
Here’s two links for the ultimate S.S. field trip, Detroit, MI
Saw a great quote from the Socialism Studies teachers at Barack Obama’s Foward Communist Soldiers Communities and Organization Academy:
“Imagine how great the view was for the cavemen riding pterodactyls over the volcano when it was first formed 6,000 years ago!”
Hope, Change!
“Imagine how great the view was for the professors riding electric cars over the bridge when it was invented 6 years ago!”
bubba
October 31st, 2012
4:02 pm
william casey;
interesting, I think i heard these comments 20 years ago, only Japan was used instead of Korea
3:35 pm
” In 20 years you’ll be importing math teachers from NORTH KOREA because nobody else who can do math will put up with this mess. Good luck on them speaking English.”
Fled
October 31st, 2012
4:05 pm
@Ole Guy: You are absolutely correct. A few days of “chalkboard flu” would have a remarkable effect on the idiots and morons running public education in Georgia (FWIW, Corporate schools are going to be much worse, with classrooms as profit centers.). However, as you say, teachers are going to have to stand together to make any progress, and that never seems to happen. More’s the pity.
@Beverly: At the risk of repeating myself yet again, teachers are not tied to working in Georgia. They are not slaves or indentured servants. Those of us with a spark of excellence that have left it behind may be the ones doing a real favor. When a critical number of excellent teachers gives up, perhaps things will change. I somehow doubt it, though.
Teachers, had enough yet? The world awaits, and you can be well-paid and respected for what you do and how you do it. I work very hard. I teach bright and capable students advanced content in the way I know is best. I like what I am doing and where I live.
But you have to take the first steps yourself. Nothing will ever change in Georgia, and you know it. Give up. Throw in the towel. Flee.
bubba
October 31st, 2012
4:10 pm
For those of you who choose to ignore the facts, I’ll remind you again
Facts: Scores are Up, Classroom sizes are up, teachers pay is down, pressure on teachers is up
Teachers have stated that this would be impossible to occur – but it has occured, perhaps we’ve been listening to the teacher’s unions for toooooo long
Jeff A. Taylor
October 31st, 2012
4:11 pm
Maureen, you had me at “vaunted Charlotte-Mecklenburg system.” We escaped CMS after eight years for Cobb County last year — Mr. Nielsen didn’t do his homework.
CMS is not a microcosm of bad practices in American public education, it is a distillation. Take any edu-fad (Connected Math, perhaps?) and I guarantee CMS flogged it to death while producing negative results and spending untold scarce dollars. Only a few brave elementary principals are now left in the system to fight a rear-guard action against the sheer idiocy of the CMS admin deadwood in any meaningful way. The odd quality middle or high school teacher is hopelessly outgunned in CMS — and they know it. They are either waiting for retirement or their own escape elsewhere.
It sounds like Mr. Nielsen tried to escape to next door Union County, an explosive growth exburb county but still was enjoined from deploying his Connected Math experience. No surprise there either as in NC the be-all and end-all are the home grown EOG tests. These are not nationally normed or standardized, but the PR product of the state’s edu-bureaucracy.
Here’s where Mr. Nielsen’s experience tells us something larger than CMS is a train-wreck.
If your goal is good public schools you must first — above all else — secure transparency and eradicate propaganda. In other words, tell the truth. Everything flows from that.
Look at the unfolding circus at North Atlanta (and the system wide cheating scandal before that). What was the trigger? The license to lie. To deceive and manipulate the public.
Bubble tests are popular because they give the bureaucracy the illusion of meaningful facts to trot out when under duress. (And look how these “results” are then further twisted into categories meant to rank entire schools!) Completely understandable.
But what is not understandable is why the Mr. Nielsens of the world accept deceit as a normal biz practice from the edu-establishment.
Beverly Fraud
October 31st, 2012
4:33 pm
“Teachers, had enough yet? The world awaits, and you can be well-paid and respected for what you do and how you do it. I work very hard. I teach bright and capable students advanced content in the way I know is best. I like what I am doing and where I live.”
@Fled, I’m curious. Have you run into any of the dynamic that InvisibleSerfsCollar has talked about on this blog?
Teach A,B. C or D. Don’t even get a break to wee. Are told you are the problem by Michelle Rhee; when will teachers finally FLEE?
Attentive Parent/Invisible Serfs Collar
October 31st, 2012
6:00 pm
Jeff A Taylor-what is going on in CMS is directly related to the busing that once went on there. Almost the second they decided to go back to neighborhood schools, my research shows Gorman, Avossa, and Muir all came up from Fla at the same time to push a more radical vision on those “neighborhood schools.” Fla always had district wide creativity in what went on. Went to OBE before Jeb took office.
I have read a great deal of Gary Orfield’s work and have become so concerned on this issue and its implications for Dallas and Atlanta that I have now pulled everything he has written in last five years, Including his new book.
That means in about a week I should have the full template but at the ARC Regionalism breakfast a few weeks ago I was told what I had already inferred. It is North Fulton and Cobb being targeted to make as dysfunctional as APS and Dekalb. The model is that people had racist intentions for moving to these suburbs. Which is rather nuts but there’s power in that theory. Makes me sad though. I grew up in Cobb back when Parkaire was still an airport. I don’t ever remember any new neighbor not being welcome.
Well there was that family with the harsh Bronx accent.
William Casey
October 31st, 2012
6:26 pm
@BUBBA: it’s already happening in undergraduate education. It will work it’s way down. It obviouslly will be Asians. You missed the joke part of my post. North Korea would never allow their communist robot math teachers to work in America.
William Casey
October 31st, 2012
6:33 pm
@bootney: I’m glad someone got the joking irony of my NORTH KOREA post.
mountain man
October 31st, 2012
7:44 pm
If EVERY teacher would leave the system until changes are made, things would be better.
Or we could just let the state approve charters and allow the parents who CARE to leave the system.
mountain man
October 31st, 2012
7:47 pm
The problem is that teachers feel TIED to their careers. Other careers would not offer summers off and would not allow retirement as early as 52 years old. Especially those teachers near retirement are trying to hold on.
So the educrats have the teachers by their respective sexual organs.
d
October 31st, 2012
8:12 pm
I just read all the comments from today and saw where one person said there are plenty of teachers lined up to take the place of burned out ones. If this were the case, why is DeKalb going to hire foreign teachers for math, science, and special Ed?
Rationale
International teachers provided by the Intalage Inc. teaching agency provide cultural diversity for our schools and are in the critical needs areas of Math, Science and Special Education.
Quick Summary / Abstract
Presented by: Dr. Tekshia Ward- Smith, Chief Human Resources Officer, Division of Human Resources
Details
Due to teacher shortages in the critical needs areas of Math, Science and Special Education, it has become necessary to employee the services of the In-talage, Inc. Teaching Agency. After extensive recruitment efforts the District finds that this agreement would serve as an additional resource for delivering high quality teachers to students. All teachers who will be selected by the district are fully certified and will be interviewed and recommended by administration.
bootney farnsworth
October 31st, 2012
8:37 pm
@fled
truth in this. I’ve told everyone I know its time to bail.
the state isn’t interested, and the parents don’t care.
bootney farnsworth
October 31st, 2012
8:38 pm
@ bubba,
still waiting for your listing of teaching experience.
bootney farnsworth
October 31st, 2012
8:41 pm
can someone point out to Bubba the whole concept of grade inflation and the whole APS cheating scandal?
it really, really, really stings to see someone’s credibility evaporate in one puff.
but it was entertaining
Pride and Joy
October 31st, 2012
9:02 pm
I grew up poor in a poor, rural place in a poor school and I learned.
The “laptop in every classroom” is a poor excuse for being attracted to a job. The highest technology we had in class was a mimeograph machine (one for all teachers in the school). If we could learn without laptops and without air conditioning so can kids learn today from teachers.
As far as the “five emails a day with requests for menial tasks” — so what? Why is this teacher “above” menial taks? I do menial tasks in management and I did menial tasks as an entry level employee. Why does this teacher think he is above it?
I say to this teacher — grow up – quit complaining and get out of teaching. Our children deserve better.
William Casey
October 31st, 2012
10:27 pm
@d: Thanks. I tried to tell him that this was the wave of the future. I appreciate your specific info.
FCS
October 31st, 2012
11:12 pm
CMS super, CMS principal…FML
Fled
October 31st, 2012
11:43 pm
@ Beverly: The dynamic I saw was that people who were threatened by Others wanted to make sure that they retained whatever advantages they believed they had. That desire extended to some sort of expectation that their children were to be treated as equally entitled. Many of the male parents had obtained some sort of technical education, which included, unfortunately, reading only Ayn Rand. This “education” caused them to develop a grossly inflated sense of their capabilities and importance.
Hint to Milton Man: Chinese, Indian, Korean, and Other engineers are just as good as you—and they cost less. I know because I see them every day.
The final straw for me occurred when I saw those types of suburbanite attitudes emerging in my oldest. That moment was when I decided, finally, that I had to make major changes for the benefit of my children—and I did.
My students come from a group that those same suburbanites look down upon. They are bright, articulate, and engaging. What is more, they are looking to the future and trying to figure out how to deal with the world as it is. My children know what the real world looks like, and they never would listen to anyone telling them how those Others are going to destroy all that is good and true and beautiful. It works for us, but obviously not everyone would be willing to pay the price we have to get what we have gained.
Had enough yet, teachers? Give up. Throw in the towel. Flee.
Private Citizen
November 1st, 2012
1:01 pm
Great post. Thank you. Working in the described conditions can leave a person feeling really isolated, so it is good to read of someone with a voice talk about what it is like to work under the current numerous mandates.
I do not think it is ethical to test children so much. I do not think it is ethical to be the person doing this to kids in the guise of “teacher.”
Private Citizen
November 1st, 2012
1:03 pm
Kind of a bummer to hear him tell that in a computing 1-to-1 environment, the same soul killing dynamics occur, march to the script. Head off if you don’t march to the letter, say “thank you” for the treatment, etc.
Private Citizen
November 1st, 2012
1:13 pm
Beverly
I fled.
Retired Teacher
November 1st, 2012
6:00 pm
Dee Davis–
I hope your mistakes are only because you were in a hurry and not because that’s the best you can do.
Cobb History Teacher
November 2nd, 2012
12:50 pm
@Dr.Craig
“I signed on forty-two years ago to teach kids about American History and Government. I resigned seven and one-half years ago after becoming fed-up with the paper chase teaching had become. I wasn’t too good to do clerical work. But clerical work had come to inhibit my instructional efforts- a situation I wasn’t prepared to tolerate.”
Exactly! Teaching has become more about tracking data and getting ready for the “test” than actually teaching. I’ve been teaching for over 15 years and have seen the change firsthand myself.
I was talking to a colleague the other day I it suddenly hit me I manage more students than most small businesses have employees (I currently have more than 140 students on my roll), and I do it all by myself. I am the book keeper (keeping grades) I am the manager (determining what materials and activities to use) I am the head of HR (helping students to get along and making seating changes) I am the nurse (when I get a student a band-aid or determine if the student should go to the school nurse) I am the police officer (investigating when property goes missing or settling a disagreement) and I am my own administrative assistant / PR department (when I make parent contacts). I do this all by myself. Tell me how many middle to upper middle management executives have all of this on their plate?
On top of all that I have 36 weeks of material to try and teach in abput 32 weeks of instruction. In other words the test is more important than the curriculum as they won’t give us enough time to teach the curriculum knowing full well not every student gets it the first time. There is no time to reteach or go any deeper than the surface.
Private Citizen
November 2nd, 2012
1:18 pm
Cobb History Teacher Whenever I see teacher / numbers of 140 students and such, my first thought is “How do you memorize all of their names?” and know each student individually? To be honest, I think my attention span tops out at about 100 students. Maybe it is an acquired ability. I have before said that the teacher inspection going on is not so much about quality work as who has the sheer physical strength to work under these type conditions, 140/50/60 kids every day and getting home at 8pm, that sort of thing. So…. how to do memorize that many kid’s names? do you think many of them, the students, are left a little impersonal as far as limits of teacher insight into individual students? Maybe it is just assembly line, here’s the work. Do the work. Task done. But, aren’t there some practical issues with keeping up that kind of pace and being able to grade papers?
Teaching history and such, you must be assigning papers. How do you read / grade 140 papers? It must be a really quick read and jot 2 comments, one “critical” and one “positive” per paper. C’mon now, that is how you do it, right? That’s still 280 handwritten comments per each time you assign a paper. How many hours to grade one paper assignment? If you were really moving with few breaks, 5 hours?
Private Citizen
November 2nd, 2012
1:23 pm
5 hours = 28 papers / hour = 2 minutes per paper.
Wow.
November 2nd, 2012
2:45 pm
You know what those of you sound like who say “Boo Hoo” “Find Another Job” “Deal With It” “Stop Whining”? You sound like bureaucrats trying to disguise yourselves as educators in the trenches who can harden your hearts to the current plight of teachers because you are one. Humph! Likely story! My parents were career educators who spent 75 years combined total as elem, middle & high school educators and as an adminstrator. If they had to do so under today’s teaching conditions, they never would have made it.
So no, teaching has never been some cushy job where they pay you for your enchanting presence. I don’t think anyone is naive enough to think that. All work conditions involve challenges. But there is a difference in reasonable, necessary challenges and unreasonably unfair, laborious and (most importantly) ineffective ones.
My mom never complained that she didn’t have time to teach. We do. My dad never said that most parents were next to impossible to reason with. We do. Neither said they were just spinning their wheels with meaningless, time-consuming, to-do list tasks and assessments that ultimately made not one bit of difference in student achievement. We do. The list of “they didn’t, but we do” goes on and on. The only people who think all this mess is just part of the territory when it comes to teaching are people who are not teachers. Same with the ones saying if we don’t like it, quit. Tell ya what, hardened jerks. Offer me a position in that big corporation you own, or better yet, champion our cause to the public and the media, you hero, and I’ll quit my teaching job and follow you anywhere. Until then, please shut up or at least tell it to one of your other personalities.
commentor
November 2nd, 2012
9:22 pm
This is typical of anything the government runs. Too many chiefs dreaming up ideas that add trivial duties for teachers. Another example of a government too large, with tentacles (regulations) that stifle the middle class. Also, students in school today have no support or guidance from home which precludes any social or academic success.
Ole Guy
November 3rd, 2012
3:17 pm
Look, Bev, you know, as well as anyone, that these “tea an’crumpet” clubs…PAGE, and all the rest of the so-called professional organizations are simply ruses; insults upon the professional integrity of educators everywhere. This is exactly why I cannot understand a group of (seemingly) educated people spinelessly going about the motions of pleasing their (organizational) elders simply to maintain calm seas. The entire teacher corps is in the process of self-destructing; imploding at all levels, and no one seems willing to rise above it all, take command and do what has to be done. It’s been a while since I schooled myself on the educational leaders throughout history…I know that the Mary Mc Cloud Bethunes throughout history faced insurmountable odds, and almost certain short-term repercussions, both personaly and professionaly. I also know that the educational opportunities which I realized were, in no small part, due to the efforts of these leaders.
To paraphrase a popular song of my generation…WHERE HAVE ALL THE LEADERS GONE?
Cobb History Teacher
November 4th, 2012
9:54 am
@Private Citizen
You are right about the numbers. In the end I cannot assigne that many papers the last paper my students wrote took me nearly a week to grade. Bottom line I do it because someone did it for me. I was a student once and adults scarificed for me so it’s my turn to give back. As much as I would like to make more money its not always about money (although it does make for a more comfrtalbe life). Even though many of my students frustrate me because they don’t work up to their potential and often carry an attitude of entitlement. I still love them.
TheTRUTH
November 6th, 2012
10:43 am
This is why I quit a few weeks ago after about 4 years. In the meantime, check out this video. Says a lot about the mentality of today’s parents:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr5kWOdkHYA&feature=related