I have often asked myself, Am I doing enough for my students? I have never really been able to answer this question. When you are in undergrad you have these Polly Anna dreams that you will walk into the classroom and be able to teach every one of those kids how to read and write and do multiplication on the first day of school. Unfortunatly, that is not going to happen.
As a teacher you are going to be faced with the demands not only of the students, which you have to teach so that they may become productive members of society, but you are also responsible for attending meeting about meeting that were discussed at a previous meeting. You are asked (aka.told) to sign up for after school duties that take away time you could offer tutoring to students who need additional assistance. You are given teachers additions and tols that you must adhear to them without any diversions. This includes skipping teachable moments because we must all be on the same page at the same time. And finally, you will be told to only worry about the top 80% of your class because those are the students that they are counting on for the high- stakes testing.
Now some of situations that I mentioned above may seem a little far fetched, but they do happen. That is when I start to think about what is convienent for teachers. I think that teachers now are facing a war with no winners. I know many great teachers that keep trying to go above and beyond for their students, leaving their own comfort and convience on the sidewalk. However, what are they getting in return? Many are being told that "The Test" is the most important thing and that all the extra projects are irrelevant to what is important. I just can't figure out how this all important test is going to help these kids when they don't know that Canada is part of North America or that Australia is a country and a continent.
Being a teacher is not convienent, it is(in my opinion) on of the heardest jobs there is. We are responsible for creating the future of the world. You would think that with this great responsibility in our hands, they would not be so tied up.
