Stop the Madness

Teachers are a treasure in terms of their value to young people and advancing the values and ideals of our society. If that sounds like 'pie in the sky' so be it. In working with and observing what is taking place in our nation's public schools I have come away not only impressed but saddened to witness the overburdening of our country's teachers.

Teachers have plenty to take care of with teaching, preparing lessons and assessing student learning. Add to this work are the necessary requirements to participate in clubs, school functions and athletics. This has always been the case.

But the laundry list of other obligations is simply getting out of hand. Don't believe me? Talk to teachers and allow me to provide evidence of the 'maddening' duties required of teachers that simply detracts from the time, energy and effort necessary to take care of what I have outlined in the previous paragraph.

Here's but a sample of the 'maddening' list of duties that needs to be looked at and, in many cases, put to a halt. Teachers are constantly dealing with; breakdown/slowness of technology, a shortage of classroom assistance, a lack of resources, having to sacrifice teaching time for mandated testing, often having to respond to 50 to 100 emails in a day, limitations on their individual teaching strengths due to the perceived notion that a curriculum MUST adhere to a certain method of teaching, absolutely ridiculous teacher evaluation tools and so much more.

For the sake of the teachers and kids...stop the insanity.

Dick