Imagine if 40% of the military of the United States felt highly frustrated and unhappy because of poor working conditions, low pay, and lack of respect from superior officers.
Imagine if morale in the ranks was so low that 2 out of 5 soldiers reported feeling disheartened and demonstrated signs of burnout.
Imagine if those most unhappy were not the young recruits but the seasoned veterans on whom the very success of our military depends.
If such were the case, our nation's civilian and military leadership would surely take drastic measures to increase morale, retain veteran soldiers, and improve communication and respect up and down the chain of command. Our very security as a nation would require nothing less.
Yet, this is precisely the situation among the ranks of our nation's teachers, according to a new report released this week by Public Agenda and Learning Point Associates. The report called, "Teaching for a Living: How Teachers See the Profession Today," was the result of a nationwide survey of 890 teachers, and its findings were first reported in Education Week.
According to the report, 40% of teachers described themselves as being highly "disheartened" by poor working conditions, inappropriate student behavior, and a lack of administrative support. Many also expressed frustration over low pay and the increased emphasis on standardized testing because of the No Child Left Behind Law. Many spoke of "classroom burnout" while others expressed concern over the lack of prestige facing the teaching profession.
More than half of the "disheartened" teachers teach in low-income schools, and 61 percent of these disheartened teachers described lack of administrative support as a major problem in teaching.
The news from the report was not altogether negative. 23% of those surveyed described themselves as "idealists", and 37% said that they were "contented" with their chosen profession.
Nevertheless, the level of frustration expressed by such a large percentage of teachers, particularly coming from so many veteran educators, ought to raise eyebrows within the educational community. After all, this is not the first report to signal rancor in the ranks of teachers, and it surely will not be the last. A simple Google search for the term "teacher morale" will pull up dozens of reports with similar findings.
In other words, the handwriting is on the wall. A significant percentage of the teaching corps has about had it with low pay, disruptive students, lack of respect from parents, and poor support from administrators.
Such a crisis in teacher morale will surely affect student outcomes in the short term and the effectiveness of school reform efforts over the long haul. Teachers who are frustrated and on the edge of burnout can hardly be effective instructors in the classroom.
Some suggest that it may be time for these disheartened teachers to "move on" and leave the classrooms to new, younger teachers. This approach has its advantages (younger teachers cost less!), but it does little to address the underlying structural problems and issues that have led to the current crisis of confidence in our classrooms.
Our teachers may not be fighting a shooting war, but they are waging a war that could be just as critical to our nation's future as the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan - i.e., a war against ignorance.
Maybe it's time we give these soldiers in the classroom trenches a little more respect for their efforts as well as the support they need to get the job done.
11 comments:
It is an epidemic, the ignorance and disrespect towards teachers. Many teachers I know are mostly content with their career but it could still be improved. I think that many kids just don't care about it unless they have a problem with the teacher. Standardized tests and low pay are the only reasons I see that are problems that all teachers face but there are probably a few other ones too. Don't worry Mr. Magg, I respect you! -Joseph Guerrero
I am a disheartened teacher, frustrated, stressed, but I am NOT ineffective in the classroom. Most of the stress is coming now from NCLB, Bloomburg and the rest of the top-down strategists who don't know what they are doing, won't admit that studies have shown that what they are forcing on us has improved little - in my school it's destroying us - think that there is such a thing as "objective data" that you can use to evaluate students or teachers. I'm sick of it. The highlight of my day is when I'm in the classroom. With 34 students. In a room that fits 33 desks 6 inches apart from each other. Of ESL newcomers. In 11th grade who have to sit for the English Regents. Who spent 4 hours sitting in a room "taking" the PSAT as mandated by the DOE. Spare me!
I completely agree with the study and your perspective. My mom works as a high school math teacher in D.C public schools. In her former high school, not only were the students disrespectful and disruptive, the "new" management that was supposed to transform D.C.P.S. as they had done in NYPS. However, these "professionals" would constantly come over the school intercom and scold the TEACHERS and tell them that they weren't managing the class effectively while the students, in the background, jeered. Moreover, the management would always take the side of the parents even if the student had done extremely inappropriate things and they acted as if the teacher was supposed to take responsibility. Thankfully, her new school is better, in terms of management, but the students are still the same!
I can honestly say that I love my job. I literally job out of bed and whistle in the car on the way of work. My two biggest issues I face as a close to seasoned veteran teacher are lack of student respect and adminstrative support.
I graduated high school in the not too distant past, 2002 to be exact. Yet in those seven short years there has been a drastic change. The lack of respect students display towards teachers is frightening, part of this I believe comes from parents views of teachers. I could never have imagined students talking to teachers and each other seven years ago in my high school. It is said 10% of students take up 80% of our time. Simply put, they are robbing other students.
While the lack of adminstrative support is troubling on one hand on the other hand it is good to know it is a national issue as well. In my humble opinion, adminstratives are far to willing to cave in over fear of parent reaction than support a teacher and many are too willing to move up the vertical ladder than to roll up their sleeves and solve problems.
I do not have the answers but I will still whistle on my way to work.
I completely agree. The teachers that are out there have a very heavy responsibility of teaching students and setting them out in the right direction. And when students, and sometimes even parents, simply shut out the great efforts of teachers from their minds and look towards their mistakes it becomes very hard on teachers and puts an enormous burden on their shoulders. On top of all this, teachers nationwide are getting paid on a very low scale. Their incomes are not, in my opinion, enough to cover up the great loads of work teachers have to go through day-in and day-out. I hope people out there understand the seriousness of this issue and put in some efforts to make a change for the better.
As a student at WSHS, I've been aspiring to become a teacher one day for few years now. Recently, I've heard many discouraging facts about being a teacher. This post just got added to the list. Maybe I should look into other professions..
I think it is sad that our country is not willing to tend to the needs of our teachers.They are the ones that are responsible for educating our youth and creating strong leaders for our future. If they are not compensated enough to do a good job, the future of our nation is not looking too bright
Teachers should be treated and supported better,they put in many hours outside of school and deserve more respect than they currently recieve.
I think teachers should be paid more because they are starting the foundations of the next generation of America. That sounds like a pretty lofty job to me, yet in modern day America the people who can make celebrities look better are being paid over 10x as much as teachers.
Part of the problem is the lack of support from the media. Let's face it, the screw up teacher is headline news, but the awesome teacher that students name at graduation is maybe a bleep. I just switched to teaching 3 years ago, after substituting for 2 years. I was in the corporate world. While I understand the "corporate" like vision of the top-down management of the teaching profession, it is clear to me that the executives need to spend four weeks in the average inner city school, then go report on what "we should do." I taught in a private school while completing my Masters in education, and found that 25% of students' parents were more trouble than the students who may have been troublesome but in the presence of their parents found themselves embarrassed by their behavior. One major factor also not considered in all the mandates handed down to teachers, is for example, at the high school level where junior and seniors are under tremendous pressures, not necessarily from peers but from the life they lead perhaps parenting siblings, making a living, dealing with broken, sometimes abusive homes, or living in an unsafe environment. Yet, the teacher is supposed to cram into this student what the student has not been able to get in their prior years in school. How? With lawsuits and fears of lawsuits administrations are often afraid of supporting the teacher, and so, the teacher becomes the sacrificial lamb. I want to help these students, I don't know any teacher that does not. The missed message in the "study" is that the disheartened teachers, are disheartened with the system, not the profession. I also noticed that while tooting the idealists, they glossed over that they do not plan to stay teaching. It is easy to stay idealist when your sights are elsewhere. It's called short-timers attitude.
Unfortunately, this is all so true. I am a teacher in an urban area and people cannot believe the stories I tell them. Student behavior is absolutely appalling. The principal complains that I am writing too many students up, but what is a teacher to do when one student assaults another, objects are being thrown across the room to the extent that one just can't teach and students constantly tell off their teacher? Veteran teachers have told me this group's behavior speaks to many underlying issues the students have but the administration claims I just have poor classroom mgmt. skills. I have had students choke and punch other students within the classroom, yet when I write them up and send them to administration they are back in my classroom within an hour without being suspended. Of course there isn't much learning going on in my classroom with these behavior issues that I have brought to the attention of the school's administration time and time again. The principal's response: do your job (which you obviously are not doing), resign, or be terminated. What a wonderful way to keep teachers coming back to one of the nation's poorest and most dangerous cities!
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