Real expectations for teachers a must

Do we expect too much of teachers? Too little? And is there any way to make it “just right”?

Of course, we expect too much. These days especially we want teachers to be able to do everything. When they can’t or when they don’t, we are disappointed and angry. I don’t excuse teachers who ought to be more competent or excuse incompetence in doctors and other professionals.

Teachers are like everybody else, but we want them and actually need them to be better. That’s part of what is so troubling.

Teachers are dumb and smart in some of the same ways that other people are. That includes doctors and lawyers who make mistakes and who don’t care enough about their work. Sure, we are spending more than we used to on schools, still not enough. Sure, teachers today are not like they once were. No more Miss Prim and Proper leading a spinster life away from the rough and tumble of daily life.

Yet, expectations from earlier years still hang on. A reader writes: “I am disgusted with the teachers around me. They don’t know grammar. They seem afraid of simple arithmetic. They wear trashy clothes. We need teachers who are great examples and deserve to be respected.”

I agree. But, where will we get them when the pay scale is low and the working conditions tough. A reader writes about her daughter teaching her first year in senior high: “Many of her students are classified as Special Education, yet the supporting teacher is not present regularly. Many students live in group or foster homes, and move from relative to relative. Out of 100 students, only four parents/guardians showed up for back-to-school night. Some students have children of their own. Almost all do not do any homework .The school does not have enough books. What my daughter has brought in to supplement school supplies has been stolen.”

Not all teachers face these conditions. Yet, many do. That’s why it’s a start but it’s not good enough just to raise standards or get new tests or a new curriculum.

These students bring their problems from the home and community into the classroom. Then, we expect the teacher on her own to solve them. Would we send a doctor to do an operation without supplies or without backup support from a team of nurses and caregivers? Of course not.

We need teachers who can read and write and do math and science and know how to teach these subjects. This is no small achievement. Good teachers, whether in the suburbs or the inner city, have to do even more. They have to care. They have to keep learning. They have to connect with families and community.

We need to have high expectations for teachers. We can’t have them without having high expectations for ourselves as parents, as members of the community. Mostly, what makes teachers better are the students who come into their classroom, prepared and ready to work, with families doing their part.

Certainly, there are teachers who should not be teaching in the first place. Maybe they should be in quiet offices. Their skills in English and math may be too low. Some teachers are arrogant. Some are bullies. No excuses for this, but policing the professions is not easy, either in education or in medicine. Some teachers need to be in other lines of work, just as doctors do.

We need real expectations about schooling that can be met. The National Education Goals of a decade ago had the United States scoring at the top in almost every subject. We do have Nobel Prize winners. Yet, we have a ways to go, especially in math and science for our students today.

When I started teaching, I was paid $4,500 annually and there was a dress code that included no slacks. The pay is better now and dress code is relaxed. But, the unrealistic expectation that we are entitled to have better teachers, no matter their pay, no matter the working conditions, need to be changed.