| What tired Oregon teachers say (when parents aren't listening) |
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Original Source | The Oregonian
Elementary music specialist Anne Lewis includes a lot of motion in her music classes at Bridgeport Elementary School. When the kids sing about frogs, they jump like frogs.
That's just one item on a wish list from exhausted educators clawing their way toward Christmas break. They say they desperately need smaller classes and more backup. They'd also love more parents to act like parents, or at least allies, if teachers are going to make it through the school year. "Most teachers accept the fact that yes, we are raising these children, and other people are raising ours," says Laura Shingleton, a middle school teacher in Salem. These kids need order and support, she says, more than their preoccupied parents and overwhelmed educators may realize. I told a story last week about an education assistant in the Portland metro area who has grown to dread her job. The combination of more unruly kids and fewer resources has left her drained and disenchanted. I asked readers who spend time in classrooms to share their own experiences. Have kids gotten harder to take? If so, why? More than 150 readers, mostly teachers, poured out their hearts in long essays about struggling schools and fraying families. Most asked for confidentiality. Here's what startled me: Their descriptions of problems were eerily similar. Though they hailed from different parts of Oregon, from Beaverton and Portland to Newport, Salem and Josephine County, they listed the same three problems: * Class sizes too big to manage. * Lack of backup during the school day. * Parents who can't or won't help. "My impression is that kids and families are far more stressed these past couple of years than they used to be," says Helen Babbitt, a longtime elementary school teacher in Troutdale. She still loves teaching children about the joy of reading and writing, but her job is harder -- and maybe lonelier -- now that her school is short on parent volunteers, instructional aides and electives. "My plate as a classroom teacher," she says, "is very full." The poor economy and high jobless rate remain unwanted visitors at Oregon schools this fall. More children come to class with unemployed parents or unstable housing. They carry with them the anxious and unsettled feelings of home. These children sit in classrooms crammed with desks, since Oregon has the nation's second-largest class sizes. The latest round of belt-tightening means that many schools have fewer teachers to meet the kids' needs -- and also fewer education assistants, counselors and librarians. "So you have more children in a classroom with more special needs and fewer adults to deal with this," says David Turnoy, a teacher with the West Linn-Wilsonville School District. "Is it any wonder stress has increased?" Meanwhile, educators face huge pressures to get their school ratings up. This worthy goal has a few unintended consequences. Teachers feel like they spend half the year on testing and the other half on test prep. And many teachers say administrators discourage them from holding students accountable for major disruptions, tardiness, absenteeism or late work. (Too many suspensions or failing grades can make a school look bad on paper.) "Kids will be kids," says Dennis Hartinger, a retired Portland teacher, "but the way adults deal with the situation is easily picked up by these students and used to their advantage." Layered on top of everything else is a phenomenon that seems to bother teachers most of all. They say a growing number of parents undermine their children's academic success and personal growth, undercutting teachers in the process. This bad behavior crosses the socioeconomic spectrum, teachers say: Low-income parents who let their kids skip school. Middle-class parents who drop off their kids late every day. Wealthy parents who take lots of vacations during the school year and demand tailored lesson plans. Then there are the parents who do their kids' homework, insist that the teacher accept late work, berate the teacher in front of their child, send nasty notes using the child as a messenger, skip parent-teacher conferences, spam the teacher with e-mails, fail to return repeated phone calls, or lavish their kids with video games and cell phones rather than books or attention. The majority of parents are not like this, teachers say. But even a half-dozen challenging parents in a classroom of 35 children can change the whole dynamic of the school year. "Early in my career, parents and teachers were partners," said John Harrington, a recently retired teacher from Newport. "... Now it seems many parents side with their children against teachers and administrators." Of course, this story is more complicated than saintly teachers, slacker parents and struggling schools. Some Oregon schools still manage to be happy, orderly places. These schools invariably have strong administrators and a cohesive staff, plus a benevolent army of helpful parents. Also, some teachers are truly awful. One burned-out teacher can drag down an entire school and drive parents crazy. A few of these bad apples wrote to me, mostly to grouse about children and paint themselves as victims. The bitter burnouts were a distinct minority, though. Overall, I was struck by Oregon educators' empathy toward their students and their gritty determination to keep going. They love "their kids," even if they've got 35 students in a classroom built for 20. They find ways to psych themselves up for a new week, even if they're in tears by the week's end. But Oregon teachers can't go on like this forever. Neither can the rest of the school staff, from the secretaries to the principals. Their jobs are too tenuous, their budgets too unstable, their classrooms a too-perfect mirror for every social trouble. They need help. They need volunteers. Like the rest of us, they need reassurance that things are going to get better. And they'd love to have more parents on their side. -- Associate Editor Susan Nielsen, The Oregonian.
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Torsten Kjellstrand - The OregonianNews Archives
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