Jon Schoening’s Educational Blog

Why do teachers do what we do for average to below average pay nationally with little respect for our profession and/or suppposed meager importance on the grand scheme of things in a capitalistic society such as our own?

We do not do it for money. We do not do it for presitge. We do not do it for glory.

Teachers live for the moments when the light bulb goes off in a student’s mind, when the underdog overcomes a challenge, or when we see our efforts inspire a student to achieve something for which they did not even seek out to achieve or believed they could. It is when a student smiles because they read their first word or their first chapter book. We do it for the students and the communities we have committed our lives to educate. We create possibilities, not profit margins. We have the power to create dreams as well as hope. We invest our time and energies in the future, not futures markets or speculation. We invest in people, not portfolios. That is what we do often without regard for our own needs or well being. It is often a thankless profession, because the return interest on our investment does not occur for decades to come. We may never see or hear the appreciation, but it is there in the hearts of all the students we have touched over the years.

In the educational arena today, educators are faced with the reality that their professional reputation and effectiveness as an educator will be measured by the gains that their students make on a standardized test. This is the direction that the pendulum has swung. The intent of these standardized tests is being misused to the detriment of students. Authentic teaching is being sacrificed to meet a political goal with a substandard measurement that attempts to lump all students into one category.

I am all for a movement that promotes teacher accountability, but this is not the way to do it. The standardized test should be a measure to identify areas that need improvement. This could mean curricular, possibly faculty, staff development, or areas that need more resources of training. Placing all the blame on a teacher using one test is a gross misuse of standardized test- a quick and dangerous pseudo solution to a serious problem.