Sad but true.

The following comments from a teacher follow the article in the Savannah Morning News detailing plans to fire 100% of the employees at the failed Beach High School. Just 30 seconds ago, I heard that story on Fox News in the background. Sorry to say, but based on my limited experience in the classroom, I find his / her comments entirely accurate.

Every day I am asked to do


By underpaid overworked teacher
03/26/10 - 11:31

Every day I am asked to do more and more as a teacher. Every day the students are asked to do less and less. We're surprised that the students can't pass the required tests? As a teacher, I am asked to reinforce daily that the students are not responsible for anything. Can't do homework? That's ok. We just won't give it. Can't get turn something in when it's due? That's ok. You'll get a second chance, and a third, and a fourth, and probably even a fifth. In the end when you just don't do it, you'll just get a chance at "credit recovery" formerly known as "social promotion". I don't want a doctor working on me who got "credit recovery" in med school. I have to buy my own paper if I want to have any to use and supply my own pencils (to the same students every day and sometimes multiple times in the SAME day). There are no consequences at school for misbehavior or at home. When I was in school, I would have never dreamed (nor would my parents have called up to school) of asking for a second chance on an assignment. We got a zero. Yes a zero...the horror. We were MUCH less likely to make another one. Now I'm told I can't give a zero when child doesn't do an assignment. This "feel good" approach to education is not doing the country any favors. We are creating a generation of students who will never be taught to be responsible for anything in their entire lives.
 
 
Locally, the 2nd, 3rd, 4th,and 5th chances are generally referred to as "re-teaching."