Why Teaching Public School Sucks

I've taught in a number of different settings for years now and I've rarely been satisfied. There are certain flaws in today's society and educational culture that just ruin the experience for aspiring teachers. That's why teaching public school sucks.

I've taught for a year at an inner-city school. I've taught for a semester at a private college as well as additional classes on a limited basis. And I've substituted for a year at some of the area's best (and worst) suburban schools in several different school districts. I've probably been in over 100 different classroom settings and have substituted for some of the teachers for more than a week at a time. All of my teaching has been 6th grade and above. My wife is in her second year of teaching 7th and 8th grade and she's shared many of her experiences with me. I have more than my share of experiences with the public education system to base my opinions on, and in my opinion, the situation is dire - especially if you're a teacher.

In all my experiences, from one end of the educational spectrum to the other, I've noticed quite a few negative patterns in the students and in the administrations. For the students, I can really only say the fault comes down to the parents, and in two different categories. For the administration, the situation is a bit more complicated, but in many ways it mirrors the problems of the students and their parents.

I firmly believe that 99.9% of the time, a child's maturity and social graces (or lack thereof) reflects the situation they were raised in. This doesn't change until quite some time after the child begins adolescence, usually not until they leave the situation they were raised in, or at earliest, maybe when the child is 14 or 15 years old. If my belief is true, then the children I've taught are in many ways the simple reflection of their parents (minus basic personality differences). I can tell you that through years of encounters with children's parents, my belief about this has only gotten stronger.

So, if these parents have caused their children to be so disagreeable as to effectively ruin a public school teacher's work experience, how'd they do it? I think it really comes down to two major and oft-repeated flaws with the general feelings about parenting today. I may even blame the problem on the once-popular advertising slogan, "If you're gonna go, go all out!" At least that's how the problem represents itself. These children's parents either do way too much or way too little.

Let's start with "way too little," otherwise known as "neglect." Everyone can agree that this is a problem and it's even an offense recognized by the law. Too much neglect and they take your children away. Neglect happens when a parent just really doesn't care about their kid, good or bad. Where it hurts the public education system is that it turns out lots of children who don't care about anything, especially not anything involving authority figures. They won't do their homework or study for tests - there's no one at home who cares whether they do it or not or if they fail all their classes. They don't care if they get in trouble in class - the discipline is minor (I'll talk about that with administration) and no one cares at home whether they're in trouble or not. You can't convince their parents to help their kids because their parents won't show up for scheduled conferences.

Basically, when a parent does "way too little," you've got a student with poor work habits who doesn't respond to available discipline. This is a student who often disrupts the entire classroom in an effort for attention from his peers... or anyone really! He doesn't get attention at home, so he'll get it where he can. This kind of student interrupts almost every attempt at teaching a subject and often makes it very difficult for his classmates to learn anything. And this kind of student makes a teacher's core job duty, teaching, almost impossible and thus, immensely frustrating.

And then you've got parents who do "way too much", otherwise known as over-protection, or simply over-parenting. They think their job is to make the kid's life as pleasant as possible. You might say they care too much, but really, they just don't understand that their own self-discipline is necessary to teach the concept to their children. They do their kids' homework for them. They always buy them their favorite snacks at the store. They defend their kid from any trouble he might've gotten himself into by denying that it's even a possibility, or at least by refusing to subject the kid to the possible unpleasantness of a punishment.

The child of a parent who does "way too much" is equally a pain to have in the classroom. They're not always striving for attention, but that's just because they think they already have all the attention. If they start to realize that a teacher or other student isn't giving them 100% of their undivided attention, they start to fuss and whine and usually get a very bad attitude. They don't take responsibility for any of their actions or work (often because they don't even do it themselves). Thus, even if their homework grades are good, they won't do any work in class nor do they have a clue when it comes time for tests. They have no concept of personal responsibility or of respect for others. They believe that if they want something, they get it and if they don't, it's obviously someone else's fault.

A teacher of a student like this will likely have endless calls and conferences with the parent(s), always defending their child, arguing for better grades, special privileges, and at last resort, griping to the principal about 'such an awful teacher!' This sucks and it's unfair for that child's classmates who aren't getting the attention that they do honestly deserve because the teacher is too tied down trying to dampen this girl (and her parents') sense of entitlement and doesn't even have enough time to properly prepare lessons and fulfill other duties of being a teacher.

The truth is, probably only 20% of public school students fall into either category. The "way too little" category obviously happens more often in inner-city schools where poverty and crime are high. The "way too much" category is most prevalent in suburban schools. Still, both types exist in both settings. If I had my choice, I honestly don't know which I'd rather deal with. The "way too little" can tend to get somewhat violent, but the entitled snobbish attitudes of "way too much" may actually be a greater damage to the student's character. My choice would be to deal with neither, and as a public school teacher, I don't think it should be a fundamental part of my job description.

A teacher's job is to teach. Any character lessons or positive emotional support of students aren't part of the core responsibilities; they're options for going above and beyond. Sure, a good teacher will make learning entertaining, applicable, and intuitive. But even a good teacher is far less effective, their efforts sometimes being brought to a standstill, in today's public schools.

The 80% of the kids who aren't causing problems really deserve their chance at learning and making the most of their education and the most of their abilities. The thing is, we can't change the way a parent raises their children, especially the ones who over-parent. The ability to manipulate your children and bring out your worst character flaws through them is considered a God-given right in America.

So, if we're not going to fix parenting for the 20% of kids who are ruining their classmates' education (and we have to agree that we can't, at least not with today's 'freedoms'), then shouldn't the school create a way to work around it? Sure they should. But there's one prevailing philosophy that's overriding many schools' abilities or desires to do that. "No Child Left Behind." It's not just a philosophy - it's legislation!

It's not a bad idea, in and of itself; it's rather ideal actually. But the simple truth is that some children will be left behind. Some children, especially after years of poor parenting and poor responses to being dealt a bad hand, are better suited to menial labor and other tasks which have a roundabout way of teaching them what their parents didn't. I know it sounds cynical, I know it sounds like I'm 'giving up' on some of the children, etc., etc. But with today's system, most of these 20% kids wind up there anyway; it just usually takes them tens of thousands of dollars on college loans and possibly an unintended pregnancy or a little bit of alcohol poisoning before they get there. Wouldn't it be better to start them early and avoid some of the harder-to-live-past obstacles of early adulthood?

Maybe you don't agree with me on that, and I understand that few people do. But at the least, it needs to be understood that these 20% problem children need to be removed from the regular classroom environment. Unfortunately, this is the one thing current school administrations refuse to do in today's philosophies of "inclusive" learning environments. However, when these students remain in the classroom, they make teaching a horrible job for teachers and worse than that, they're keeping their decent classmates (a solid 80% of the classroom) from learning and taking advantage of their educational opportunities.

Even if you don't want to enroll them in work-study because you're afraid you'll "leave them behind," it needs to be understood that their character deficiencies are so great that they require a more personal educational experience. These 20% problem children need someone (with only five students in one class at most, but preferably just one) to help them re-learn the rules of society and basic behavioral concepts.

Now, this is still teaching, but of a different, more basic type - call it behavioral or character teaching if you want. This is the kind of thing that the 80% of good students have already learned well enough to benefit from a regular teacher and can then begin to learn certain subjects - English, Math, Science, even a foreign language - the subjects their teachers were hired to teach. These problem children just aren't ready for it yet and they shouldn't be allowed to hold the decent students back.

Some teachers would love to be hired as a behavioral or character teacher. But not me, and not many of my colleagues. If I'm hired to teach French, that's what I want to teach. If I'm hired to teach science, for God's sake, let me teach science! If regular subject teachers wanted to be these kids' parents, they'd have given birth to them or at least adopted them.

If these children were inappropriately parented and we want to believe that it's our responsibility to drag them along by their ears, than let's get a different type of teacher to instill the necessary public skills and character before they're ready to move on to a regular classroom. But please, don't allow these children to keep holding the other children back. And don't allow them to continue ruining what should otherwise be an enjoyable and all-around positive job. As it is, teaching public school just sucks.