I liked the spirit of where this was going -- the personal story of how a job as a public school teacher got more and more frustrating, eventually leading the author to want to hang it all up.
I'm worried that we're overloading the word "teacher", however. I'm a teacher, and I'm a learner, and I'll never stop doing those things. It's very important that we realize that the acts of teaching and learning should be important to all of us whether we are public school teachers or not. The subject is bigger than that. Much bigger.
I'm also concerned that this is beginning to sound like on of those issues where there isn't another side -- after all, who would be in favor of continuing to increase classroom size, demonizing teachers, and the constant screwing around with the rules teachers work by?
Nobody, of course. And whenever somebody describes a situation to me that is so obviously one-sided, I start becoming concerned that there are critical players or issues that are not being addressed in the essay. Even if our author is a hero and the entire universe is against him, those other forces in the universe probably work through some system of logic that should as well be considered by the reader when looking at the subject.
Finally, instead of a he-said, she-said kind of story, or even a woe-am-I kind of story, this would work much better as a systemic story. The simple sad fact of broken systems is that they are usually filled with honest people doing the best they can at all levels. Of course, that kind of story doesn't make for much of a personal essay, but it reminds us that for every essay by a school administrator talking about how bad his situation is, there's another one from a teacher, and another one from a school board member, and another one from a parent, and so on. Each of these people have an important story to tell. Personal essays by definition are very narrowly constructed items. We enjoy the emotional insight and understanding they provide and then move on, making sure that we read the dozens of other stories which are equally as valid so that we can have a bit of much-needed context.
I'm worried that we're overloading the word "teacher", however. I'm a teacher, and I'm a learner, and I'll never stop doing those things. It's very important that we realize that the acts of teaching and learning should be important to all of us whether we are public school teachers or not. The subject is bigger than that. Much bigger.
I'm also concerned that this is beginning to sound like on of those issues where there isn't another side -- after all, who would be in favor of continuing to increase classroom size, demonizing teachers, and the constant screwing around with the rules teachers work by?
Nobody, of course. And whenever somebody describes a situation to me that is so obviously one-sided, I start becoming concerned that there are critical players or issues that are not being addressed in the essay. Even if our author is a hero and the entire universe is against him, those other forces in the universe probably work through some system of logic that should as well be considered by the reader when looking at the subject.
Finally, instead of a he-said, she-said kind of story, or even a woe-am-I kind of story, this would work much better as a systemic story. The simple sad fact of broken systems is that they are usually filled with honest people doing the best they can at all levels. Of course, that kind of story doesn't make for much of a personal essay, but it reminds us that for every essay by a school administrator talking about how bad his situation is, there's another one from a teacher, and another one from a school board member, and another one from a parent, and so on. Each of these people have an important story to tell. Personal essays by definition are very narrowly constructed items. We enjoy the emotional insight and understanding they provide and then move on, making sure that we read the dozens of other stories which are equally as valid so that we can have a bit of much-needed context.