• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Advertising
  • Write for Us
  • Job Board
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
    • Consulting
    • Advertising
  • Shop
    • Books
    • Shirts

The Educators Room logo

  • Start Here
    • Impact Statements: Teacher Expertise
    • Newsletter
  • Browse Topics
    • Content Strategies
      • Literacy
      • Mathematics
      • Social Studies
      • Educational Technology
      • ELL & ESOL
      • Fine Arts
      • Special Education
      • Popular Topics
        • Teacher Self-Care
        • Instructional Coach Files
        • Common Core
        • The Traveling Teacher
        • The Unemployed Teacher
        • The New Teacher Chronicles
        • Book Review
        • Grade Levels
          • Elementary (K-5)
          • Middle (6-8)
          • Adult
          • New Teacher Bootcamp
          • Hot Button Topics
            • Menu Item
              • Principals' Corner
              • Charter Schools
              • Confessions of a Teacher
              • Interviews
              • The State of Education
              • Stellar Educator of the Week
            • Menu
              • How to Fix Education
              • Featured
              • Ask a Teacher
              • Teacher Branding
              • Current Events
  • Podcasts
  • Courses
    • Practicing Self-Care to Avoid Teacher Burnout- An 8 Week Course
    • Becoming An Educational Consultant
    • Teacher Branding 101:Teachers are The Experts
    • The Learning Academy
    • Books
    • Shirts
  • Education in Atlanta
  • Teacher Self-Care
  • The Coach's Academy
menu icon
go to homepage
subscribe
search icon
Homepage link
  • Advertising
  • Write for Us
  • Job Board
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
    • Consulting
    • Advertising
  • Shop
    • Books
    • Shirts
×

October 6, 2019 Confessions of a Teacher

Is Teaching Even About Teaching Anymore?

  • About the Author
  • Latest Posts

About Allyson A. Robinson

With a deep commitment and passion for all things youth, Allyson began her teaching journey in 2014. After two years of teaching her “kids” in Baltimore, she decided to try taking her passion abroad to the UAE. She is currently back in the USA, teaching in the Greater Atlanta area. Her love of building authentic relationships with students travels with her wherever she goes. Wife, twin mom, writer, and your kid’s favorite teacher.
  • Dear Teacher Friends, It’s Time to Show More Empathy - February 24, 2020
  • This is Not the Teacher I Wanted To Be - February 5, 2020
  • Survival Mode on Auto Pilot - January 28, 2020
  • The Intention Form: Tell The Truth...Shame The Devil - January 13, 2020
  • “Why Didn’t Anyone Help Me?” The Truth Behind Abused Teachers Who Took Matters Into Their Own Hands - December 16, 2019
  • #RealTalk Why We Haven’t Quit Teaching - November 11, 2019
  • First Year Teachers, Y’all Alright? - November 4, 2019
  • #TeacherGuilt - October 31, 2019
  • Is Combat Pay Worth It? - October 30, 2019
  • 3 Ways to Stop Ignoring the Teacherpreneur In You - October 14, 2019

“Teaching isn’t even about teaching anymore.”

When these words flowed from my fellow coworker’s mouth, I felt my heart skip a beat. 

She was absolutely right. 

Although I’m still considered a newbie in this game called teaching, I knew exactly what she was talking about. 

Teaching Has Become a Business

From my limited view, I could still see that teaching had become more of a business than about the students we serve. Teaching has become more of a show and tell than about the students we serve.

Teaching has become more of a show and tell than about the students we serve. Click To Tweet 

Flowing from the top of the food chain to the bottom, where teachers reside, students being a top priority is used as more of a cliche than an actual baseline for financial and district-wide decisions. It’s always good to hear, but at the heart of many districts, students are just used as pawns for new systems and curriculums, while being photographed and used in videos to show the “growth” from these systems being put in place. 

With the vast changes in curriculums, textbooks, and state exams, teachers aren’t able to master methods of teaching the correct level of rigor required for students to barely pass a state exam. Deep down, we hate teaching to the test or trying to view the test requirements beforehand, but it becomes a real challenge when our end-of-year evaluation is based on growth and data from content that our children were never able to master coming in. 

From the Government on Down

What’s even more unfortunate is that those running our country (and others as well) find more value in outsourcing leaders and business owners, whose experience in education doesn’t extend beyond their own time as a student. It’s always funny to me that people from the outside of the classroom take brief snapshots of what’s happening and assume after one or two visits that they’re experts in education. 

Get real. 

It’s sickening to think of what we have to “do” to our students every day as a result of the decisions made by the “experts”. 

I see the frustration on my kid's faces every day when I have to introduce yet another topic for them to “master”, knowing that they weren’t even close to mastering the topic from the week before. I attempt to make it exciting, fun, and applicable to real-life scenarios, but just because I make my room into a Big Top Tent or perform “character trait surgery” on characters doesn’t mean that my kids are mastering anything! It’s just nice to look at and share on my social media accounts with the hashtag #teachersofinstagram. 

But what more can you do when you have to rush through content and don’t want students to get overwhelmed and mentally shut down? 

The question becomes “What can we as educators do to end this constant “educational” abuse that we experience first hand and then have to pass onto our students?”

Our children are suffering. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. 

Now that I think about it, the article should probably be called “Is Teaching About Kids Anymore?”

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Related posts:

Race-Based Silence is Violence The STEM Revolution in Higher Education Quit Teaching#RealTalk Why We Haven’t Quit Teaching FineOpinion: Right Now Things Are Hard, But It's Going to Be Fine
« Five OUTRAGEOUSLY OUTDATED Things in Modern Education
5 Reasons To Consider Advising A Student Club »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jteach says

    October 06, 2019 at 11:40 pm

    You are so on target and insightful. Education reform (and corporate billionaire reformers) has done so much damage to education. You should follow Diane Ravitch's blog and read her books.
    https://dianeravitch.net
    https://twitter.com/DianeRavitch

    Reply
    • T says

      November 11, 2019 at 7:48 pm

      If you have. Ern teaching a few years and have this attitude, then perhaps teaching isn't for you

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

The Educator's Room was launched in 2012 to amplify the voice of educators. To date, we have over 45+ writers from around the world and boast over twelve million page views. Through articles, events, and social media we will advocate for honest dialogue with teachers about how to improve public education. This mission is especially important when reporting on education in our community; therefore, we commit our readers to integrity, accuracy, and independence in education reporting. To join our mailing list, click here.

What we do

At The Educator's Room, we focus on amplifying and honoring the voice of educators as experts in education. To date, we have over 40 staff writers/teachers from around the world.

Popular Posts

  • Ask The Educator's Room: I'm dating a student's dad. Should we tell the school?
  • My Union Showed Up for Me, and I'll Never Forget It
  • Your Students Deserve a Diverse Classroom Library. Here's How to Set It Up.
  • You Don't Have to Watch the Tyre Nichols Video, But Be Ready to Talk About It

Featured On

Buy Our Books/Courses

How to Leave Your Job in Education

Practicing Self-Care to Avoid Teacher Burnout

Using Your Teacher Expertise to Become an Educational Consultant

Check out our books on teaching and learning!

The Learning Academy

Footer

↑ back to top

About

  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimer
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Accessibility Policy

Newsletter

  • Sign Up! for emails and updates

Contact

  • Contact
  • Services
  • Media Kit
  • FAQ

 

Copyright © 2021 The Educator's Room.