• 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
×

July 10, 2017 Current Events in Education

It’s Not the Teacher’s Fault: Where Our Education System Has It Wrong

  • About the Author
  • Latest Posts

About Jason Dobrow

  • Improving Customer Service: Another Key Aspect of School Culture - August 3, 2018
  • Creating a Positive School Culture: Why it Really Matters - July 22, 2018
  • Creating a Culture Supporting Achievement: Having fun in School! - July 3, 2018
  • What if We Eliminated Standardized Testing? - July 31, 2017
  • Science is Under Attack - July 17, 2017
  • It’s Not the Teacher’s Fault: Where Our Education System Has It Wrong - July 10, 2017
  • We Don't Really Care About Education...Do We? - June 26, 2017

I’m not a teacher and thank goodness for that because it is the hardest job in the world. As a School Counselor for many years in numerous settings, I have seen teachers blamed, criticized, micro-managed, and treated poorly by the various stakeholders in education. Since the Bush Administration implemented No Child Left Behind in the early 2000’s, much of the joy has been taken out of teaching, not to mention learning. High stakes testing, pay for performance, and constant implementation of questionable curriculums (see Common Core or Marzano’s Taxonomy) have made teaching a thankless job. More distressing than the issues listed above is the commonly spouted idea that somehow when a student does not perform well on a test, that the teacher is at fault.

Please stop me if you have heard any of this before. Fill-in-the-blank-student is struggling because fill-in-the-blank-teacher is not teaching well enough. Parents, administrators, and now an ever increasing number of students themselves are pointing the finger at the teacher when any/everything goes wrong. The teacher’s classroom management is poor, the teacher does not properly understand the educational standards and objectives, the teacher is not using the correct pedagogy when it comes to long division. While there is validity to some of the above complaints, rarely do we ever look outside the teacher and point the finger at a more likely culprit, ourselves. Sure, there is lip service paid to students from high poverty areas having worst test scores, and parents being accountable for student’s progress or lack thereof. Unfortunately, these explanations typically fall to the wayside rather quickly.

In 1954, Psychologist Julian Rotter came up with the concept of Locus of Control or the idea that the extent to which an individual has control over his/her life is based on an individual’s viewpoint. Those with external locus of control blame outside forces, while those with internal locus of control blame themselves and factors they can control (Rotter, 1954). A seminal 1971 study conducted by Nowicki & Strickland found that as students grew older their Internal Locus of Control, or the extent to which events were changeable due to their own actions, increased. One could extrapolate that if this continued to be the case that most individuals would begin to take responsibility for themselves and their failings upon reaching adulthood. Apparently, the idea of Locus of Control, and its correlation to personal efficacy (Nowicki & Strickland, 1971) has been taken out of the field of education (if it was ever there in the first place).

No longer do we subscribe to the idea that students, and by extension people in general, are responsible in any way for their success. Look no further than politicians and administrators who constantly harangue teachers without ever looking within and asking, “how am I contributing to the problem?” No matter the system (Common Core) or the legislation (No Child Left Behind, Race to The Top) the education system in the United States is severely lacking. In 2017, U.S. News and World Reported ranked the United States Education System seventh in the world, four spots lower than in 2016, and behind similar industrialized countries such as France (5th) and Canada (1st). While the reasons for the issues with the United States Education System are too numerous to count, one thing is for sure, until all of us stop blaming teachers and look inward regarding how our actions or inactions contribute to the larger scope of the problem, things are not going to get any better.

 

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Related posts:

Default ThumbnailA Tale of Two Cities: How Taxpayers Foot the Bill for Sports at the Expense of Education Default ThumbnailWhy Passing A Standardized Test Should not be a Graduation Requirement Default ThumbnailThe Conspiracy Against Public Education Default ThumbnailTrusting Teachers Creates Truly Successful Schools
« ELL Students: Is it a Language Issue or is it Something Else?
The Student Who Can, but Won't »

Reader Interactions

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

  • 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
  • "Let's Make This Happen": Following Student Interests to Interest-Based Mentorships

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.