On a field trip to the Cincinnati Enquirer
with one of my first sixth-grade classes

Almost 3,000  folks read this tribute to teachers since I first published it at the end of the 2015 school year.  I am reposting it to honor those educators who made it through yet another 185 grueling days.

“Children are like wet cement.  Whatever falls on them makes an impression.” Dr. Haim Ginott

“I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework.”  Lily Tomlin

“Summer:  The time of the year when teachers can go to the bathroom when they need to.”  Heidi McDonald

If you suspect that teachers are as thrilled about the last day of school as the kids,you’re right.  The first morning after the last day of school, I used to wake up and think, “What am I worried about?  Ohhhh, that’s right.  Nothing!”

Much admired principal, Patty Falk, a teacher of teachers

My dear former (fabulous) principal, Patty Falk, said it’s like you have a Rolodex in your head, and all night long it spins and then stops on some task you have yet to do.

Teachers’ mornings are early and, despite what some people may think, the hours are long, and no way do you get June, July, and August off.  There are stacks of papers to grade and increasingly larger stacks of nonsensical paperwork to complete.  The job is exhausting due to the constant decision-making and the multi-tasking and the competing demands, and, for primary teachers, the sitting on tiny chairs.  It always amused me when parents were so desperate for the kids to get back to school after a holiday.  I’d think, try thirty of them!

My colleagues at John Foster Dulles Elementary School ~ circa 1999

Teachers all over the world are exhaling.  They’ve been holding their breaths for ten months, waiting for some disaster to strike:  losing control of that nightmare third bell class, missing the deadline for submitting grades, sitting at his or her desk when an administer walks by (instead of strutting around the classroom, presumably saving the world), or using that damn EpiPen during the zoo field trip.

Teachers know that every day they make a difference, be it good or bad, and when they look back over the school year, faces appear, faces of children who were hungry, tired, angry, confused, or scared; teachers worry that they weren’t patient enough or challenging enough or empathic enough.  For most teachers, it’s not the successes that first spring to mind, it’s all the times they weren’t enough.

Teachers at Oakdale Elementary School ~ circa 1977

There is never enough teacher to go around.  It is not humanly possible to do all that needs to be done for a classroom of students, so at the end of the day– or the year, or a career– teachers know that they’ve fallen short.

A good teacher doesn’t need a battery of state-mandated, time-wasting, morale busting, misleading tests to know which kids still don’t read well or can’t count change or write cogent sentences.  Teachers understand the bell-shaped curve and, therefore, know that every child will not/should not go to college, that every kid doesn’t need to learn algebra, that for some kids, school is just a 13-year handicap.  It’s always amusing when you read a headline that 50% of students in some targeted school are performing “below average.”  Well, yes.

Teaching has always been hard, but it is even harder today, so hard that I know I could not do it anymore.  There have always been kids who’ve come to school with baggage; family dysfunction might include poverty, incarceration, mental illness, drug addiction, neglect, abuse.  In seven hours a day, schools are expected to undo the sixteen hour home “curriculum,” and the school’s supposed success is published in the odious “School Report Card” which holds schools accountable, not just for test scores, but also attendance, retention, and suspension.  School teachers are the only ones held accountable when students don’t perform well, even though kids have an army of “teachers” inside their homes, teaching them God-only-knows what.

School’s out forever! My last day of school

Teaching used to be more fun for the teachers and the students.  During my career, I didn’t know on the first day of school what I’d be teaching every day.  The curriculum was permeable:  it let the kids and the world in.

Maybe the kids were into The Hunger Games, so that’s what we’d read instead of Where the Red Fern Grows.  Maybe one class just didn’t get how to simplify fractions, so you had to spend a couple days backtracking and practicing math facts and factors.  A war began (because there is always a war), so we’d spend some time learning pertinent issues and geography and write about our feelings.  We took fabulous educational field trips:  to the courthouse and jail; to an Indian restaurant, a mosque and a synagogue; U.C, Xavier University, and Cincinnati State; the Great American Ballpark.

Teachers are now constrained and pressured by rigid academic calendars and the godawful tests.  Many schools have eliminated “extras” like Everybody Counts, school plays, field trips, hamster weddings, and recess (even in kindergarten!).

What hasn’t changed, though, is what makes a great teacher tick.  Michelle Red Elk, a middle school librarian, posted this on Facebook:

Michelle Red Elk

“Every day I see the people who work in schools do amazing things for kids. Yes, they teach them the required material, and the testing drama floors us all, but I am talking about the other things that are not measured and reported on. Many students have NO support outside of school, so these are places of refuge from the super drama they call home. You can feel in your heart that there is nobody at home even looking at them and nobody giving them loving care. Some of these kids push the staff each day, and it just wears them down. Even then…school staff looks them in the eyes, buys lunch, listens to the happy stories, listens to the stories that make you want to throw up, helps arrange free or reduced lunch, sends food home with kids who otherwise would not eat outside these walls, speaks to them with a loving voice, picks off the lice, accepts them for who they are right now, launders their clothing, purchases clothing and supplies for them, honors their strengths, uses personal time to stay after and come early, stands as a stable adult-who is simply just here each day carrying on, shines a light on their potential, remembers their birthday, asks about their beloved pets, counsels them, asks in on their family, tells them they are cared for, encourages them to go beyond, coaches them in sports, and a million other small and big things.”  (reprinted with permission from the author)

Thanks to all of the teachers who still know what is important, even in the wake of the assaults made on institutions of learning and educators.  In particular, I want to acknowledge my daughter, Stacey Lingo, who just finished her thirteenth year of teaching seventh grade history.  Her dad and I couldn’t be more pleased and proud that she has chosen this demanding, important career. (It’s kind of the family business.) I suspect few people know how much she cares, how much she studies, how hard she tries, and how many evenings and weekends she spends in her classroom to be the best that she can be for her students.

Oh, one more thing.  You know what teachers are thinking on the last day of school?  The upcoming first day of school, and how they’re going to do it better.

I am anxious to hear from those of you who are teachers about how you feel at the end of the school year.

circa 1978 at Oakdale Elementary School

Below is a poem  I wrote about the seemingly mundane annual picture day.  But teachers are always teaching.

Picture Day

 

“She’s the teacher

so she knows which girl

can’t sit ladylike in the front row.”

My mother is in the front row,

last one on the right. She could sit ladylike!

 

First day of school for Stacey (first grade) and Allison (kindergarten)

CLICK HERE to read What Makes a Good Teacher?  Not what “they” say

CLICK HERE to imagine the influence of one teacher. Seriously, click here!  It’s awesome!

Copyright © 2015 Sandy Lingo, All Rights Reserved.

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