By Janet Krebs, CONNECT 4 Kids Parenting Coach
Let me share a beautiful article a friend of mine posted on social media recently. These are the stories that make me think.
“Today, a seven-year-old told me I was useless. That’s how my last day as a public-school teacher began. No smirk, no specific attitude, just a plain attitude. With an indifferent voice like he was commenting on the weather. “You don’t know how to do TikTok. My mom says old people like you should retire.” I smiled. I’ve learned not to take it personally, but still I felt something crack a little deeper inside.
My name is Mrs. Carter. (It could be Mrs. Anybody, right?) I’ve been teaching first grade in a small town outside Columbus, Ohio for 36 years. Today, I packed up my classroom for the last time. When I started in the late 80s, teaching felt like a calling, a sacred bond. We were trusted, even admired. We weren’t paid much, but there was respect, and that made up for a lot. Parents brought in brownies on conference nights. Kids drew me birthday cards with misspelled words and crooked hearts. I remember those days as a teacher.
And when little ones finally read their first sentence out loud, there was a kind of joy that no paycheck could ever match. But something’s changed slowly, quietly, year by year, until one day I looked around my classroom and I didn’t recognize my job anymore. It’s not just the iPads and the smart boards, though they’ve taken over too, and it’s exhausting. It’s the disrespect. It’s the loneliness. I used to spend evenings cutting out paper apples for bulletin boards, and now I spend them documenting every incident on a student behavior app, just in case the parent threatens to sue. I’ve been screamed at in front of my class, not by students, but by parents. One told me, “You clearly don’t know how to handle children. I watched a video of you on my son’s phone.” He was filming me while I tried to calm another child having a meltdown. No one asked how I was doing. No one cared that I was holding it together with gum, caffeine, and sheer will.
They’re growing up in a world that’s too fast, too loud, too disconnected. They come to school sleep-deprived, overstimulated, and addicted to screens. Some are angry. Some are scared. Some don’t know how to hold a pencil. And they certainly don’t know how to say please. And we’re expected to fix it all in six hours with no aids, 28 students, and a budget that wouldn’t buy snacks for a birthday party. Now I’m told to focus on learning targets, data points, and measurable outcomes. My value is based on how well a six-year-old fills in bubbles on a test in March.
I once had a principal pull me aside and say, “You’re too warm and fuzzy.” This district wants results as if human connection was a liability.
I’m not gonna continue the rest of it. You get the gist. I don’t have the answers folks, but I resonate with what this woman is saying. It captures the sentiment of many of our teachers that have either left the profession or still remember days gone by. Again, I don’t have all the answers, but I do think that when it comes to education, our school systems, our kids, our teachers, the institution of education, something’s got to give. And I don’t know whose responsibility it is. I think it’s all of us.
Maybe this could be a man in the mirror moment when we look and say to ourselves, is there something I can do within my family to change this? Just a thought.
