What truly is the focus of teaching?

August 17, 2023

     What truly is the focus of teaching? 

     As a veteran teacher I find myself knowledgable in my content and proficient in creating relationships with students. I truly enjoy being around my students and sharing what I know about zoology and environmental science. More than that I am also teaching them empathy for the world and themselves, how to be young adults, and ways to help them in their lives once they leave my classroom. These things I take pride in and as a Mom I use my Mom voice and sense of caring for them should they need some Mom advice. 

     Each year the administration gives more responsibilities to teachers and ridiculous programs to use that are not transferable from year to year meaning I have to redo my teacher pages each year. This year I also am required to participate in a PLC with three other teachers. One of them is a newer teacher who is pandered to by my supervisor who is also part of the PLC. The third teacher has a lot of personal things going on and is concerned about keeping their job so just shuts down in the meeting agreeing to whatever the new teacher suggests. So essentially the PLC is being guided by a teacher who has taught only a couple of years and still behaves like a first year teacher. I have taught for over 20 years having taught zoology for at least 10 years. I attend conferences, do research, and read books on my content. It seems like the focus of teaching is to make someone happy who requires having a late policy so they don;t "have to grade a stack of papers at the end of the year". This thing they did being their choice. I was bullied into agreeing to this late policy even though this is the first year that I am having a good deal of minority students in my classes. This means they have heard that these classes are safe and accepting. That they are interested in the way the class has been taught. 

     When I explained that if students do not ever do the work they then will never learn it I was looked at like I was speaking a different language. When I brought up that the class has many different ranges of learners with many different potential obstacles to learning I was looked at like I was crazy. It was most important that this new teacher had their way. My point of the class is that students learn and grow in the classroom and if they are falling behind that I, as the teacher, help them in any way possible. 

     In the beginning of the year I thank my classes for taking them. To learn to be the stewards of the Earth and champions of non human animals is my goal for them. In the anthropocene we need many different types of people to feel comfortable in the world and feel comfortable advocating for the parts of the world unable to advocate for themselves. This is the point of teaching. Not focusing on punishing students by taking percentages off of work because a teacher was inconvenienced grading work for a gruaduating senior.