Individulaity and Duality

I love the end of the school year. I love it for several reasons. Some are obvious. For instance, summer is around the corner. I can breath a sigh of relief that this year is almost complete. One of the biggest reasons I love this time of year, though, is that I know my students. We have a relationship as a class and with one another. I understand them better and, hopefully, that means I understand their needs better. I am so blessed in my position because many of these kids have had me for two or three years which really improves that relationship. This is a great lead in to something about public education that has been puzzling me lately.

Teachers are sent to many trainings. Most of these trainings focus on the individuality of the child. That is beautiful. I completely agree. All children learn differently, bring something new to a subject, come from a different background and have different needs. I buy into this completely. So, at these trainings we are taught ways to individualize education, ways to make this experience meaningful for each, separate, entirely different child. As a middle school teacher this gets tricky because so many students are added to that scenario. Still, I embrace the challenge and I work very hard all year to get to know my students and their needs.

Ironically, as we are being pushed to examine each individual child, we are also being told that we need to keep our lessons more uniform throughout the school and district. Some schools I have worked at have taken this to the degree that, honestly, we should just be given a script. These two trends do not mesh well in my mind. Yes, I'm creative and I will find ways to cover the whats and whens in my class while trying to maintain a classroom that considers each student. However, it still seems that this creates confusion and possibly has created the reason many students go through their school years as a name and number. It takes an immense amount of thought, planning and experience to be able to exist and do well in the dichotomy that the 'powers that be' have mandated. I want to tell the government and the board and all of these politicians that they cannot have it both ways.

When I was in school my teachers knew nothing about me. They barely remembered my name. I was a good student and I completed my assignments. I learned the one way they offered, I was one of the lucky few that did. I did not talk to them outside of class assignments, they likely did not remember me when I left their room each day. Teachers did not individualize instruction and they did not know us. I think that trend has shifted and the relationships are being built and I believe this is a positive change. However, with so much emphasis on student's performance on a single test(jobs being threatened, kids tested so often they don't even care how they do) we are not going to be able to maintain this ideal utopia of mutual understanding and respect between teachers and their students.