What Teachers Really Want
It all started with a simple question: “Teacher friends, if your school were to offer to take something off your plate to help you with your workload, what would you choose?”
In just a few days since I posted this question on a handful of teacher-focused pages on Facebook, over 200 educators from the state and Colorado and around the country responded, not to mention the hundreds of “likes” for various answers.
And teachers’ requests were highly similar.
During the holiday season, some teachers are given recognition with a small gift, a token of appreciation. Every teacher I know loves being recognized for their efforts — whether it is a heartfelt bit of praise from a student or a Starbucks card from a parent. But this year, teachers don’t want gifts, so much. What they really want is less, not more. They want their leaders to stop telling them: “Take care of yourselves” when there’s no action behind it. What they really want is a reasonable workload.
Let’s face it: teaching has always been a demanding job. It requires managing young people (the idea of which strikes fear in the hearts of many, or is likened at times to herding cats). It requires developing lessons using preordained state and national standards. It requires creativity, personality, flexibility, and time. A whole lot of time. Because for the vast majority…