Public school teachers

Before I go into any more system-bashing, I must say that I am not against most teachers. In my experience most (not all) teachers want to see their students learn, grow, and succeed. Many teachers go way beyond the minimum to help students. Many teachers have classrooms so full of a variety of children they have to do their best to teach to the "middle" and provide other opportunities for the "gifted" and the "challenged." To the extent any one person can do that while juggling so much besides teaching - administration demands, teaching in preparation for standardized testing, individualized education plans, unhelpful parents, children whose home lives are sociology case studies - I have great respect for these teachers that are genuinely trying to do their best to educate students. Their job is not easy and the "system" makes it harder.

What if you are teaching high schoolers whose biology dictates that they don't really wake up and function until after 9 a.m.? Then why are we starting school at 7:35 a.m.? To get out of school in time to make sports practice and games?

If children lose so much over a summer that classes spend 1-2 months in the fall reviewing from last year, why are we not looking at year-around educational options?

If teachers claim (rightly so) that the strongest influence on a child is his/her home life, then are schools working with parents to help improve the home life? Are parents offered parenting classes? Financial management classes? Discipline classes? -- all these NOT the court mandated-type, I might add.

Mostly, though, I feel sorry for teachers who are also followers of Jesus Christ. To be muzzled in your own classroom and to not be able to share your faith with students would be horrible. It would be like limping around on one foot because you have to keep the other in a splint. We are to be salt and light in a dark world and it seems like the current public education system is not conducive to much light-sharing.