TEACHERS GET A BUM RAP

By Audrey Phillips
Letter to the editor of the Mobile Press-Register:  (Published 09/30/2010)

Sound Off constantly publishes negative comments from people about teachers. I wonder if some of these people have the slightest idea what teachers go through everyday to do their job.

Much of a teacher’s time is spent in maintaining order in the classroom. While many students come from good families, many are raised in dysfunctional homes that produce children with bad attitudes and behavior.

The No Child Left Behind Act and its policies should be reversed. Some children need to be in smaller classes with more specialized attention. It is not fair to them to be included with the mainstream children, as happens in the elementary schools.

Since they cannot always understand what the teacher is trying to get across to the class, they become bored and disruptive. They need a teacher who has specialized in learning disabilities and is trained to help a child achieve their maximum level of performance.

Teachers are judged by the standardized test scores of their class. This is unfair! Classroom test scores are based on children who have attention deficit syndrome, learning disabilities, lackadaisical attitudes, lazy work habits, poor parenting influences, and mixed in with the children who truly apply themselves.

I would love to see everyone who writes negative comments into Sound Off be made to teach for a week in a classroom. (Press-Register left this last sentence off but I think it should have been included)  Better yet, their time would be better spent in making sure their children were motivated to learn and disciplined properly before going to school so that the teachers could do their jobs better.

P.S. (10/01/2010)  Where in the world would all of us be without teachers?  Most teachers are dedicated to their profession.  As usual, the media concentrates on the negative behavior of some teachers and blows it way out of proportion, leaving the "good" teachers to suffer the consequences.  I am sick of hearing the media blaming everything on the teachers and not holding the students and parents accountable for their part in any failings of the educational system.