As city and state school boards around the nation deal with changes and amendments to school curriculums and the proposed banning of books by far-right wing legislators and parents, Alexandra Robbins’ new book, The Teachers – A Year Inside America’s Most Vulnerable, Important Profession (Dutton, An Imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2023), brings an important and needed perspective to the plight of teachers and the difficulties they face.
Robbins, who previously looked at nursing careers in her 2016 book The Nurses: A Year of Secrets, Drama, and Miracles with the Heroes of the Hospital (Workman Publishing), spent six years researching and interviewing hundreds of teachers nationwide. She even spent a semester as a long-term substitute teacher to get a real feel for the classroom.
The result is an in-depth look at the plight of the nation’s teachers focusing on three educators. Penny, a Southern middle-school math teacher who grapples with a divorce and a toxic work environment; Miguel, a special education teacher who is a strong advocate for his students but faces numerous challenges from administrators; and Rebecca, an East Coast elementary school teacher who struggles with keeping up with her schoolwork and having a private life. Robbins also provides a wide-ranging view of the status of today’s professional educators and the challenges they face in the 21st century.
When I was in grades K-12 in the 1950s and early 1960s there was a presumption that the teacher was always right. Many parents had little or no contact with their children’s teachers. What information parents received came through an annual parent teacher conference — if the parent chose to attend — and a biannual report card. In serious situations a note arrived from the teacher — which usually did not bode well for the student. Fast forward to today. For many parents the opposite presumption is the rule — the student is always right, and the teacher is always wrong.
Some parents text and email teachers constantly. Test scores and student evaluations are posted daily. While there are certainly positive aspects of parents being involved in their child’s education, so-called “helicopter” parents hover over their children, often making unreasonable demands on already overworked and underpaid teachers, not to mention the personal time it takes the teacher to respond to emails and texts. And then there are the parents at the other end of the spectrum that don’t care about what goes on at their child’s school and fail to respond when teachers reach out to them for guidance regarding their child’s educational experience.
Some parents feel free to scrutinize and critique assignments and take every opportunity to second guess teachers, school administrators, school boards and persons trained in education and child psychology. Many parents take the position that they pay the salary of the teacher and as a result should be calling the shots.
Robbins starts each chapter, which are set up according to the months of the school calendar, with actual quotes from emails and messages sent to teachers: Here are a few notable ones:
A Maryland administrator to a group of female math teachers: “Long-term subs are really hard to find, so I need you to not get really sick or pregnant this year.”
At a district-organized meeting for elementary school staff about active shooter situations, a police officer told a group of teachers “Well, you guys are pretty much screwed, because bullets go right through the wall in your buildings, so good luck.”
A parent texted a middle-school English teacher: “Why are you having my daughter read porn?” The book was Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl.
Unfortunately, there is a perception among the public that teachers work short hours and have their summers off. But they fail to understand that teaching involves preparation time, requires continuing education, staff meetings and time spent setting up a classroom, and often spending your own money for supplies not provided by school districts.
Robbins deals in depth with the issue of violence in schools and cites examples of teachers who have suffered serious physical injuries. (The book went to print before the January 6, 2023, shooting of a teacher by a six-year-old in Virginia)
When a sixth-grade teacher in New Jersey sustained permanent nerve damage in her neck after being struck by a student, the student was suspended for one week and then sent back to her classroom. In response to the teacher’s request to remove the student, the principal told her to “put on your big girl panties and deal with it.”
Robbins cites the case of a student who had numerous complaints lodged against him due to mental health issues and an obsession with guns. The student was suspended 18 times in one school year but was allowed to remain in school. The student was Nikolas Crus, the student at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School who massacred 14 students and three staff members in one of the deadliest school shootings in history.
While there are many instances of rewarding experiences for both students and teachers, there are also examples of principals and administrators who are more concerned about standardized test scores than the education of their students.
Robbins argues that teachers deserve student loan forgiveness, tax credits for every penny they spend on school supplies, paid parental leave, free or heavily subsidized childcare, administrators who receive more relevant teacher-supportive training, and to be treated as and paid like the skilled professionals they are.
There are numerous examples of excellent teachers who could no longer put up with the low pay, bad working conditions, petty administrative rules and the physical danger of being a teacher. But also, examples of teachers who spend their own money on school supplies and sometimes food for hungry children whose devotion to their students outweighs other negative aspects of the classroom.
Teachers deserve to steer every committee determining school operations rather than policymakers who proclaim what should happen in the classroom despite never having taught in one. Trained school librarians need to decide which books should be shelved in their libraries.
Whether you are a parent, grandparent or just a concerned citizen, you will learn a lot about our society and our educational system by taking the time to read this succinct and well-written anatomy of America’s school and the teachers that labor in its classrooms.
The motto of the United Negro College Fund is “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” Good teachers are also a terrible thing to waste, and if we don’t do a better job of retaining good teachers and paying them a fair and living wage, we can only look forward to more and more teacher shortages and more and more wasted minds in the next generation.
C. Ellen Connally is a retired judge of the Cleveland Municipal Court. From 2010 to 2014 she served as the President of the Cuyahoga County Council. An avid reader and student of American history, she serves on the Board of the Ohio History Connection, is currently vice president of the Cuyahoga County Soldiers and Sailors Monument Commission and president of the Cleveland Civil War Round Table. She holds degrees from BGSU, CSU and is all but dissertation for a PhD from the University of Akron.
3 Responses to “POINT OF ORDER: No More Apples for the Teacher by C. Ellen Connally”
Mel Maurer
Thanks Ellen. Hope the author gets some time on shows like Today or Good Morning America. This is a problem that will only get worse unless things change – as they have been geting worse for a whole generation.
Vincent holland
I READ THAT BOOK A FEW MONTHS AGO AND WAS NOT SURPRISED BY THE LEVEL. OF DISRESPECG TEACHERS WERE EXPERIENCING FROM BOTH TEACHERS AND ADMINISTRATORS.. IT IS AN EXCELLENT READ
Peter Lawson Jones
Brava, Alexandra Robbins, and brava, Judge Connally, for praising our most noble and, sadly, undervalued profession. My mother of blessed memory, Margaret Diane Hoiston Jones, was a lower elementary public school teacher in Cleveland. She would provide her students – many of whom came from impoverished conditions – food, clothing and a ride home from school if they needed them. I still beam with pride whenever I encounter one of her former students who fondly remember the positive difference that she made in their lives. Her colleagues like Lorraine Crenshaw and Murrell Phillips were similarly dedicated to their students. I also was blessed to have classroom teachers like Juanita Brandon, Charles Calovini and Cornelia Patrick who reinforced my parents’ emphasis on academic achievement and excellence. These men and women are society’s true heroes and sheroes. Shame on us as a society for not properly honoring their work.