The "Problem" with Education. . .

I've been thinking about my job a lot lately. And. . . to say I'm in an unhappy place would not be an understatement.

Before I begin, let me make this perfectly clear: I LOVE MY JOB! I LOVE MY KIDS (ALMOST ALL THE TIME)! I LOVE THE BUILDING I WORK IN!

You might be wondering then, why would someone say they are unhappy and then say they love these things about their job? And. . . that's a valid question. A very valid question. I can probably best explain my angst with a bit of backstory:

I started my career in 2000. When I started, teachers--at least where I was working--were pretty much in charge of developing, implementing, and restructuring curriculum within their buildings and departments. It was A LOT of work. It wasn't always amicable. It WAS something I lost sleep over. . . but. . . at the end of the day, my comrades and I had ownership of our work. We could respect OURSELVES and the job we were doing. When things got tough (cough-Act 10-cough) and folks were out there making our lives difficult, we could at least have pride in the fact that we were putting out a good product. Was it perfect? No. Was every. single. teacher. working their assess off? Also, no. However, we had to own our work because we were responsible for most of the major decisions being made. Then. . . things started to change. Little by little, more decisions that impacted classrooms were being made at the district level.

Fast forward 24 years and here I am, now a Reading Interventionist, doing a job that I used to absolutely adore but has recently become unrecognizable to me. This year has brought with it a major change in how I am expected to run my class. Currently, ALL of my students are on an online intervention program called "LexiaPowerUp." It is basically a computer program that assesses what skills kids lack and then they have a set number of minutes per skill to work on each week. Obviously, there's a lot more to it but the full explanation would be really boring. There is an element of the program that includes working with students 1:1 or in small groups when they are doing poorly in the program. Having said that, I spend most of my time:

1. Telling kids to get in program

2. Waking up sleeping, bored children

3. Monitoring them staying in program and not going on YouTube

4. Watching them on my spy app or walking around the room to make sure they are in program and working

This ^^^^^is very, VERY different from how we operated before this year.

<<If you look past my lunch, you will see a bunch of books against the back wall. As a reading interventionist, my years used to go something like:

• First month = Everyone (except me) is crabby. No one wants to be in my class, I'm doing all. the. things. to get them interested, engaged, and "on the bus" so to speak.

• Next 3 months = We read. We read Every. Damn. Day. We write about reading, we talk about reading, and we learn all about the things we need to do to be successful readers. Sometimes we're reading what we choose and sometimes we're reading what I choose. Sometimes we read in small groups. Sometimes we read alone. We confer as often as I can get around to everyone. That's about 2/3 of our class time. The rest of the time, we learn about how to be students. How to: take notes, study for a test, pay attention (even when we don't want to), email a teacher, talk to a teacher in person, manage our time, plan for success, set goals, and a bunch of other "soft" skills students need in order to be successful.

• Usually around the semester mark, students start telling me that my class is their favorite. Sometimes I get really lucky and they tell me I'm their favorite. Usually they are all doing the things they need to do almost all the time (hey, they are teens, not robots). My attendance usually has a bit of an uptick from the beginning of the year. It's all pretty rad.

• Then. . . we rinse and repeat the rest of the year. Kids are reading, working, learning, and (and this part is really important) realizing that they ARE students and they ARE readers. . . even if they don't love it.

My disillusioned angst stems from the fact that none of these things are happening this year. None. Of. Them. Students hate my class. They say they are bored. They also (and this is not in alignment with their actions) say they don't mind the program they are doing but I cannot help but notice I spend a lot of time trying to get them to do what they need to do. And I cannot help but notice that fewer of them are attending regularly. I suspect what they "like" is the ability to stare at the screen and zone out--using a fraction of the effort they would have had to in past years. This is not the same dynamic that I've always loved about intervention work. I don't have the same relationships with my students--despite my efforts--and I'm 100% certain it's because we aren't connecting through text.

ETA 2/20/24: The thing I'm missing most is the JOY that used to be a regular, natural part of my class. It wasn't something I had to fabricate or foster. It just happened because (mostly) everyone in the room was on the same, metaphorical, page and we were interacting with each other in a positive way. Now, this isn't to day that every day was perfect. This isn't to say that there weren't many, MANY challenges. It wasn't a picture-perfect-film-it-for-PD classroom. But it felt like a community. . . . a community of readers and learners. I felt the work I was doing was worthy. My students had ownership of their learning. And. . . in the interest of full disclosure. . . as I'm a human being I did enjoy that my students liked both me and the class. Being a teenager's "favorite" is a pretty rare thing. And. . . . I'm not the only person who's feeling these "big feels." Many of my classroom comrades are in the same place.

So what's to be done? I've been keeping track of all my observations. I'm collecting data. I'm hoping sense will prevail because, if I'm being honest, this is the first year since I started doing intervention that I am not having fun and it's crushing my little teacher soul.