Purpose

Today's teachers are expected to perform miracles. They get fetal alcohol syndrome kids and are expected to make doctors and lawyers out of them. They get kids from parent(s) who are negligent in teaching their offspring the basic needs in life, i.e. manners, toilet training habits, self-control, etc. and are expected to prepare them enough to pass achievement tests.

Teachers are expected to ignore the intervening variables in life and educate the unfortunate. Whether it's communicable diseases, verbal threats, and drugs doesn't matter. They are expected to handle more than thirty kids five to seven times a day and meet the expectations of state and local school boards.

Is this fair?

Educators are expected to be polite to disciplinarians who'd rather eat than discipline a student for threatening a teacher. They are also expected to dismiss a principal's request to give another chance to a learner who has just struck a teacher. They are expected to dismiss police intervention for a student who has just threatened him/her just because the student has only had after school detentions. They are forced to readmit a special education student who cannot be disciplined because the behavior is part of his exceptionality.

Today's educators are expected to break up fights at their own peril. They are expected to pass offensive language off just because the wordage may be a part of the child's vocabulary at home. They are expected to pass off obscene gestures as something that may not have been obscene at all.

Are teachers sociologists? Psychologists? Doctors? Referees? Social Workers? Counselors? Or just teachers?

Today's teachers, we dedicate this work to you. Exploited and abused teachers, we salute you. Fight back.

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