A recent letter to the Herald berated teachers for complaining about salary. He used a valid argument. We all knew going into this profession we were not going to be making a doctor’s wages. This fact is true now, and it was true 23 years ago when I got my first teaching job.
I knew going into teaching I wasn’t going to make a six-figure salary, but I did have other reasons for choosing this profession that don’t exist any more.
After my first three years, I settled in to teaching seventh-grade science. I’ve been at the same school teaching seventh-graders ever since. My reason was simple: In seventh grade, my love for science vanished. I had a dry teacher who didn’t make learning fun. All I remember from that course was being required to memorize all 100 element symbols. (It was a long time ago before many of the man-made elements were discovered). My love of science didn’t come back until Biology 101 my freshman year of college.
I vowed to not let this happen to any other child. My goal has always been to instill a love of science into every student who steps foot into my classroom. Twenty years ago, that was easy. I had autonomy and flexibility to take the curriculum in directions that were relevant and meaningful. If one particular lesson caught the interest of students, I could spend more time and not be rushed to “get to the next learning target.” This was before the days of the WASL and grade-level bench marks. This was before the days of “No Child Left Behind.” Ironically, my original teaching goal had always been to “leave no child hating science” as I had after seventh grade.
Things are much different now. In science, the grade-level benchmarks have changed at least five times in the last 20 years. Just when we revise the curriculum to meet one set of standards, a new “standard du jour” is presented at either the state or national level. None of them give me the autonomy I had when I first began teaching at the middle school level. None of them give me the flexibility to spend more time on a particular lesson that really captures the interests of students. All of them require that we continue marching on, like little soldiers, to “get through the content” by the end of the semester. None of them allow me to just focus on instilling a love of science into all of my students.
One reason I can’t reach this ultimate goal is that I now teach 20 more students in a day than I did 20 years ago. My average class size used to be 28 students. Multiply that out by five and I saw 140 students per day. My average class today is 32. Every day, I am charged with meeting the needs of 160 students. Every day, I am supposed to “not let any of them fall behind.” It doesn’t matter what their academic, social or emotional level is, I am now charged with getting them all to the same end point by June. This is an impossible task that I, and no other science teacher, can achieve.
I go to work each day, defeated. Knowing that I can’t achieve what society expects of me, when all I ever wanted to do was instill a love of science into all kids.
Judy Dahlberg is a resident of Snohomish.
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