By Tom

This is Teacher Appreciation Week, which means the coffee cart guy will pull up outside our school on Monday and we’ll all get a free espresso drink, courtesy of the PTA. And then on Friday, those same wonderful people will provide us with a delicious sandwich buffet. And between the coffee and the sandwiches we’ll get cute little notes and pictures from our students and maybe an apple-themed mug or two. It‘ll be a great week.

But while we’re being appreciated, I’d like to raise a glass to the teachers who won’t be getting the free coffee and the free lunch; the unsung heroes of the education world: the subs. The folks who take over when we’re sick in bed with the flu or attending a reading workshop in Yakima. The people who let us get our wisdom teeth pulled on a Thursday in November, and let us take our own kids to the doctor on a Monday in March. Or the teacher who takes our class on a field trip across Puget Sound to Blake Island with two hours notice while we were in the Emergency Room having an appendix removed. (Thanks Ms Nelson!)

Subbing is hard work. As Ned, a guy who used to sub a lot in my building put it, “I wanted to be a teacher in the worst way, and now I really am a teacher…in the worst way!”

I should know. I was there. Back in 1984, fresh out of college with the worst interviewing skills in America, I started my career with a phone by my bed in my old room at my parents’ house, waiting for those early-morning calls; telling me to teach second grade in Kent on Monday and high school math in Everett on Tuesday. There were some good experiences and a lot of bad ones. And a few nightmares.

But I’ll never forget the gerbil incident.

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By Tracey

I was sitting in a professional development training with my principal, learning about one of those 90/90/90 schools.  You've heard of them:  90% of the students receive free or reduced lunch, 90% of the students are from ethnic minorities, and 90% are passing state tests.  This one, like all of them was also very impressive. The video we watched featured the principal and her approach to turning the school around and making it a
success.  They interviewed the
teachers and showed their collaborative approach to improving instruction based
on student data.  My principal
wants desperately to achieve the third 90 at my school.  She raised her hand and asked, “I want
to know how many of the teachers did the principal hire?  And how many did she inherit?”  My mouth dropped like they did in
cartoons where the cartoon character had to peel his jaw off the ground and
hold it in place to make it look normal. 
I turned to my principal, holding my jaw in place, and we shared an
awkward laugh because she had just revealed to me what I had long
suspected.  I knew what she meant
by “inherited” and I knew which teachers she felt were slowing her down.  I was pretty sure I wasn’t one of them,
even though she “inherited” me.

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A few years ago, I taught a remedial reading class for high school freshmen. They all read four or more years below grade level. At the end of the 9th grade, only two of the twelve left with enough credits to be sophomores, and while they had made up some time, they all still read below grade level. Yet all but one were planning on going to a four-year university, and in the course of one discussion, they all admitted that they would consider themselves failures if they didn’t take that route. Community college, vocational schools, the military… they were all for losers who couldn’t make it.  Four years later, only three of the twelve graduated on time. Did we set them up for feeling like failures by not coaching them about other options that were available?
 
My BFF teaches marketing as part of our high school’s CTE (Career and Technical Education) program. We’ve had many conversations about the 13th year and what we should be preparing kids for. CTE takes a five-pronged approach, where the following options are all considered honorable:
 
4-year degree
2-year degree
Vocational Certificate/Apprenticeship
Paycheck
Military Service
 
The fact is that there are jobs out there for people who have gone through all five of those tracks. Since NCLB was enacted, it has grown more and more difficult to truly prepare kids for any eventuality because with the onset of standardized testing and the push to put every child in college, a lot of good vocational programs that led to immediate job placement in the past are no longer offered at high schools. We stress college to a point that most students don’t even begin to think about other options until it becomes clear that for whatever reason (family need, finances, skill level, lack of motivation), college is not a real option. Now, students who do not go to college right after high school consider themselves failures, even though they might be successfully working in solid jobs.

Should we prepare every kid for the option of college? Absolutely. But should we set them up for failure by teaching them that it is the only good option or even the best option for them?