Freedom to Teach | Eastern North Carolina Now

    In my 38 years in public education, one runs into all kinds of educators. It runs the gamut from medium to excellent. Most of the educators that I have known have an almost missionary zeal to work with children and share their knowledge. However, the challenges they face are multi-pronged. From the outset they are told what to teach, how to teach, where to teach and why they must do it someone else's way. All of this has crept into public education over the past 50 years. This was spearheaded by politicians and bureaucrats when they saw an opportunity to pander to the public. In essence, public school teachers have on training collars attached to short leashes. Does anyone realize how resentful teachers FEEL who have excellent content knowledge and the ability to reach kids, where they are?

    Do teachers need some help? YES!!! But not the kind of help that emanates from the political machine or teachers unions. What they need is an understanding of the goals to be met and the necessary resources to accomplish the tasks in their own unique way. This looses the creativity and imagination of teachers and fuels the passion necessary for excellent teaching to occur. This will be difficult for younger teachers who have been taught to "toe the line" and be obedient. But for those teachers, who have the qualities I have outlined, the casting aside of political MANDATES will be a boon to public education.

    To insure that teachers have excellent content knowledge, our teacher training institutions need to scrap much of the educational falderal currently in vogue and focus on the academic areas that the students see themselves teaching. Knowledge is a powerful way to earn student's respect and if the teacher has the PASSION and ingenuity to deliver it, we would be in much better shape than we are.

    Teachers, in general', are getting a bad rap. Much of what they are forced to do is dictated. Understand the problems teachers face when politicians and bureaucrats and administrators DUCK, the teachers is left to face the consequences of a system that they didn't devise. Fifty years ago, we were they envy of the world. How far have we fallen?

Follow the Yellow Arrow
    John W. LaCava  •  Bath, NC  •  June 25, 2022