6 Ways Schools Are Failing Your Kids

I’ve been teaching now for over 20 years. I teach with love and rigor, have had a lot of success with helping students achieve greatness, but am often frustrated with the things that schools think are so important about education.

In my experience, these are the things for which most schools are serious:

1. Testing — We have to measure everything to make sure the teachers are doing their job, that the kids are learning things, and that our scores look good.
2. Paying Attention — No matter how boring the presentation, students need to just be quiet and listen to the instructor because (after all) teachers know everything and are facilitators of the knowledge.
3. Stay In Your Designated Area — When you are at lunch you have to eat lunch and you can’t go to the library to get a book.
4. Dress Code — We need to make sure the children are not wearing things that are comfortable or let them be individuals in the name of safety and modesty. We haven’t quite figured out how to keep them completely safe or modest so we are going to do our best understanding that it will always be a battle.
5. Evaluations — Teachers are the only ones being evaluated. Administrators don’t get to be evaluated by the teaching staff because that would be doing things like any other job.