So for almost 11 years now I work as a primary school teacher. We educate the children about all sorts of subjects and are required to know everything about everything about every subject as well. While basically, you only know the basics, because 4 years of training doesn’t actually teach you a whole lot. But okay.
Recently, or not even that recently, it’s assumed that primary school children need better education. Or…they need education on and individual level but still in a class of 30 children. With money cuts all around. We have to write plans to help children perform better in all sorts of categories (most recent even: we need a new school method to help children gain more social skills…). There are 30 children in my class. They are all different, they all have different interests, they all learn in a different way. I have to make sure that by the end of their 8 years of primary school (age 12) they’ll be educated well. In the mean time I’ll have written several reports, made plans etc…in order to give them the highest scores on tests they take.
It’s seriously doing my head in. I get paid less than a high school teacher, who often has to teach only 1 subject. They also don’t have to write all sorts of reports and plans like we do. They have less hours to teach etc…etc…Things we teach in primary school, will be repeated in the first year of high school. While in our class there are 30 children who are all performing on different skills levels, in high school they get put in classes that meet their level of education.
I know high school students can be a lot harder to deal with and motivate, but the way things are right now it makes being a teacher less and less fun for me.
Today we had an afternoon meeting with someone who educated us on the importance of reading. We have to prepare plans for children who are behind. We have to give them more instructions. But we also need to give more instructions to those who scored A’s, but didn’t make any progress. And this was only reading. There’s also match, Dutch, etc..etc…
We once were a school who didn’t want to make test scores the highest possible goal, but we are turning into that school because inspection expects it of us.
Today was not a good day. I find it hard to motivate myself to enjoy this job. I am dealing this for years now, but it is getting worse. I have a totally different idea about what education and life should be about but nobody is listening. Tests and scores are the only 2 words that count these days. It doesn’t matter how happy you are, how social, that you know where your qualities lie and how to do something with them. You have to score high. Get a job. Earn lots of money and go to work every day and forget about how to actually live your life. It makes me sad and upset. And I have no idea how to change this.
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