‘Sometimes I feel like being a teacher in the public school system is like being in a dysfunctional relationship’
Angie Morales is an elementary school teacher in Florida and a mother of three. She has had high ratings on her evaluations for several years — but just recently got an unpleasant surprise, an e-mail saying that her evaluation for the first part of this school year was low. Why?
According to the comments on her evaluation, she said, it wasn’t because of her teaching or because of her students’ test scores, which are high. Rather, she said, it was because she hadn’t recorded test data in a timely manner. Morales said that this year paperwork demands on teachers to enter testing data, create lesson plans, etc. have increased — and given that she teaches five different subjects — she can’t get it all done in her contracted hours.
That means that she does a lot of work for free — like most teachers. But how much free time should teachers be expected to give to their jobs? How much of their family and personal lives should they expected to sacrifice?
Here’s a piece she wrote on her blog, Teacher Teacher Diaries, about how she felt after learning that an initial evaluation this school year was low for the reasons mentioned above. This post is emotional, she said, because it describes how she felt when she wrote it: upset, angry, questioning. You can see the full version of this piece here.
By Angie Morales
Sometimes I feel like being a teacher in the public school system is like being in a dysfunctional relationship where you just keep finding reasons to justify the abuse you’re accepting. It’s like the battered woman that finds every reason to stay, because at the end of the day, it’s for the kids, right? When is enough, enough?
I was literally penalized on my teacher evaluation because my family duties and responsibilities prohibit me from working free overtime. And do I still work overtime? Oh yes! Absolutely! Perfect example: On [one recent] Friday I stayed on campus until 7 p.m., mainly organizing materials for science and math. Writing a science assessment, grading papers, setting up my small ‘Sometimes I feel like being a teacher in the public school system is like being in a dysfunctional relationship’ - The Washington Post:
