There are three kinds of teachers: disheartened, content and idealistic, according to a new study released by Public Agenda. Disheartened teachers comprise a huge 40% of the teaching force, but it's not like they are randomly distributed. Some students are very much more likely to have a disheartened teacher than a content or idealistic one.
The view that teaching is "so demanding, it’s a wonder that more people don’t burn out" is remarkably pervasive, particularly among the Disheartened,—they are twice as likely as other teachers to strongly agree with this view. Members of that group, which accounts for 40 percent of K-12 teachers in the United States, tend to have been teaching longer and are older than the Idealists, and more than half teach in low-income schools. They are more likely to voice high levels of frustration about the school administration, disorder in the classroom, and the undue focus on testing. Only 14 percent rate their principals as "excellent"" at supporting them as teachers, and 61 percent cite lack of support from administrators as a major drawback to teaching. Nearly three-quarters cite "discipline and behavior issues" in the classroom, and 7 in 10 say that testing are major drawbacks as well.
The full post can be found at the parent blog, School Crossing.
One of the issues is the old locus of control. It creates false guilt and unnecessary threats to self-esteem when so much is clearly not within the teacher's control. The tragedy is that in our education system, teachers who start idealistic end disheartened.
P.S. If you are interested in the report on calculator research in the earliest grades, see the sidebar of the parent blog to order. There is currently no charge.