At the beginning of my teaching career, being a fourth-grade teacher in a self-contained classroom, I was responsible for teaching all subjects. This meant I had to prep for all subjects making sure the plan, materials, procedure, evaluation and remediation (if necessary) for each lesson were ready for implementation before, during and after the lessons were taught.

My schedule, along with the schedules of my fellow Elementary School (grades K through sixth) colleagues, included teaching up to five reading groups, a math group (sometimes two), an English grammar class, a writing (Narratives, Poetry, Report, etc.) class, a spelling class, a handwriting class, a science (physical and health) class, a social studies class and every so often do a special project or activity with the class. Having that many preps and teaching that many classes made time management a key for success, but it was possible and we did it, because that was how to give students as much as we could. What made it easier was that students had only one special area class per day — including Music, Art, Library and Gym (that’s what it was called back then). Students also went to High Intensity Reading (an Individualized leveled Reading Lab, where students worked at their own pace on their own level practicing different reading components multiple times per week. Usually each Special Area Class was scheduled for 25 to 40 minutes, depending on which class it was. The school day wasn’t any longer back then, and there were a few more days scheduled per year and fewer half days than now, but we managed to get most of the classes in weekly and yearly.

As years progressed it became part of the profession to add some non-academic lessons that we were being asked by school officials, and seemingly expected by society (more so by many parents), to teach in our classrooms. Some of those included teaching Respect (for others, for rules and authority, for property); Manners; Morals; Ethics; Responsibility; Accountability; Reliability; Human Sexuality; Saying No to Drugs and Alcohol; Tolerance; Accepting the Differences of Others; and currently Bullying and Gender Orientation. I recently saw a post on Facebook titled “If Teachers Squashed Bullying, Maybe Schools Wouldn’t Be So Broke.”

Part of academic lessons taught in schools included components of many of those “extra” non-academic lessons. Educators tried to go beyond Reading, Writing and Arithmetic and added Life Skills to the education of those students in their charge. But now it seems like the non-academic subject matter lessons have been added as expected responsibilities by schools/teachers. What happened to students being “home schooled” before they began their formal educations in schools? Where did it become the responsibility of schools and teachers to educate their students in the non-academic areas listed in this narrative? And the catch-all here is that parents/society want teachers to teach these things, but also want to tell them how to teach them, and/or want the right to criticize them if they don’t teach them the way parents/society want them to do it.

I’ve heard it more times than I care to, that “It’s the school’s fault” or “It’s those teachers, they don’t care. They just want to work six hours a day/180 days a year and get paid a full year’s salary.” It seems, to some, teachers are overpaid and underworked. It appears that educators should be able to cure the world’s problems, most of those more preventable if children are taught the non-academics before they get to school, which, if done, probably would be lesser in impact as kids get older.

We’ve become a country of finger pointers, a population of blamers and expecters of someone else solving the problems for us.

It used to be said that a child’s greatest teachers were his/her parents. They set the tone. They laid the groundwork. They formed the foundation for how children took the next step from Early Childhood Education to their Kindergarten years and then beyond. That thought seems to have become outdated and has fallen by the wayside for some. As it has, the burden of teaching all the extra non-academic life lessons has become the expected job of teachers and schools. And if the problems aren’t fixed or solved, the blame seems to be pointed toward teachers and the schools rather than where it should be pointed: toward those who abandoned their responsibility and threw it at the educational system.

And so today, it’s “If teachers taught (blank),” or “If schools did (blank),” or “If teachers squashed (blank),” or “If schools did a better job of (blank),” these problems wouldn’t exist, or this wouldn’t be happening, or the taxpayers wouldn’t have to pay for this or that, and the world will be a much better place, or something along those lines.

Looking at what’s happening in Washington today, with the fiasco we call our national government, and seeing that sift down to state, county and local levels, it’s amazing that education is blamed for more than some of the comedy acts (a.k.a. our lawmakers and executives), are blamed.

There was a line in the 1976 Academy Award-winning movie “Network,” delivered by Peter Finch’s character, Howard Beale, where he encouraged people to go to their windows, open them up, stick their head out and shout, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore.” I feel that way every time I hear teachers being asked to do the jobs of parents, or every time I hear schools being blamed for the problems of society, or when I hear teachers or schools being asked, or in many cases told, by society to raise children only to be chastised for the way that they do it. I’ve been an educator for over 40 years and have enormous pride for my chosen profession. Those who work in that profession are my brothers and sisters. I’m very defensive of my brothers and sisters and my profession, so whenever I hear someone bashing education, or teachers, or schools, it’s like bashing someone in my family. Most of us have grown up with the idea that we could say anything we wanted about our siblings, but beware if anyone other than us says anything bad about them. The same applies here.

We’ve sent men to the moon; we’ve sent men and women to the highest court in the land as justices; we’ve seen people in medicine, business and industry, government, entertainment, technology, literature, travel, education, as laborers and executives. All of them have had teachers and schools prepare them for their walks of life. So, if those providing that preparation are doing things wrong or not doing enough, how can you explain the successes of people who have any job, and are able to provide for their families, pay their bills and be productive citizens?

I don’t profess to say that education doesn’t have problems, and that some in education maybe shouldn’t be in that profession, but that’s true of any profession. There are good and not so good in any profession. No one profession, though, should be completely blamed for what might not be going right in our world, nation, state, county or local municipality, nor should any one profession or institution be asked to solve the problems of those locales, especially those by people who’ve passed their responsibilities to others asking them to do what they should be doing themselves, and then expecting them to do it to their satisfaction. Unfortunately, too many have shirked their responsibilities so teachers/schools pick up the job to try and see if they can further help kids do well in life, and not just well in school. But teaching the non-academics takes time away from teachingaAcademic areas, whereby if Johnny can’t read, the blame gets put on the desks of the teachers. “Darned if you don’t, darned if you do?”

Before asking teachers and schools to do what you should be doing, walk a mile in their shoes. See what they do, feel what they feel, and understand what they try to do. It’s NOT the school’s fault!