Advocating for Good Grades or Teacher Bullying?

               I have had the distinct pleasure of conversing with numerous teachers from different school districts throughout the United States. One of the benefits of these conversations is realizing that your situation is not unique and that others are fighting the same battles. Another benefit is to gain insight in dealing with issues that you may have never considered. In any case, I usually walk away from the conversations feeling renewed, validated, and supported. As you can imagine, the list of conversation topics vary from the challenges of preparing students for standardized tests to the extent of teacher duties to the hilarious, shake-your-head, and jaw-dropping stories of a career as a teacher. However, there seems to be a common theme to most of the teacher-to-teacher conversations that I have had recently, which is of  relentless pleadings or demands for extra time, extra credit or grade changes at the eleventh hour by students, parents, and in some cases, even administration.

Due to the No Child Left Behind Act (2001), teachers are challenged by administration to “go the extra mile” (i.e. implement differentiated instructional strategies to reach students who are visual, auditory, and/or tactile/kinesthetic learners, who speak English as a second language,and who have special needs). The pressure to improve statistical school-wide performance, which includes standardized test scores, grade promotion, and graduation rates, rests mostly on the shoulders of teachers. Because of this, teachers are often regarded as the “frontline warriors” in the quest to adequately educate our youth.

However, from the teachers’ point of view, it seems that the push to energize and motivate our youth in earning their education is often predicated on the “feel good” approach, which in turn, leads to a feeling of entitlement on the students’ part to automatically make good grades. A domino effect is spontaneously created and causes teachers to work harder than ever to: a) produce and implement lesson plans that are innovative, energetic, and interactive with often limited resources and personal funds; b) communicate even more with parents via email, class websites, parent-teacher conferences, and phone calls that often extend beyond school hours; c) grade most papers using detailed grading rubrics that are produced, explained, and distributed to students beforehand; d) meticulously document students’ progress, communication with parents, and procedures that are followed/not followed; e) reach out to individual students to motivate, counsel, and advise; and f) offer extra credit opportunities and/or tutoring after school.

Pressure for teachers to go above and beyond is beneficial because it hones the teaching profession in the general public’s eye as a professional career comparable to the more publicly respected professional careers of medicine, law, and business. However, it can be just as rigorously argued that such pressure is also a hardship as teachers routinely sacrifice their personal time for self and family, energy, and personal funds to “make it happen.” Teachers with whom I have conversed have gone “above and beyond” in their classroom and believe that relentless pleas and demands, from students, parents, or administration for unwarranted extra time for assignments, more extra credit opportunities, and blatant grade changes begs the question of whether these actions are advocating for good grades or “teacher bullying.” Have we gone too far in our quest to improve our statistics? Are the efforts of students, parents, and/or administration going too far? Is this “advocating” or “bullying”? Have you witnessed this happening? If so, what was your perception? Write your thoughts below.

~ LaNora M. James, Ed.D.