From the eyes of a teacher

I sat down with a friend of mine today who graduated from Northeastern University in Boston, MA last week, and we talked for a while about her take on the educational system in the United States. Although majoring in Theater Arts, Ashley Ghannad received a minor in elementary education and her certification, and plans to be an elementary school teacher as her next step.

Following, I have written up some of what she contributed to the conversation, as it taught me a lot about education from the teaching perspective. She also commented on being a graduating senior, entering into the job force while the economy is in its present state.



Before I can go into what she had to say, I should give a brief description of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) since she talks about it. For all of you who may not know what it is, NCLB
is a controversial United States Federal Law that reauthorized a number of federal programs aiming to improve the performance of U.S. primary and secondary schools by increasing the standards of accountability for states, school districts, and schools. It hinges on the idea of inclusive classrooms, meaning students with all levels of learning abilities in the same classroom, who require a myriad of different teaching modalities to learn.

NCLB is the latest federal legislation, which enacts the theories of standards-based education reform, formerly known as outcome-based education, which is based on the belief that high expectations and setting of goals will result in success for all students - no matter their learning level. The Act requires states to develop assessments in basic skills to be given to all students in certain grades, if those states are to receive federal funding for schools. NCLB does not assert a national achievement standard.

The effectiveness and desirability of NCLB's measures are highly controversial and constantly debated. A primary criticism asserts that NCLB could reduce effective instruction and student learning because it may cause states to lower achievement goals and motivate teachers to "teach to the test." A primary supportive claim asserts that systematic testing provides data that sheds light on which schools are not teaching basic skills effectively, so that interventions can be made to reduce the achievement gap for disadvantaged and disabled students.



With all that said, let's get into what Ashley, shown to the right, had to say.

She said that while NCLB is highly effective and a great idea in theory, translating theory into practice makes things more than difficult for a teacher. And thus, NCLB has not been as effective as it was intended to be.

She believes in not separating students - putting all the learning disabled students in one classroom and the regular education students in another - but there needs to be some sort of revision.

"NCLB needs to be looked at...really looked at...and maybe not even thrown away. But something's not working. Something needs to change."

Of the potential future presidents, John McCain voted for NCLB, Hillary Clinton would end NCLB, and Barack Obama would reform it. For more information about the candidates' stances on the issue, click here for a full recap.

But she attributes some of the difficulties to certain issues. They might be separate form NCLB, but they still affect the education system and the next president must take a close look at them.

Funding is a major issue. She talked about the achievement gap, where students who grow up in urban settings already have a certain percentage less chance of graduating that students who grow up in suburban settings, just because of the types of schools they go to and how much funding the school receives.

Some urban schools, she explained, don't have any resources or materials...some don't even have enough desks for their students and 40 kids to a class.

"A construction worker needs tools to build a house," Ghannad said. "Teachers aren't miracle workers. They can't teach effectively without the correct tools."

And when students don't receive any supplemental education - art, music, physical education - she doesn't blame kids for not enjoying their education, especially when so many teachers are teaching to the tests. The students who were born and raised in the United States take the same tests as those who have been in America for one year and struggle with English who take the same tests as those with dyslexia...teachers don't want their students to fail and their schools to lose funding (if a school does not pass a certain quota per year, it can lose funding), so of course the teacher teaches to the test. But sometimes that's not as effective. And not is it only ineffective for certain students, but it also takes away other valuable learning experiences. So not only are kids missing out on all of the "fun" classes, but they're also not learning as much science or social studies because they're not on the first couple of tests, at the youngest level.

"These are our future doctors and presidents, and they're not getting a well-rounded education. They're not fully educated individuals of society, and we're blaming them for not graduating?" she questioned.

Even the money spent on NCLB has not been up to par.


There are also individual education plans, which those who have learning disabilities or are considered special education. Plans are drawn up for these kids and teachers, principals, parents, psychologists, etc. all come up with specific goals and work to achieve those goals. So not only does a teacher then have to be specific to each of these students' needs (and there are probably multiple plans per class), but she needs to speed these students up while at the same time not boring the regular education students or those in between.

"There were so many teachers who could not deal with all the pressures and retired early in the past few years...not to mention some good retirement packages were written up," Ghannad said. "Many old fashioned teachers can't deal with new ideas, you know, education plans, inclusion classes, experiential education, hands-on activities...they couldn't keep up with the pressure of different theories and beliefs so they figured they would just retire early so not to become discouraged."

But Ghannad takes this all as a challenge. As a young teacher, directly out of college, she is excited to jump right into her own class.

"It's going to be challenging," she said, "but I’m really excited to jump in. A year ago I thought about having my own classroom and almost had a heart attack, and it’s only been a year, but now I feel like I’m ready, I’m prepared."

But she hopes the next president can step in and take a look at everything and see that "education is a problem."

"I understand war spending is important, but a good president will be able to juggle everything - both international and our problems - as opposed to Bush who decided to pick one thing (whatever that may be, and he chose war spending and forgot the rest). I'm sure he never had to deal with the achievement gap, growing up in a poor city or anything else facing education these days. He's never tried to empathize. Hopefully the next president will just take a long hard look."

Either way, Ghannad is in it for the long haul.

"I knew the money wouldn’t be great, and that’s okay with me because I think I’ll go to work every day and love what I do despite how frustrating it might be at times."

(p.s. -- hopefully this can count as two posts -- I put not only a lot of time and effort into getting the interview, but I wrote a lot -- 1261 words to be exact, which is enough to cover two blog posts.)