Are we really expected to do everything?

I don't know if I've written a blog on this topic before, but I was having a discussion about test scores with 2 other teachers today and it led to how much responsibility we really have.

As teachers, we are expected to do a lot: teach academics, be mothers, be the all-great problem solvers, teach social skills, and develop background information that our kids just don't know and should about life.

One example I have from my own teaching experience is when we were reading a context clues passage. As a class, we were trying to determine the meaning of a word and in order to answer, the students should have known some common etiquette. They needed to know that when you leave some one's house after they had you over for dinner, regardless of how terrible the food might have been, you don't tell the host. They had no idea what to say. They didn't know they should be polite even though they didn't enjoy it. We had to rehearse what it might sound like thanking the host for a bad dinner. "Thanks for having me over and cooking dinner."

How are my kiddos supposed to use their context clues to understand words when they don't even know what the context clues are telling them? I am seeing this a lot in their Book Clubs as well. They are very fluent readers, but don't understand what the book is saying because the ideas are foreign to them. They don't know what it's like to fly on a plane or play in the snow. Their life experiences are more limited than other children their age because of their socioeconomic statuses, and that is very difficult to teach. I can talk about my experiences and tell them what it is like all year long, but it doesn't mean the same thing unless they've done it themselves.

Now, don't get me wrong...I try time and time again to explain what certain things feel like. They are curious! I tell them about what it felt like to stand at the top of a mountain and not be able to see anything around me because I was inside the clouds. I tell them what it is like to live in a country that doesn't even have running water and how I couldn't shower all summer. One thing I feel I can do is teach them social cues. I can teach them how they should respond to people when they say particular things or use particular tones. I can teach them how to be a friend and what it really means. And I can be a role model. I can show them what being an adult means and the responsibility it comes with. I can show them how an adult should behave.

And along with all of this, I have to teach them that the moon affects tides and a bunch of other nonsense that you can use the Internet to look up when you're older, if it even matters that you know it then.

Why did I become a teacher??? Oh, I remember every day when I go pick my kids up from the gym and they are so excited to see me. I remember when they write messages on the chalkboard when I'm absent for a day. I remember when they come to my desk just to give me a hug. I remember when even if I've made them cry the day before, they hug me the next day on their way in the door. I remember when they write in their journals about how they want to become a 4th grade teacher just like me. I never forget the reasons I became a teacher.