A popular gym shirt reads, “Nobody Cares Work Harder.” There are a million reasons (excuses) why you didn’t win the competition, aren’t achieving your fitness goals, or missed your workout. But as the shirt states, nobody cares. Why does nobody care? Because people are insensitive…just kidding. Nobody cares, because everyone is dealing with real life, which gets in the way of accomplishing what we set out to do. Citing excuses for your failures doesn’t make you special, it makes you annoying.
Remember that Don’t Get Me Started (DGMS) is a situation where educators one up each other with anecdotes that showcase how hard their job is and what a martyr they are. If you ever want to break up one of these droves (legit name for a group of jackasses), rock a “Nobody Cares Teach Harder” t-shirt (they don’t exist, yet [growth mindset]) and point to it.
Available Excuses
- Lack of resources
- Large class sizes
- Student behavior issues
- Standardized test pressure
- Uninvolved parents
- Over involved parents
- Too many IEPs
- Too many gifted students
- Wide range of classroom academic needs
- Lack of administrative support
- Too much grading
- Neverending new initiatives
- Menial tasks
- High absenteeism
- Lack of instructional time
The list could easily be doubled, but this paints a pretty good (or terrible, depending on how you look at it) picture of what makes teaching challenging.
A simple thought experiment; every teacher completes a 15 question survey where they rate each excuse on a scale of 1-10 with 1 indicating a non-issue and 10 indicating a major issue. Results will vary widely, especially between individual schools. Zero completed ratings surveys will have all 15 questions scored with a 5 or less.
What’s the takeaway?
Every teacher has problems, issues, concerns, obstacles, and challenges. Once we understand that we’re all teaching through and amongst various challenges, we can focus on teaching and learning. If anyone reverts back to the list of excuses to explain why teaching and learning is not happening in their classroom, tell them, “Nobody Cares Teach Harder (patent pending).”
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