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Friday, December 9, 2005
Transforming Teacher Expectations
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A Gwinnett County teacher e-mailed me recently with a lament about a newspaper column urging teachers to go out and transform lives a la Jaime Escalante, the Bolivian-born math teacher who taught AP calculus to Latinos despite skepticism from administrators. As I’ve mentioned here before, Escalante’s story was made into the movie, “Stand and Deliver.”
The Gwinnett teacher said such expectations set an unreasonable bar. “It asks too much. I think my work as a teacher is of considerable importance and that it is worth all the time, sweat, and mental energy I devote to it, but if I set out each day to be a life transformer I’ll burn myself out in two weeks.”
Teachers teach, he said. “Make a difference? Yes, Transform lives? That’s for God.”
Role model. Substitute parent. Friend. Counselor. Are teachers expected to do too much for their students?
