Being A Teacher Is Getting Worse

Schools are a microcosm of the communities from which they draw their students.  Sadly, that's why we have this list of "10 things teachers did not have to deal with 10 years ago".  Here are the items:

• The inability to punish students.  The author is as much a fan of so-called restorative justice as I am.
• Cell phone addiction.
• Online bullying.  Honestly, unless something happens at school, this is an area where I think schools should but out or, at the most, notify parents and let them take care of the out-of-school issue.
• Pep rallies for standardized testing.
• Constant student anxiety.  I've written before how ADD used to be the "gold standard" for getting special accommodations in school, now anxiety is.  
• Fear of school shootings and lock-downs.  You're much more likely to get killed when you get in a car than you are at school--but the author seems resigned to the idea that this fear is justified anyway.
• Heroin and opioid epidemics.
• Politicized schools.
• Era of "feelings" where students are never wrong--because they "feel" their grade is unfair, it is.  By definition.
• Naked utilitarianism in education--schooling exists solely to prepare students for jobs or, in the case of many schools, college.  Anything besides going to college is failure.