At the heart of this system are teachers, but teachers are saddled with many responsibilities and functions that they must accomplish in the short time they have your children during the school year. A teacher may have to manage as many as 20 or more children in her classroom, each child at a different stage of social, cognitive, physical, and/or emotional development. Some of these children may be mainstreamed children with special needs. Those children ideally would function best in a classroom of four or five students, yet we expect teachers to not only teach them in the large group setting, but also teach all the other kids as well.

State laws and school policies often limit teachers in what they can and cannot do or say. Teachers are required to teach a curriculum that is assigned by a school board, which is often made up of elected members who are not professional educators and have little understanding of what constitutes good or bad curriculum. The teacher in the classroom is also required to prepare students for standardized tests, but they are not supposed to teach the test. Each year more and more classroom time is monopolized by government required standardized testing that sometimes literally takes days to complete. All the while, the teacher still has to complete his or her curriculum before the end of the school year.

Along with their required curriculum, teachers are also expected to teach respect, values, hygiene, safety, health, and social skills. When children go home for the day, the teacher's job isn't finished. They serve on committees, grade papers, create lesson plans, and prepare activities and field trips. Daily they may face disrespectful students, disrespectful parents, and occasionally disrespectful principals.

In just a few weeks your children will be back in school. Teachers of old had a decade of full-time mentorship to complete a child's education, but your child's teacher has to do it in just a few hours each day for the 180 days of the academic year. As school starts this year, think about all the responsibility that teachers carry. Hopefully, this will help you to be more understanding, patient, and willing to help when you can.

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