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In your opinion, what is the biggest challenge facing educators today? What is your rationale? How can this challenge be addressed?

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In your opinion, what is the biggest challenge facing educators today? What is your rationale? How can this challenge be addressed?

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I believe that the biggest challenge facing educators today is that there are too many opinions from every direction thrown at them. The superintendent, the administrator, the principal, the parents, and the list goes on. Teachers, today, are going through training to be able to assess situations with their students, and know how to handle them. Sometimes parents don’t understand, the principal wants the day to go the way he/she/they want it to go, etc. It can be frustrating, especially when you, as a teacher, are trying to give your students an equitable education. This challenge can be addressed through communication. I like how the book talked about bringing your ideas to your administrator, and sending home a social contract (or anything that will show their caretakers what is to be expected in the classroom). Also, teachers need to make the time to get to know their students. Not every child is going to have the same background. In order to provide an equitable education, the teacher needs to have a full understanding as to what each individual student is going through.

-BH

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Teachers face various challenges everyday, it isn't a simple profession. Overall, I believe one of the most difficult challenges teachers face today is having many students that live in poverty. Due to the low-income of many households, parents are unable to afford extra-curricular activities, tutoring, books, technology, resources that many students need in order to stay at grade level. Additionally, many of these parents need to work long, difficult job and do not have the time to work with their children on school material like reading or math. Therefore, this low-income status cause many students coming from these homes to be behind in school. In order to address this, I believe more free supplemental instruction programs should be provided at school, as well as teachers need to direct a lot of focus on these students to ensure they are keeping up. As a teacher, it is important to make sure that students can get the most possible out of the their education while they are in school.
-RW

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I think one challenge educators face today is including everyone. I don't think I will have a problem with it in my future classroom. However, I know people who do. I recently experienced this in my practicum. A music teacher was introducing a new song with 'Halloween'. The song mentioned Halloween in it. The classroom teacher had told the music teacher that they have a little boy who is a Jehovah Witness. Therefore, he doesn't celebrate Halloween. Instead of addressing the issue from the beginning, the music teacher mentioned Halloween first. Then after introducing Halloween, she said "or you can say caty cat cat instead of Halloween cat". I think she should have not mentioned Halloween to begin with.
The teacher continued to sing 'Halloween Cat' with the rest of the class. I think the little boy was upset and confused. I think this put him in an uncomfortable situation and he may not have felt welcomed. This relates back to creating a classroom community.  The music teacher should have introduced this time of the year as 'Fall' instead of 'Halloween time'.

-MGB

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One of the challenges that teachers face is the pressure of standardized testing. Teachers are expected to teach children to pass these tests and they are worried for their careers if they can't do that. When the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act went into effect, unrealistic goals were shoved at teachers and their jobs were threatened as a result of not meeting these goals. The other issue with this type of testing is that children are not learning everything they need to know because the teachers are only focusing on testing material. As a result, children are falling further behind in non-tested areas. The NCLB Act has been a topic of debate since before it was passed. Politicians and government officials need to work together to come up with a solution that is less about money and more about the education of America's children
- EV

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One of the many challenges that teachers face is government funding for their schools and their pay. Everyone knows teachers are under paid; but yet their wages are never raised. This challenge is bigger than myself. I feel that education is always an important topic, "get your education." "stay in school." Has been said from various congressmen and women but funding for education is always on the back burner. I feel if we really want to keep this country a progressing country we should put our resources to good use and education the upcoming generations.
This can be addressed more in the government and have more spokesmen that is on the side of education.
_GH_

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I would say that one of the biggest challenges some educators face is  treating their students in an appropriate fashion. This can be taken in many ways but where I want to go with this post is that I have had far too many educators in my life that I have strongly disliked and it is not a good feeling. I think one of the most important aspects of being a good teacher is being well liked by your students and being someone that makes their students feel safe, comfortable, and just happy to be around. There is nothing that upsets me more than feeling disrespected by a teacher or feeling like a teacher is against you and your success.  I think it is just so important to eliminate that from every learning environment there is.
- GR

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I think the biggest challenge that educators face is that they are not able to teach in the way that they want to because people above them create such a strict curriculum that bases how well educators are doing off of how children score on an assessment. This is frustrating to me because I feel as a teacher you should be able to teach a child real life skills and concepts and you shouldn't have to be teaching them just enough material so that they score well on a assessment.

I think that this has been an issue for a long time and when I am a teacher I will do my best to stand up and teach my students what I believe are necessary life skills. As a whole community I wish more people were aware of common core and how education is not a one size fits all type of thing. All children learn differently and are at different levels so why are we making these standards the same for each child?
-AD

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I think that one of the biggest challenges educators face today is administrators and people above them that may be making decisions that are not necessarily in the best interest of the students. I think a lot of times, administrators and policy makers are so far removed from the actual reality they are representing and they have no idea what students, families, and teachers actually need. Often times, I think the focus is more political than realistic and that definitely needs to change.
For this to change, these administrators and policy makers need to be more aware of the challenges and struggles teachers deal with everyday. It would do them some good to get a sense of how hard it actually can be.
-MB

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I would say that one of the biggest challenges facing education is the lack of various types of teaching. I mean this in the following way: many classrooms are still not even slightly inclusive to those with exceptionalities or special needs, there is a lack of teaching in various styles so that students can learn to their best ability, and much of how learning is assessed is still through standardized testing. Many teachers are trying to implement lessons that benefit all learning types, but many still need to work on it. I believe that staying informed and aware of each student and their needs is the way to do this.
-AS

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The biggest challenge educators face today are the policy makers who are often out of touch or removed from the area, students, the families of students, and their staff.  They are making decisions that affect the futures of students and teachers.  These policies do not always reflect the current needs of individual communities... instead its a band-aid over a gaping wound that has no chance of healing if left unattended or neglected further.

By staying informed e.g.: attending school board meetings and staying involved in the PTO/PTA you are able to build relationships and influence change in school and possibly the community where you teach and/or live.

-BS