Saturday, April 23, 2016

Teachers, Media, and Expectaions

In my class we had to do a project about teachers int he media and how they are portrayed. Right now I bet you can think of some type of teacher in the media whether fictional like: Ms. Frizzle, Mr. Feeny, or Mr. Belding. Or a teacher in movies or based in reality like the news. All of these examples brought either high expectations or what a teacher should not do. All of this effect the way teachers are showed and the expectations they are held to, which is sky high. Which brings me to my point of how much media affects the expectations of a teacher.

In society expectations are high for all public servants especially teachers. The problem is society compares human teachers to fictional teachers that are seemingly perfect. With this state of mind society expects the real teachers to do everything the fictional teacher can do no matter what. However, what the public forgets is that real teachers have certain things, like budgets, that confines them in what they can actually do. The public also expects the teacher to give every student individual attention, but with growing class sizes that is almost nearly impossible. These are just a few expectations that the public has of teachers.

Even though society has some unrealistic standards for teachers, they try. They try to give students everything that they can even if it comes out of their own pockets. With ever growing classes and shrinking budgets teachers are getting more and more creative with teaching students, they have to. Instead of the media protraying the teacher as someone who can do everything I believe they need to show the world the underbelly of the education system. Show them that we are trying and succeeding with the limited resources, but there is a reason behind why schools are struggling.

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