Overwhelmed by Chaos

Teachers Giving Up

Sunday's paper reported that 32 teachers have already resigned from their contract with the Hamilton County School system. That's double the number from one year ago. But Why? The salary is above average for most of the workers in the Chattanooga area. Insurance, retirement ( especially early retirement) is better than most occupations and job security is good; so why the drop out?
Could it be that there is a feeling of chaos in the class room? Teachers by the very nature of their work need control and discipline in the class room environment. Having 15 to 22 kids who come from undisciplined homes leaves a teacher feeling overwhelmed. In some class rooms, where there is enough funding to support an assistant, that person can keep order while the teacher works with children to actually get their school work done.
Where there is no way to keep order the teacher feels more and more helpless. Of course children coming from undisciplined or malfunctioning homes bring their wildness and their lack of respect for authority to school with them.
So what is the instructor to do? First try to get some perspective by looking at many other occupations. A book I once read was entitled; How to manage Chaos. In short the writer said that you can never be chaos free. It keeps breaking out, in industry, in law enforcement, in military activities, in dealing with animals Etc..
You can still accomplish good things even though you will never obtain the order that you desire. No teacher expects to see more than a little improvement as students pass through their class rooms on the way to the next class. What students are picking up is invisible and in rowdy classrooms it is even harder to detect but hang in there, chances are that nobody could do it better. Chances are that your students are learning more than you think. Many people exist and even prosper in the midst of chaos to have everything quiet and orderly would seem strange to them. To the average teacher chaos is anathema but remember you are doing God's work. He worked to bring order out of chaos and He's still working at it. Continue to be his helpers.