Tamara Briggman, 33
Home Town:
Hopkins, SC

Occupation:
5th grade teacher
Hobbies: Reading, meeting new people
Political affiliation: Democrat
Feelings about current state of politics:
Confusing. Honestly, I never would have thought about an answer to t ... See full Bio

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On Being a Teacher
On Being a Teacher
October 4th - 12:42 pm

 

Whew!! Where do I start? Everytime I think about my first year teaching, I get tears in my eyes.  I was so rough. When I was in college, I used to talk to my classmates all the time about what great ideas we could come up with and take into the classroom.  I remember graduation day, I was so excited.  I had interviewed with a middle school (the middle school I had attended) and I was sure I was going to get the assignment.  I did, and since I had graduated in December, I only had half the year left.  So I really didn't feel like that was my first year.  The following school year was when I felt like I had been thrown in with the sharks.  Here I was saying to myself, I really feel like I can relate to these students.  A lot of them had the same backgrounds that I had as a child.  I felt like I could inspire them by telling them parts of my past and saying "You can do whatever you want, if you just try. Look at me!" And they were like yeah right.  Everyday I went home wanting to cry.  Some days I did. 

Honestly, I feel like there is too much going on in Education.  Too many workshops, too many initiatives.  Just let me teach.  I'm not saying workshops are not a good thing. Professional development is good, but when I have to spend so much time completing paper work or some other assignment that I don't have time or energy for lesson plans, then something's wrong. 

I was really impressed with the program in Michigan and I wish there was such a program for new teachers (or even teachers who are burned out but still love the profession) here.

I don't think it's so much that there are bad teachers. I'm sure there are but I don't know why anybody would go into the profession NOT caring about students.  I think what happens is, we go in naive and then the reality sets in.  Everything is thrown at you at once and on top of that you have unruly students and parents who think the teacher is the be all, end all.

I recently had a grandmother come up to me at a program we had for grandparent's day with her grandchild and told her, if you have any problems, you just find Mrs. Briggman and she'll help you.  After the child walked away, she told me that sometimes the child comes to school hungry because the mom doesn't get up to feed her breakfast.  So I asked her,"Where do you live?" She mentioned some town. I didn't ask her, but the question I wanted to ask was if you're so concerned, why not take her to live with you.  (Sure hope that grandmother doesn't read this post.) Anyway, these are the types of things teachers have to deal with.  I have to worry about whether or not your child feels like learning today because she may not have had breakfast this morning, when it's all I can do to get up, get my three sons dressed, fed and off to school happy.

I don't know what the solution is but I know part of the equation is that the administration needs to stop spending money on BS professional development and find something that really works and keep doing it.  If a teacher is burned out, take a break and try something new, I did.  Because if you don't, the students suffer.  Don't let someone who has not spent at least five to ten years in the classroom be a principal.  And finally, just let me teach.

Comments:
 
Tamara Safford
You do not lie, sister!
June 10th - 9:15 am
The educational system today is sorely lacking hands on
attention from the administration! I taught in the day care
and elementary school system for 25 years...If only the
administration would focus on real issues of funding for
mental health facilities, social work facilities, art supplies
with good art teachers and music supplies with good music
teachers....A careful look at gender issues and racial issues
in Massachusetts schools....training with longer hours in
practicums....The world would be a better place.
Tanya
RED APPLE
October 7th - 4:49 pm
Tam, I'm giving you an apple. Just pretend you can see it. It's red, shiny and ready to eat!
Bert
Tamara, you are my hero
October 6th - 8:08 am
Tamara, I find your self reliance to be inspiring.

When I look at problems in education today I see the same problems that I had as a "working supervisor" in manufacturing, people higher up the food chain coming up with "Initiatives" or "protocols" or "ISO procedures implementation" all the while I was working lots of unfunded overtime meeting orders and addressing customer concerns. The administrators all felt that since they had fancy titles and high salaries, that I should drop what I was doing and start filling out all the forms and paperwork that they had dreamed up in an effort to impress their boss. This top end dead wood increased exponentially as top brass in these companies had less and less understanding of what our product was and who our customers were. Rather than learn about the nuts and bolts of a company these "Professional managers" hired azz kissers to gather data, and prepare presentations (can you say "power-point"?) and hand out top down edicts that inevitably created lots of unproductive work and the resulting drop in moral at the production level.

When you have a situation where there are "too many chiefs, and not enough Indians (native American)" there is bound to be heart break and anger in the ranks.

The problem with having a state Department of Education, a Federal Department of Education, and a local school board/superintendent is that every good (or bad) idea that they come up with just creates more work for the teachers at a time when there true clients (the students) need their attention more than ever.
Parents who do not feed their children breakfast should have their names published in the paper, if there is a legitimate problem the community can come out to help, if the parents are lazy or addicted, the shame is theirs and perhaps this will motivate them towards change.
 
Flandamier
Apple
October 5th - 3:46 pm
Tamara - I couldn't agree with you more. My father and twin sister were both teachers at one point in their careers. They said very much the same thing you said here, in that there was too much red-tape and political BS to deal with in order to do what it was they were hired to do - teach. If I lived near you, I would give you an apple for bringing this to light. :) Thank you!