You live, you learn. At any rate you live

I am an urban inner city high school teacher.

People hear what I do for a living and they assume that my students are the stereo types portrayed in the various movies about teaching and they must be terrible. I love my students like my children. I love the good students who are just plain nice kids, the snarky teenagers who thinks sarcasm is wit (they will learn), the kids with probation officers and the ones with children of their own. Sure teenagers are frustrating, and occasionally annoying, but I remember what I was like as a teenager... and I was annoying. High school is the worst time in most people lives. Every hormone in your body is telling you to drive the adult in your life crazy, and every small bump becomes this huge drama.

This is why I hate all those movies, they get the struggle of being a teacher WRONG!!!!!
It is not the kids who are the problem, it is the adults.

I have been teaching long enough to see a few rounds of school reforms and more than a few changes in Administration. Every In many ways my school is the canary in the coal mine. We wholeheartedly dive into each reform and we are the worse for it.

School reform turns teachers into educationologists.

An educationologist is an odd and wasteful entity; a tragic parody on the idea of an educationist. The difference between an educationologist and teacher is not in function, but the actions to complete their given function. Such types often focus on the form of teaching, with requirements, paperwork and administration rather than doing everything in their power to find and perfect the art of passing on their knowledge to their charges. While they think they are furthering their students' education, they don't often manage it.