Crisis In the Classroom

After 36 years as a public school classroom teacher, I decided it was time to retire because a crisis was developing in the classroom.

I taught regular education, special education, and gifted students. My passion was the art of teaching: communicating with my students, presenting mental activities that forced them to think and imagine, directing their academic growth, and helping them identify problems and use research to craft solutions.

Teaching math skills and concepts served as a gateway to spark their imaginations and apply learning to create. My classroom debate team was both fun and challenging because I taught students how to tailor information to support whatever side of an argument they were assigned.

My goal was always to challenge my students to see how far I could take them academically. Simple lessons—such as teaching them how to give a firm handshake, deliver an oral presentation, or hold a door open for the person behind them—were integral to the experience. For me, teaching meant exposing students to experiences that would help them become better individuals. It was challenging and exciting for both them and me.

Over the years, education changed. I no longer taught critical thinking, deductive reasoning, presentation skills, or reading comprehension, and Bloom’s Taxonomy was abandoned due to a lack of time. Teaching became prescriptive, dictated by publishing companies to prep students for standardized testing.

My role as a teacher shifted, and students were regressing. Parents remained unaware of these changes, focusing only on report card grades without ever questioning on what criteria those grades were based.

From the beginning of my career to my retirement, I witnessed a crisis gain momentum. Despite numerous alarms raised by frontline teachers, those in power made few or no attempts to correct course. Too many players had entered the field with their own agendas, very few of which actually concerned the education of the children.

Ann Alexander
Founder, Kognara.