Since I've become a college student, I've had quite a bit of time to reflect on my time as a student in high school and I've also been able to recognize what was and is effective for my personal learning, and what was not.
Your precalculus class stood out to me for a few reasons. One was that I consistently asked myself (and others) why I was taking your class. Another was that you frequently came to class in a dreadful mood, teaching us the material through robotic motions and with the enthusiasm of a small child being forced to eat a plate of broccoli. Finally, your overly-stated-in-class divorce issues made it exceptionally hard to approach you outside of class (which we all felt bad about, but we needed to learn the material).
As you can probably imagine, having these feelings about your class was a bit of an issue, considering the fact that math is an important part of the standardized testing that students in high school need to take in order to assess their college readiness. I ended up having to be tutored in math for the SAT, because I felt that my knowledge was so weak after taking your class-even though I consider myself to be a very strong student overall. The rest of my peers in class felt the same way as I did, and we took our concerns to the principal and the Board of Education. Unfortunately, we learned nothing could be done for your sub-par teaching because it was your 25th year at the school and your tenure had precedence over almost any teaching-related complaints. This system is concerning, because you were obviously going through a really hard time in your life and I believe that that was affecting your teaching too much to be ignored. The issue of tenure is not one to be ignored within the school system, especially if it's making it difficult for students to be getting the education that they need. I realize that you are still employed at the school. I hope that things are better for students in your classes now, but I honestly believe that someone with more enthusiasm and concern for their students could be doing a better job.
While I disagree with the policy of tenure, it may be hard to implement change in the education system, especially in public schools. Obviously it needs to be addressed, but where do we start? The principal and board were no help, nor would be county-wide officials or maybe even the state. It would have to change at the federal level - something that could take years, or even decades. That's too long for students in high school. It needs to come with personal responsibility on your part. Teachers need to realize when their test scores are lacking and self-evaluate to figure out what needs to change. Even things like the anonymous teacher evaluations we have in college would make a large change in teaching style at the high school level. Then you would have an opportunity to see what needs to bed fixed order to start getting better results from your students- who, by the way, really do want to learn. Our community is full of incredible potential.
Thank you for your consideration,
Sincerely,
Emily Christen
(An Empowered College Student)