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July 18, 2024National Data Confirms Why the Rowan Undergrad Chose Not to Teach: Student Misbehavior Is Negatively Impacting Schools and Teachers
July 25, 2024Sunlight has documented the statewide, post-COVID increase in student misbehavior and in-school violence that has stretched and stressed teachers. These problems have not gone away (here, here, and here). Yet New Jersey’s largest teachers union, the NJEA, has done nothing to address this major problem. Now, it’s starting to negatively affect the way college students are looking at the teaching profession and led one Rowan University student to forego teaching altogether. The NJEA has loudly decried New Jersey’s “teacher shortage,” but due to its inaction, it looks like it’s contributing to the shortage.
In NJSpotlight News, Rowan University junior MiaRose Brown describes how she chose not to pursue teaching even though she had always wanted to be a teacher like her mother, a 23-year veteran who recently left the profession.
Brown makes clear that she deems teaching a “less desirable” occupation because of “lack of respect, pay, and poor working conditions,” but the “key reason” is lack of respect. By lack of respect (and poor working conditions), she means the additional responsibilities given to today’s teachers, such as having to manage increased student misbehavior and the disruption of instruction.
Brown describes the experience of her mother, a teacher for 23 years, saying:
COVID has given everyone … a waiver on any type of disciplinary action, leaving teachers to have to maintain an instructional classroom while maintaining behavioral stability … at the same time.
It turns out her mother left teaching because of “the lack of support, respect, and overall care for the teacher’s mental health.” In the end, her mother was “pushed to exhaustion.”
Brown rightly notes that studies have documented an increase in student misbehavior since the pandemic, and adds: “These behavioral challenges show no signs of lessening, and teachers are bearing the burden.”
Where is the NJEA, which is supposed to take care of the interests of teachers?
Nowhere, which is all the more galling because the NJEA knows very well how to combat this problem. When the NJEA was confronted with a similar upsurge in student misbehavior and violence in 2010, it launched a statewide campaign “10 steps to reduce violence.” This was a full-fledged NJEA campaign that called for political-style organizing by NJEA locals because it could not be left to the school district or Department of Education:
“Organizing is necessary to address school violence because nothing else works, especially relying solely on school districts or government agencies to do the right thing.
And NJEA headquarters was there to help with a webpage, resources, and staff.
“Make eliminating school violence a priority and commit to organizing members and allies to pressure district administration for real improvements. Enlist the assistance of the UniServ [NJEA] representative…”
The 2010 campaign showed that when the NJEA wants to address student misbehavior and violence, it knows how to. But the NJEA is silent now. Why?
The NJEA loudly and often decries New Jersey’s “teacher shortage,” but now it looks like its inaction is contributing to it. When will the NJEA act to help its teachers?