Archived: The Educational System in the United States: Case Study Findings

Teachers
The picture that emerged from discussions with teachers revealed a profession
that required its participants to assume multiple roles and to accommodate ever-
increasing demands from administrators and parents. Playing these multiple roles
often limited the amount of time and energy teachers had available for their pro-
fessional development and for preparing for their classes.
Teachers had entered the profession for many reasons, including long summer
vacations and favorable working conditions for women. It did not take long for
them to realize, however, that the profession they had entered was very demand-
ing and often stressful.
Elementary school teachers were trained primarily in professional schools of edu-
cation, rather than in academic departments in the sciences and humanities. After
a period of student teaching, the new teachers in elementary schools were as-
sumed to be capable of handling a full teaching load, which typically included
all academic subjects. High school teachers, in contrast, spent much greater
amounts of time during their college years studying in the discipline in which they
hoped to specialize and either majored or elected many of their courses in that
academic subject. Most high school teachers anticipated teaching in no more than
one or two subject areas.
Teachers reported working in relative isolation, with limited time and opportuni-
ties for collaboration with colleagues. This was not universally the case, however,
for in some schools teachers were given high degrees of responsibility for devel-
oping the curriculum and the practices and procedures that would be followed
in the school. In the case of beginning teachers, in some schools they were given
little opportunity to learn from their experienced colleagues; in other schools, it
was expected that the new teachers would be guided and assisted by experienced
colleagues in their adjustment to full-time teaching.
The schedule of U.S. teachers typically involved teaching at least four or five
classes each day. This obligation, in addition to other duties required of teachers,
meant that there was little free time for them to interact with other teachers, dis-
cuss professional matters, prepare for classes, or grade papers. As a result, most
teachers completed some of these duties at home, after-school hours. Teachers

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generally arrived at school early each morning and unless they were required to
attend meetings or to supervise extracurricular activities, left for home in midafter-
noon.
There was a tendency for teachers to seek positions in suburban school districts
at the expense of urban schools. Suburban districts often offered teachers more
flexibility, higher pay, more motivated students, and more favorable working con-
ditions. In addition, suburban students were often better prepared for school and
there was greater parental support and involvement in education. Given these
incentives, urban schools experience difficulty in retaining skilled teachers.
In an era when efforts at school reform have become widespread, teachers re-
ported that they were often overburdened by the need to adhere to the reforms
in curricula, innovations in teaching practices, and new administrative tasks. In
schools where there was little or no assistance for teachers, these additional
responsibilities were reported to be overwhelming. Because of the rapidity of
change and the increase in demands, the main complaint of U.S. teachers was lack
of time to accomplish all of the tasks for which they were responsible.