> All those administrators do is interfere with teaching and introduce new education fads every year. <
That is so true, and something the general public is not normally aware of. As I noted elsewhere, things really got out of whack around the year 2000.
Before then, we were given overall objectives to teach. I was teaching physics at the time. So I’d be told to spend two weeks on circular motion. It was up to me to get the job done, using techniques that differed depending on the makeup of each class.
Then around 2000 waves of young new administrators started coming in. They’d quote “educational research” showing the way science MUST be taught. No deviation is permitted!
As you noted, the “research” changed almost yearly. One fad out, another fad in. It was maddening.
“No deviation is permitted!”
Yep. For the last quarter of her career, my sister had the young punk administrators who had recently graduated with “education” degrees telling her how to teach, what she was doing wrong, how to improve, etc. Not one of them had ever taught, but they sure knew how to do it. My sister was a top performer, had always gotten super results, and frequently had students from decades past greet her on the street and praise her for getting them on a good path.
So she just ignored the young idiots and continued doing what she had always done to get good results. She had reached a point where she figured “what have I got to lose?”
The end of her career was very demoralizing, though. Instead of the school recognizing wisdom and achievement that comes with age and experience, anything old was reviled. She was always getting pushed aside and no longer asked for ideas on how to improve school performance (which was on a long downward slide). So she learned to keep her mouth shut, tune out the development meetings, and just quietly do her job.
It’s no wonder that people do not last long in teaching the past few decades. You are constantly gnawed at by pipsqueak, ignorant Lilliputians.
You sound a lot like my sister!