What nobody is saying out loud about who is actually failing whom.
By Kim Lester
Teachers -
It is the last week of school. And somewhere in your building right now, a student is showing up with work from October.
And somehow - somehow - the question on the table is what YOU are going to do about it.
I need to talk about this.
Because I watched it happen for 28 years. And it never stopped being one of the most exhausting, demoralizing things a teacher can experience. Not because the work is hard. Because the absurdity of it is never named out loud.
Here is what actually happened between September and now.
You taught. You differentiated. You pulled small groups. You sat one on one with students who were struggling. You met kids where they were - not where it was convenient for you, where they actually were - and you built lessons around that.
When the assignment didn't come back, you sent another copy. And another. Because the first one was lost. Or forgotten. Or apparently eaten by a dog. You offered makeup days. You ran tutoring. You held lunch and learns. You created every door back into that work that a teacher could possibly create.
And the kids didn't show up.
Not all of them - but the ones we are talking about right now, the ones whose grades are suddenly a crisis in week 40 of the school year - those kids made choices. All year long. They chose not to complete the work. They chose not to attend the tutoring. They chose not to come to the lunch and learn. They chose not to use the makeup days.
Those are choices. Made by students. Not by you.
But here we are in the last week of school and nobody is talking about the choices the students made. They are talking about what the teacher plans to do about the grades.
Let me tell you what these makeup work policies have actually looked like in practice.
Policies that say a student cannot receive below a 50 - the no zero policy - even if they turned in nothing. Not a late paper. Not a partial attempt. Nothing. And the grade still cannot reflect that nothing.
Policies that allow students to retake a test they failed. And retake it again. And again. With no limit. No end point. And every time the grade doesn't improve, the conversation turns back to the teacher. Reteach it. Try a different method. Pull a small group. Make more copies. Give more time. Do more.
So she does more. And the student still doesn't do anything different. And the grade stays the same. And the conversation starts over.
And it is not just the struggling student. A student with an A that is not 100 can keep testing until the student is satisfied. Until the parent is satisfied. "John made a 90. What can he do to get a 100." Until he gets a 100. Because apparently a 90 is now a problem that belongs to the teacher.
Meanwhile nobody is asking the real question. When is the teacher supposed to find the time to keep creating new versions of the same task - over and over - for kids who keep ignoring them, trashing them, or never picking them up at all. At what point does someone look around the room and ask why the only person being held accountable is the one who never stopped doing her job.
And while all of this is happening - while every rule in the building is designed to protect the student from the natural consequence of their own choices - nobody is asking what the student plans to do differently. Nobody is sitting that child down and saying your teacher has done her job. Now it is time for you to do yours.
Instead the teacher is called in. Asked to explain the grades. Asked what interventions she tried. Asked what her plan is now.
Her plan. For a student who has been making choices since October that led directly to this moment.
This is what devalued looks like. Not in a dramatic way. In a quiet, exhausting, end-of-year, I-have-given-everything-and-none-of-it-is-ever-enough way.
Teachers are held to some of the highest professional standards of any career. The licensing requirements alone. The continuing education. The evaluations. The documentation. The legal obligations. All of it. And still treated, at the end of a school year, like they are the problem because a student decided not to do the work.
Teachers are not babysitters. They are professionals. And professionals deserve to work in systems that hold everyone in the room accountable - not just the ones who already showed up.
The student who didn't do the work in October had a choice. The student who skipped the tutoring had a choice. The student who is now standing in your doorway in the last week of school with a folder of missing assignments - that student has been making choices all year.
You have been doing your job all year.
Those are not the same thing. And it is long past time someone said so.
Give yourself the same care you give everyone else.
Kim 🌿
After the Bells was built for the teacher who has been doing her job all year and still ends up being the one who has to answer for it.
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