Challenge
The challenge I am currently experiencing in education is a lack of time; more specifically a lack of time for educators to do the important work around teaching like community building. Community is best built by getting to know students and families through extracurriculars such as School Plays, Sporting Events, Winter Concerts, and anything else that showcases what students are passionate about in their spare time. These clubs and organizations are built by, advised by, and oftentimes funded by already overworked teachers, and with the increasing demands in education, they are starting to fall by the wayside. These extra elements of schooling are so essential to building well-rounded kids and getting to know families on a more familial level than just a parent-teacher conference and are essential to the education system but teachers get paid very little for oftentimes a large commitment and staffing is becoming an increasing issue. The challenge that I am experiencing is that I think students must have opportunities to join clubs and play sports and do activities but if as a global whole, we cant even find educators to fill the classroom, how are we going to find people to do extracurriculars? Without extracurriculars, how can we hope to build community?