Maha, this sounds elitist but most people accept whatever junk they are handed. Their expectations are broken and they hide in the mundane and the unchallenging.

As a teacher your job is to raise expectations and not accept any sort of process or system that diminishes people. Especially your own Daughter. Part of what I perceive in the inside/outside polarity is that middle place where a person in education or any other profession deals with the contradiction between what is and what can be. (Forget what “should be”–that’s for people to fuss over while they do nothing). Those that are worn down stop feeling that self questioning and reflective tension and fall into a zone of least-energy-output but that isn’t every one.

Living in a small town while our kids grew up participating in all sorts of activities we spent a lot of time with their teachers who also had active kids. These were dedicated people but also overworked and not supported by administrators who with one exception were the dullest people on the planet. By offering to support the teachers with extra craft supplies, classroom copies of cool books or field trip supervision, we were in contact and could see they were doing their best. (With a few exceptions).

By the way, the best teacher I EVER had was my probation officer when I was 14. The guy was interested in everything me and my friends did–really, really interested. If you get tired of teaching there’s always crime:-)