Naturally, as a teacher, I'm not completely immune to the current atmosphere surrounding education. There seems to be a movement, if I can call it that, that tends to believe that the problem with today's schools is most likely to do with a failure of the teachers. Test scores, it is said, will demonstrate effective teachers and ineffective ones. The corporate world operates with goals and benchmarks, so why then can't education?
Well, let me tell you.
First of all, we need to look at schools that function. Yes, some of those schools are in the United States. Some are public, some are private, and some are charter (the miracle drug for the "union problem"). Regardless of WHERE these schools are, if they're effective, you have a community that supports, respects, and believes in the teachers, administrators, and staff of each effective school.
Do new teachers exist in these schools? Sometimes. Are all teachers at their absolute best everyday? No, even experienced teachers have rough days. But in these schools we have support for newer, or struggling teachers, and faith in administrators to educate, mentor, and otherwise lift up all stakeholders in the school. In the best schools in the world you will find a supportive system for teachers and students alike.
Now the common viewpoint on public schools is that a) they're union, and therefore bad teachers can't be fired, b) better teachers leave for better schools so the schools that need the most work have the least effective teachers, and c) if we had more effective teachers in poor schools we would see student's test scores rise.
A) Teachers can be fired. In New Mexico there are schools where the union is pretty strong (perhaps stronger than it should be) but even there, bad teachers CAN get fired with proper documentation. Somehow, however, in NM bad teachers drift from one school district to another. How is it that administrators hire someone who isn't an effective teacher? THAT is a practice that needs to be looked into.
You know, before moving to Massachusetts, where teachers seem to be a dime a dozen (for my long term sub job I was chosen from 300 applicants), I'd never demo taught a lesson before being hired before. As horrible as the experience of demo teaching was for me, I think it's a valuable exercise (you have to put A LOT of effort in to get hired around here). It gives an administrator an idea of what kind of teacher you can be. Perhaps we shouldn't focus on firing people, but on making sure that we're hiring people who really are the best fit for the school?
B) The only reason better teachers leave bad schools is because bad schools are typically overrun with unresolved socioeconomic problems. It is literally exhausting going to work on a daily basis, and in addition to teaching curriculum, you have to deal with students recovering from drive by shootings, rape, teen pregnancy, homelessness, abuse...well, you get the idea. We are not counselors. In most schools these students have a social worker who is supposed to help students through the worst things in their lives, but in reality the teacher gets the brunt end of all the stuff that's going on in their students lives (not in terms of opening up usually, but in bad moods, withdrawn moods, etc.). IF by some miracle, we could really help students who need help, we might see a more effective classroom. If we had better classes, we'd have teachers stick to poor classrooms. It's not like teachers go into teaching for money, power or fame. They get involved because they're helpers (if you think it's for the summers off, many teachers end up getting a part time job in the summer to support themselves).
C) Test scores are a reflection of curriculum. The richer the curriculum, the more critical thinking skills a student will have, and the better they will perform. Analyzing test scores is a tool, not an answer to our problems. If you want a good education you offer deep, meaningful instruction. The more we focus on tests, the less we focus on teaching. The less we focus on teaching the worse off we will actually be. The corporate world takes managers and gives them benchmarks. They say to the manager that his or her employees must produce so much work by a certain time and they're rewarded when their goals are met. Their employees are already trained and can be fired if they don't perform. Students are not trained, they are being trained, and they are legally required to stay in school. The system does NOT work for schools.
In districts where there is poverty, schools are not going to get better until society is fixed.
As a GED teacher I get the students who were unable to get through the current system, and I ask myself what could have worked differently in their favor. Would a better teacher have made a difference? On average, my high school drop-outs left school around 10th grade (usually after having a child or being kicked out of their house). They have a reading level of approximately a 4th or 5th grader, although some students score 8th grade or higher, and math skills anywhere between 3rd grade and 8th grade. In my, not so professional opinion, there's not much a different teacher could have done for them. They need smaller classes, more attention, and an extreme amount of support. They simply were not in a (mental) place where they could learn before, and there was no place they could go to be removed from the class to make it a better place for other students to learn.
So, here's my platform. My reform movement so to speak.
1) Create a community in which learners have the social, emotional, and educational support necessary for them to focus on school instead of outside pressures.
2) Hire good teachers and then revere them. In some countries being a teacher is one of the most respected positions a person can hold. Support teachers who need help, they're not much different from their students and will improve if given the right opportunities.
3) Focus on rich curriculum, not on tests. Not only will this allow bright students to excel, it will draw on a student's natural instinct to learn.
4) Figure out, as a society, what we want for students who aren't going to go into white collar jobs. Since we've shipped away so many manufacturing jobs we've got a whole bunch of people, in and out of school that we don't know what to do with.
5) Feed students real food. Seriously, have you seen what kids are eating these days? Even the official school food is mostly filler with very little whole grain and is so processed there's not much nutrition left. Sure it'd be great if parents would feed their children well, but remember, the students who need schools to provide food are the ones sending their kids to school with a sticky bun and mountain dew as breakfast (so the sugar wears off right around math class).
The DO NOT list includes:
1) Don't destroy (or avoid) unions. Teachers don't make that much and they need to feel secure in their jobs to take the risk to grow and improve. If they don't have secured benefits, they do have other choices in careers.
2) Don't blame teachers for society's ills. It is not the teacher's fault that some student's don't want, or can't learn. The brain simply can't function as well when it is stressed. Students are stressed, and not learning. When teachers are stressed, they also will not learn.
3) Don't make a teacher's day longer. If you want to add sports or art or whatever else needs to be added to a student's day, great! Do so! But don't add it to the responsibilities of the teacher. The teacher needs to teach and plan, and they'll do their best when given enough time and space to do so. In fact, I think every student should have 2 hours of extracurricular stuff built in during the day, but taught by someone other than the regular ed teacher. (I call it the boarding school model because that's how fancy schools do it).
Okay, that's my soapbox. It's probably similar to every other post I've written on education, but I just had to get that off of my chest.
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