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A friend tells me that her husband is entering into teaching because it is a “solid job”. He lost his job and has been looking for work for some time. She suggested that he become a teacher. He is in an alternative certification process and will begin teaching within a year.
As her friend I understood the need to provide for the family and have a secure job. I don’t know if he will make a great teacher or not, but I began to wonder if we have set the bar too low for people to enter into the teaching profession. As it stands, we have a systemic issue of not identifying and getting rid of low performing teachers, so do we really want to create an environment where someone can earn their degree online and begin teaching in a year?
Wouldn’t it be beneficial to raise the rigor of entering into teaching, forcing future teachers to demonstrate high-levels of competency in their instructional abilities and content knowledge? Then, amply reward those that make the cut with a professional salary on par with lawyers? In this scenario, would we need to worry about attracting the best and brightest? I don’t think so.
My argument is that once we begin treating teaching as just a job, allowing people to earn certification and teach without proper teaching training or proving competency, then, at this point, teachers’ ability to take control of the conversation that teaching is a profession becomes difficult.
What is the impact of a teacher?
How far does it extend?
How many students do we positively affect?
We can’t accurately answer this. Teachers are told we make a difference, and in our hearts we know we change lives. Yet, it’s hard to point to hard data that really captures the full extent of our impact. Rather, we see glimpses of our impact: students coming in to thank us, or an email noting how we changed his or her life. When evidence of our impact bubbles to the surface, it is powerful and refreshing, refueling our passion to teach and make a difference.
I read my high school students’ teacher belief statements this weekend and I had to share what I found. I assigned this to my students enrolled in our school’s teacher academy – a program that encourages students to enter into teaching. I was struck by how many of my students were going into teaching because of one teacher’s impact: emotionally, intellectually, or inspirational.
Here are 3 excerpts:
“There are a lot of reasons I chose to teach, but the most signficant one was this teacher I had during 7th grade – Mr. B. He challenged us to learn at our full potential even though sometimes we learned difficult concepts.”
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“It all started when I was in third grade, my teacher, Mrs. K showed us that education could be fun! She showed me a lot of individual attention that I hadn’t received before. I could say I loved my teacher. As I look back on what she did and how she went about it, I think about myself, how I act, and how I care about people like she did.
—-
One day in Language Arts class, Ms. B cried over a student that died due to a disease, and seeing that changed me perspective about teachers; teachers actually cared about students. I thought since they cared so much and so do I about other people, that maybe teaching could become my career choice.
—-
I will scan the students’ belief statements and email them to the students’ former teachers with a simple note that reads, “You make a difference.”
I wrote the following post on Edubloggers - a group for those people blogging about the K12 classroom including teachers, administrators, curriculum directors, professional developers, pre-service teachers, and college level educators who focus on k12 education.:
Please share with me websites or resources that would be helpful to future and preservice teachers. I am the site author of roadtoteaching.com – a free site that supports pre-service teachers.
Here are the responses:
- http://www.abcte.org – non-profit that helps people get certified to teach through an online program – we have $150 off in January as a promotion for people who want to get certified
http://www.charterteacher.com – help for future charter teachers
http://www.newteacherhotline.com – podcast for new and aspiring teachers - New Teacher Center: http://www.newteachercenter.org – Since 1998, the New Teacher Center has served over 49,000 teachers and 5,000 mentors, touching millions of students across the country through comprehensive mentoring and professional development programs.
- http://www.cashforcreations.com – Educational Visual Aids, where teachers get paid for their original ideas of educational visual aids. Teachers can find other visual aids that teachers have used that have worked for them in their classrooms.
- I have a message board for pre-service and new teachers and answer questions about curriculum, organization, classroom management, working with parents, colleagues, administrators, etc. on scholastic.com. Advice is free.
http://community.scholastic.com/scholastic/board?board.id=emergency - A few more ideas: for parental involvement, especially with the growing Latino student population, try Colorin Colorado at www.colorincolorado.org. On my LinkedIn profile page there is a list of sites specifically for improving parental involvement. Another idea is Teachers Pay Teachers at www.teacherspayteachers.com. It contains a lot of inexpensive resources that will benefit new teachers. I also suggest connecting with professional learning communities like edWeb at www.edweb.net. Good luck!
RESOURCES
Subscribe to Road to Teaching Feed
I spent yesterday guiding my students through the process of developing their belief/philosophy statement on teaching. I participated alongside my students. To spend a significant block of time to reflect on my values and beliefs regarding education, teaching, and learning, was quite refreshing. I haven’t seriously reviewed my belief statement since I was student teaching. I was amazed and inspired by how much of my teaching practice was reflected in my belief statement. It makes sense though. As I write in my book:
An education philosophy statement is the bedrock of any master teacher; it encapsulates the principles and beliefs you bring to your teaching, creating the foundation to guide your teaching practices.
If you haven’t review your belief statement, then I encourage you to reflect and answer the following questions:
- What motivated you to go into teaching?
- What values and beliefs would an ideal teacher have?
- What are your beliefs about students, learning, behavior, respect, school systems, etc.?
- What changes would you like to see happen in our education system?
- What values do you want to model for the students inside and outside the classroom?
- Of your beliefs, which ones are non-negotiable?
Interestingly, one of my students proposed a longer school year for a change she would like to see happen. Then I asked the class if they would like a longer school year. Eyes began to shift. I reassured the students their responses would not leave this room. Nearly 75% of the students raised their hands in favor or a longer school year. Hmmmm…
If you are in the process of writing a belief / philosophy statement then read my post on Topics for Philosophy Statements, especially if you are have trouble writing one.
Here’s a quick post of what is happening. This entire week I tweaked the curriculum to allow for the students to have more choice in their project. I have also started to use some different technologies to allow for the information to be more accessible to the students. For instance, instead of a student straining to see the overhead, students can now view the same information on their computer screens alongside their work (the software I use is called Vision). This lends itself well to interactive presentations and modeling. Finally, I stepped up the rigor. I created Do-Now activities (bell work) that are more challenging and requires the students to use higher level thinking skills.
For the most part the students are becoming more and more engaged, winning over the naysayers. I had a few students come after school to work on their project, and one of these students was my biggest challenge. He wouldn’t do his work and he was constantly disrupting others. I spent a good amount of time with him, which helped build a relationship between us. His behavior has improved and currently only needs gentle reminders from time to time.
In part III I will post some data/evidence that things are in fact improving or not.
I asked myself “what is it with this class”several times during 3rd period. Today’s class started off on the wrong foot. A student walked into the class screaming “WHERE’S MY CHAIR ?” Mind you this is about 30 seconds after the bell.
“Really. I have about an hour and half left with this the class, and this crap is already starting!” – I thought.
The class went south after that. I upheld my expectations of classroom behavior, and followed through on my discipline steps. Meanwhile, I didn’t feel good about it. I felt too much of an authoritarian – which I suppose is necessary from time to time. Yet, the feeling that somehow this isn’t an enjoyable class is still present in my mind.
I have taught the same class over a dozen times before and it’s been engaging, fun, and a great learning environment. This class is beginning to feel hostile, tense, and negative. This is unacceptable. Who wants to teach in a class like this? Or who wants to learn in a class like that? There many reasons I suspect have led to this situation. Regardless, I need to reverse it.
I have been mulling over some ideas to improve the classroom environment. Two that I will implement ASAP is celebrate student successes more often and change-up the curriculum so it’s more engaging for the students.
I’ll have the students back on Friday. Let’s see what happens.
Picture taken after a busy day of teaching
Same desk 2 hours later
It’s a simple premise: our students should know what they are learning and why. The best way to accomplish this is through having learning objectives for every lesson. Yet, teachers tend to make some common mistake around learning objectives. Knowing these common mistakes will help you maximize your practice of using learning objectives:
1) Clearly post learning objectives.
Don’t make the students continually guess what they will be learning. It’s not fun for the students, and they will eventually give up trying. Your learning objective should never be a secret. Your learning objective should be written or placed in a prominent place in your classroom. Some teachers write it in PowerPoint, some use document cameras, and others have their learning objectives written in a dedicated space on their white board. Do what works best for you and your students, but the key is to consistently post it.
2) Make your learning objective relevant.
Reference your learning objectives in the beginning of each lesson. If you continually talk about (give attention to) the learning objective students will come to understand that this is important and something they should pay attention to. Another way is to have the students do some activity around the learning objective. For instance, you may ask students to reflect on their progress in achieving the learning objective and what they need to meet it.
3) Write the learning objective in simple, student-friendly language.
Avoid going crazy with a paragraph-long learning objective. Keep it simple, allowing the student to understand it. To ensure students understand the learning objective you can have students rewrite the learning objective in their own words.
4) Double-check to see if it is really an objective or activity.
Examples of activities masked as learning objectives:
“Read Chapter 2 in the your textbook.”
“Summarize Chapter 2.”
Examples of a learning objectives:
Students will be able to
“Describe the author’s perspective in Chapter 2″
“Compare and contrast between current author and a past author’s perspective”
5) Ensure your learning objectives drive the lesson.
Every activity and assessment must be connected to your learning objectives. Often teachers have great activities, but they have nothing to do with the learning objective.
RESOURCES
Road to Teaching: A Guide to Teacher Training, Student Teaching, and Finding a Job
“Do we juggle too many things in education?” “Are we trying to take on too many things in the name of school reform?” I believe so.
Lately, I feel like education leaders are taking a shotgun approach to improving student achievement. Shoot in any direction and hopefully something works. However, research shows this approach doesn’t work. In Jim Collin’s book, Good to Great, he describes that best performing organizations always focus on a doing a few things well. These high performing organizations do this by hiring disciplined people who are focused on the organization’s mission, monitoring results, and striving for improvement.
Let’s take a step back and evaluate what we are doing. Ask if this new initiative, reform, protocol, committee, study group, PLC, reading, training, or activity is REALLY going to impact student learning. I propose we implement a few initiatives, practice it, evaluate the progress, reflect, refine, and get it right, then do too much, resulting in only scratching the surface of its potential on improving student learning.
“Can’t this be simpler?”
I continually go back to where student learning mainly happens – the classroom. I continually go back to the number one factor impacting student achievement – the teacher. This is where the focus should be.
Questions begin to flow…
With as much money being spent, why not hire (additional) professional development coaches that can systematically assess and provide feedback to classroom teachers? Have the coaches visit all classrooms at least 2 twice a month and more for beginning teachers. The coaches provide timely and targeted feedback, just like how we provide feedback to students (Marzano). Individual action plans, aligning to building or district goals, can be drawn up, monitored, and reflected on throughout the school year.
Why not provide feedback as a means to professional development rather than taking on the negative tone of evaluation? When did we – as educators – get to hate the word evaluation? Why can’t we get an evaluation that’s less than perfect and be okay, knowing we aren’t perfect? There is always room for improvement; why not focus on that area of improvement, so our students can learn more?
Why not have teachers observe instruction and “evaluate” curriculum in true professional learning communities, providing opportunities for teachers to discuss each others’ work in a respectful, constructive manner?
Why not video-tape our instruction, and receive feedback from administration, a colleague, or even a university education professor – thus helping bridge the gap between academia and our schools?
