Category Archives: Teaching and Education Reform

“I Am Thinking of Teaching”

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Recently a friend and loyal PressingPause reader confided in me that he was considering becoming a teacher. Cool dat.

Here is the best book I’ve ever read on deciding whether to teach.

At some point during their teacher prep coursework and internship, every teacher-to-be I’ve worked with over the last two decades concludes “Teaching well is way harder than I ever imagined.”

So my first suggestion is to think again if you perceive teaching as an 8a-2:30p, summers off, easy gig. I’d bet a sizable portion of my modest teacher’s salary that teaching well is considerably more difficult and exhausting than you might imagine.

Having said that, our prospective teacher friend has attributes that would translate well in the classroom. He’s a deeply committed and caring parent of elementary age children, he’s resilient, has impeccable integrity, and rich life experience.

Given the bevy of thoughtful educators here, he probably doesn’t need the aformentioned book for guidance.

There are technical and qualitative ways to approach the question of whether to teach. Among the questions: 1) What are the technical professional requirements? 2) What are teaching’s challenges and rewards? 3) What do the best teachers have in common?

The technical requirements vary a bit from state to state and they change overtime so I’m a little hesitant to offer much specific counsel to our friend because he’s seven years away from wrapping up his first career.

In short, one has to decide whether they want to pursue elementary or secondary (middle school and high school) certification. The best way to do that is spend time with both groups in and outside of schools. If secondary, one has to decide what content area(s) to teach. In Washington State teachers are required to have 20 academic credits in any particular content area, called an “endorsement”, (e.g., English, social studies, math, biology, Spanish) and pass the corresponding West E, a content knowledge exam. Backing up a bit, one also has to pass the West B exam, a basic math/English/reading literacy test. The “B” is relatively easy, some candidates have to take “E’s” more than once before passing.

Then, you have to apply for, be admitted to, and complete a licensure program. They tend to vary in length from one to two years. Some are certificate or licensure only programs, others, like the one I coordinate, enable people to earn their certificate and a Masters degree simultaneously. All programs are a mix of coursework and an internship that culminates in full-time student teaching.

That’s a quick introduction to the technical professional requirements, but what about the equally if not more important qualitative considerations?

What “matters of the heart” guidance would you offer our fellow reader? What are teaching’s challenges and rewards? What do the best teachers have in common?

Parent-Teacher Relations

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What I think I know about parent-teacher relations:

1) Based on anecdotal information—readers comments in periodicals and personal conversations with friends and acquaintances—I believe the parent-teacher divide is wider than anyone writing about education reform is admitting. Everyone is being far too polite.

2) Meaningful progress in improved parent-teacher relations won’t happen until both groups commit to exploring the mutual misunderstandings and related antipathy that have built up like water behind a gigantic dam.

3) Teacher education programs do a lousy job preparing new teachers to work constructively with students’ families. It’s not that it’s taught poorly, it’s that it’s often not taught at all. Too often, beginning teachers are forced to learn how to partner constructively with families on the job, sometimes from colleagues who exhibit negative attitudes towards families.

4) An increasing percentage of parents and guardians question whether teachers have their children’s best interests in mind. Ethnic, gender, and class differences sometimes translate into suspicion. At conferences, my “old school” mom and dad always said to my teachers, “What if anything do you want Ron doing differently next Monday morning?” In contrast, an increasing percentage of “new school” parents ask, “Why are you picking on my child? What do you have against him or her?”

5) School parents have delegated too much responsibility for children’s social and academic development to teachers. Take me for example. I quickly skim a few of the numerous pieces of work my tenth grade daughter brings home. Meanwhile, her history teacher shows one movie after another. Some may be justifiable, but others don’t make sense in the context of the curriculum. The opportunity costs of showing film after film? Zero historical novels, zero essay writing, very little analysis, debate, and critical thinking. Have I constructively expressed my concerns? No.

6) Too often, when parents do engage, there’s a tendency towards helicopter-parenting. Instead of expecting their children to take responsibility and help problem solve, they argue and ask, “I want my child moved into another class.” “Why isn’t my child starting when she’s one of the best players?” “Why should my child’s poor attendance affect his grade?”

7) Many teachers, especially secondary ones, want to be left alone and are too quick to assume negative things about engaged parents and guardians.

8) Teachers could bridge a large part of the parent divide by asking their students’ parents and guardians one simple question, “What would you like me to know about your son or daughter?” The follow up, “What do you think I could do to teach him/her even more effectively?”

9) All the talk of more convenient teacher conference times for working parents, providing food and childcare during conferences, and communicating meeting information in parents’ and guardians’ primary languages won’t translate into much progress until both groups honestly communicate their pent-up frustations as a first step in starting over on a foundation of heightened understanding, mutual respect, and partnership.

Additions?

Recent Readers’ Comments

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• Recently, a reader correctly wrote “A concerted effort has been made to paint American public schools with a broad brush as ‘failing’”.

K-12 students are in school approximately 22% of the time they’re awake throughout the year. If we’re unsatisfied with our eighteen year olds’ relative preparedness for life, maybe we should challenge parents and the businesspeople, politicians and journalists who regularly denigrate teachers to take more responsibility for it.

The U.S. economy is always in flux. When unemployment is low and the economy is humming no one credits public school teachers. That understandably breeds cynicism. We have many of the best universities in the world. If public schools are failing, how is that possible? The truth of course is that public schools are not failing, the problem is the uneven mix of strong, mediocre, and weak schools too closely tied to family’s socio-economic status.

Some choice is helpful, but it’s not a panacea for improved schooling. Free-market proposals that hinge in part on school closures are counter-productive. Sad that this needs pointing out—schools are different than fast food restaurants. Historically marginalized students need more resources to help catch up to their wealthier peers.

• In reflecting on my critique of the five-paragraph essay, another reader wrote that teachers will “ . . . teach exactly what students need to pass high stakes. When districts and teachers are judged by the number of student who pass these tests, there’s little they can do except teach to the test.”

That’s conventional wisdom. We repeat it all the time. In fact, a lot of beginning teachers tell themselves, “I’ll get fired, if I don’t teach to the test.” If that’s true, where are all the articles about teachers getting called to task, put on leave, or fired for their students’ disappointing test scores?

No one minds teaching to challenging, relevant, thoughtfully designed tests that require genuine thinking versus rote learning. Those types of tests can even inspire one’s teaching. The problem is the poor quality of most standardized tests.

If teaching is a true profession, when stuck with poorly designed standardized tests, teachers should respectfully but forcefully resist by saying to their principals, “Sorry if this gets you in trouble with your superintendent, but we’re not teaching to this test because students could pass it and still not be prepared for subsequent classes, college, or the workforce. In the interest of our students (and not the superintendent and not local realtors), we’re using the national standards and our professional judgment to teach a more rigorous, relevant, and inspiring curriculum.”

How to Refresh and Keep Going

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In response to my “Causes of Burnout” post, an ace PressingPause reader wrote that the question is how to refresh and keep going.

Nine suggestions:

1) Resist deficit thinking by being intentional about students’ strengths. When I taught high school, I always made a conscious effort to attend student art exhibits, plays, sporting events. And I always left thinking, “What talent, dedication, effort, and academic potential if I tap into those things.”

2) Save notes of appreciation, thank you cards, whatever positive mementos you can. And journal about especially positive interactions and experiences. Sporadically revisit the notes, cards, and journal entries as a reminder of your effectiveness and the importance of your work.

3) Subvert zero-sum thinking about teaching excellence (e.g., your success takes away from mine) by consciously affirming your colleague’s efforts and acknowledging what they do particularly well. Help create positive faculty culture momentum.

4) If a colleague has traveled too far down the deficit thinking road, steer clear. If surrounded by goners, attend local teacher workshops and seminars in order to find and build relationships with more hopeful, supportive colleagues from other schools. Also join professional association’s list serves and blog discussions like this one.

5) Do whatever helps you create energy on a regular basis—spend time outdoors, walk, row, run, cycle, swim, practice yoga, pray or meditate, volunteer, cook healthy meals and prioritize family dinners, read something non-work related, pursue a non-work-related hobby.

6) Be vulnerable with whomever you’re closest to, share your successes/failures and hopes/dreams. Lean on them and let them support you.

7) Be intentional about scheduling events to look forward to, whether a Friday after school get together with with a few colleagues, a Saturday night dinner with a significant other, or a monthly weekend hike.

8) Unplug earlier in the evening, make like the Japanese and take a hot bath, and sleep as many hours as you know you need to be completely rested.

9) Create positive teacher-student professional momentum by continually improving your plans, your methods, and your assessment of student work.

Suggestions for number 10?

Eliminate Schools of Education

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For education reformers, Schools of Education are an especially popular punching bag.

Here are the most oft repeated criticisms: 1) Most School of Ed faculty last taught decades ago; consequently, they teach wonderful sounding theories that are woefully disconnected from day-to-day realities in schools. 2) Higher education faculty always assume a certain superiority. As one of many possible examples, they’re not teachers, they’re “academics”. Arrogance personified. 3) Schools of Ed are resistant to change and clueless that they’re a serious impediment to strengthening public schooling in the U.S. 4) In the end, they do a crappy job preparing teachers.

I’ve always responded differently to these criticisms than many of my School of Ed colleagues. Many teacher educators immediately turn defensive, and consequently, don’t bother honestly assessing their validity. At the risk of committing professional treason, I choose to process the criticisms this way.

1) Most School of Ed faculty last taught in public schools decades ago; consequently, they teach wonderful sounding theories that are woefully disconnected from day-to-day realities in schools. Mostly true. I’d say wholly true if the criticism was “ . . . wonderful sounding theories that don’t have enough to do with day-to-day realities in schools.” I taught high school for five years twenty years ago and that’s longer and more recently than many of my colleagues. And like all of my colleagues, I made a conscious decision to leave high school teaching. Why don’t more pre-service students ask, “If teaching is so important a form of public service, why did all of you quit?” Many of my colleagues would probably answer “to make a larger impact by doing a good job preparing the next generation of teachers,” but that’s putting duct tape on an ever-present tension and credibility problem between our having jumped ship and encouraging our students to be resilient and commit for the long haul.

2) Higher education faculty always assume a certain superiority. As one of many possible examples, they’re not teachers, they’re “academics”. Arrogance personified. Embarrassingly true, way too often. As a result, mentor teachers understandably sometimes develop negative attitudes towards teacher educators, putting interns in an awkward position.

3) Schools of Ed are resistant to change and clueless that they’re a serious impediment to strengthening public schooling in the U.S. Mostly true. Probably because teacher education faculty need to pay mortgages and health premiums. Put differently, they fear for their jobs. It’s evident in how little School of Education curricula change over time and in teacher education profs’ knee-jerk negative reactions to nearly any kind of alternative certification preparation.

4) In the end, they do a crappy job preparing teachers. Depends. There’s an unevenness. Some teacher preparation programs do a solid job; others do not.

What would work better for the tens of thousands of pre-service teachers who are preparing to enter the profession at any time? Giving National Board Certified teacher leaders in each school responsibility for preparing a small number of student teachers each school year would work better. Probably a lot better.

Why don’t we do that then? Because K-12 administrators and teachers have delegated the preparation of their future co-workers to my School of Ed colleagues and me. The profession hasn’t figured out how to carve out the necessary time to prepare the next generation of teachers themselves because they haven’t deemed it important enough.

Far easier for school districts to complain about Schools of Education than figure out how to make them, as the British say, redundant.

The best teacher prep programs are mindful of the most common criticisms and are the ones building close partnerships with neighboring districts; demonstrating genuine respect for the excellent, inspiring work K-12 teachers do; using clinical professors, including current National Board Certified teachers as methods instructors; and using veteran teachers and administrators as student teaching supervisors.

I’m sympathetic to the most common criticisms of my profession; nonetheless, I can’t support the most strident critics’ recommendation to eliminate Schools of Ed altogether until school districts make teacher preparation one of their top priorities and dedicate the necessary time, money, and related resources to doing it better than the majority of imperfect university-based teacher preparation programs.

2011 Resolution

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Resist manic materialism.

I have no one really to blame because I chose to watch MSNBC while preparing for the 2011 cycling season one morning last week.  It was the morning after 20 inches of snow fell throughout the Northeastern U.S. Business analysts worried “How will the conditions affect retailers since post Christmas shoppers will stay home?”

Does everything always have to be interpreted through the lens of economics?

I should have switched to the Zen Cable Network, a mythical creation of mine where a slow, beautiful, non-narrated slideshow with acoustic guitar accompaniment was looping. Slow moving shots of young people up and down the seaboard sledding and having snowball fights while parents sipped coffee and talked against the backdrop of translucent, oddly beautiful cities.

Manic materialism is the increasingly common practice of defining as many life activities and events as possible in economic terms. How does this—a winter snow storm, schooling, an art form, food, healthcare—make people more or less wealthy? It’s the result of our collective idolatry, and as a result, it’s our unofficial national religion. No activity is immune from its influence. Every life activity and event is reduced to whether it generates wealth.

And make no mistake about it, wealth is defined one way—materially. How much money do you have, how big is your house, how nice is it on the inside, how luxurious is your car, where do you vacation?

Schooling provides a poignant example. Why are U.S. opinion and business leaders over involved in reform efforts today? For one reason—our international economic competitiveness is slipping. As a result, our relative wealth is declining. That’s why math and science content is routinely privileged at the expense of humanities and social studies education. The business leaders at the education reform table are in essence asking, “How in the hell is an affinity for literature or history going to translate into more money for more people?”

Maybe I errored in using the phrase “our collective idolatry” a few paragraphs ago. Maybe all of us are exceptions, a fringe minority that believes we’re more social, emotional, dare I even say spiritual beings, than economic ones.

In prioritizing close interpersonal relationships, maintaining work-life balance, and consciously living below our means, we provide a viable alternative to manic materialism and threaten the status quo.

What else can and should we do in 2011 to provide a social-emotional-spiritual alternative to manic materialism?

Seniority-based Teacher Layoffs

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Thanks T for this article, “UW study questions seniority-based teacher layoffs“.

Should school districts facing serious budget shortfalls lay teachers off based on relative seniority? Tough one.

Rather than riff on the costs and benefits of seniority-based teacher layoffs, I want to highlight two underlying issues that education policy makers are ignoring.

First, what does it say about the state of teacher professional development and the profession more generally that many of the youngest teachers are the most effective? Learning to teach well is a challenging and complex process, the same is true I suspect for learning to be an excellent pastor, lawyer, accountant, or legislator. When we choose a surgeon for a complicated procedure we want to know how many times she’s performed it.

At what age do teachers do their best work? I suspect it’s about four to five years in which often means late twenties. This is an indictment on the poor quality of most teacher professional development and the profession. For most teachers there tends to be a dramatic, challenging, and rewarding learning curve over the first four to five years; followed by a plateauing; and then sometimes, a fatigue-based tailing off.

National Board Teacher Certification was intended to address this problem by rewarding the very best teachers with added responsibilities and challenges like mentoring new teachers, teaching methods in local schools of education, and creating exemplary curriculum for others. It’s been partially successful at best. School districts are incredibly conservative and consequently loathe to rewrite National Board teachers’ contracts.

Second, and this may surprise, but with a few important caveats, I’m more open than union leaders to efforts to compare and contrast teachers’ relative effectiveness. A recent front-page article in the New York Times about the Gates Foundation’s efforts to evaluate teachers influenced my thinking. I liked that the system doesn’t rest exclusively on students’ standardized test scores, but on video-tapes, student surveys of their teachers’ class environments, and other variables. Also important, it doesn’t appear to pit teachers against one another. Not perfect, but much better than traditional merit-based teacher evaluation pay plans.

But what Gates and other policy makers aren’t thinking nearly enough about is whether or not their video-tape/value-added-based teacher evaluation proposal is going to convince more outstanding undergraduates to commit to K-12 teaching careers.

Historically, teachers have understood the profession’s primary trade-off—less money, more job security; however, the story of the recent past is one of steadily increasing teacher accountability and decreasing job security. Meanwhile, compensation remains unchanged. Granted these are tough economic times. Numerous states have to make serious budget cuts. Still the fact remains, few of the best undergrads even consider teaching as a career. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t expect the Gates Foundation’s current work to change that.

Especially strong undergrads who are considering teaching are less concerned about rigorous teacher evaluation systems than they are their modest salaries. And that’s the problem, the Gates Foundation offers no ideas on how to improve all teachers’ compensation.

Teacher Appreciation

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Classrooms are organic entities. Each class session contributes in some small way to negative or positive momentum.

This fall my first year writing seminar titled “Teaching’s Challenges and Rewards” began positively and then got better and better. It was a great group of young adults who got to know one another during orientation. From the beginning they decided to give my more student-centered course design and informality the benefit of the doubt.

I lead discussions one and two, and then they paired up and took turns co-leading discussions three through ten. The first pair did a great job preparing their guide, facilitating the discussion, and setting the bar high. Afterwards, I detailed exactly what they had done so well thus nudging the bar even higher. And during that first discussion I purposely sat on the floor, out of sight of most of them, to ensure it would truly be their discussion.

Did their writing improve? For the most part yes as they’re in the process of detailing in their final papers.

One of the students was a Portland hipster who was committed to becoming a nurse. I liked her a lot. Mid-semester she confided in us that she spent a lot of her senior year in high school hiking in and around Portland. She was personable, a thinker, and always had nice insights.

A few weeks ago, after class, she asked if she could talk to me. Turns out she was troubled because the course content had gotten under skin. Now she explained, “I think I want to teach secondary science more than I want to become a nurse.” I told her she had time to learn more about both and that it was a win-win situation, she’d be a great nurse or teacher, both important, selfless professions. Complicating her future was rewarding.

The students’ final papers are trickling into my inbox. Several have added notes like this most recent one, “Thank you for teaching such a wonderful class in my first semester at college! I really enjoyed my time, and I look forward to the next three and a half years I get to spend at this university. This was a very interesting intro class and you were a very good professor to have! I appreciate all of your hard work!”

That’s not meant to be self-congratulatory. I share it knowing I can’t take much credit for the course’s success. It was a great course mostly because they always came prepared, they interacted thoughtfully with one another, and they worked hard on all of their papers. There wouldn’t have been a whole lot I could have done if they came unprepared, refused to engage one another, and threw their papers together at the last minute. If this sample of young people is any indication, I’m happy to report the world is not going to hell in a handbasket.

I also share it to highlight how much easier it is to teach adults. It’s rare for elementary, middle, and high school students to write or tell their teachers how much they appreciate them. That’s why K-12 teachers deserve much, much more of the public’s respect. Instead of scapegoating them for a litany of social and economic problems over which they have little to no control, we should compensate for their students’ who too often take them for granted by acknowledging the importance of their work, tangibly honoring it, and making sure they know they’re appreciated.

Failing at Education Reform

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There are three keys.

1st) Spend lots of money and time coming up with goals so lofty that they aren’t really achievable and so vague that they can’t be meaningfully assessed. As a safety measure, make sure the goals are irrelevant to the teacher-student relationship so that if they’re accidentally accomplished, they won’t have much of an impact on student learning.

2nd) Prepare lots of PowerPoint presentations and write reports filled with JAA (jargon and acronyms) to mask nebulous thinking and create an insider “we’re in the know and you’re not” feel to things. If successful, few people will understand well enough to ask questions so no real rationale for proposed changes will be necessary.

3rd) Most importantly of all, exclude teachers as much as humanly possible. Always think top-down. Teachers aren’t that smart and they just get in the way with their insights into classroom life and such. This is easy to do, just don’t communicate much about scheduled meetings, and as a back up, schedule them during the school day. Be consistent in sending the message, “This work is too important to include you.” Remember, you attended school for 12-13 years, you’re an expert. Teachers need you to tell them what to do. They’re depending upon you.

That’s all there really is to it.

Washington State’s 2010 Education Reform Plan provides an especially fine example of these principles at work.

1st) Four goals:

1) Enter kindergarten prepared for success in school and life.

2) Compete in mathematics and science nationally and internationally.

3) Attain high academic standards regardless of race, ethnicity, income, or gender.

4) Graduate able to succeed in college, training, and careers.

All in all, lofty, vague, dancing around the teacher-student relationship. Exemplary application of the goal-setting principles.

2nd) See the PowerPoint and report links above. If you’re not a teacher, read them. If you’re a teacher, you should be grading or preparing for tomorrow.

3rd) Note in the report the PowerPoint slide titled “Process for Soliciting Feedback”, bullet point two, “Engage stakeholder groups”. This is the reformers finest moment. This slide is worth a thousand words.

Granted, there’s never a perfect example. Turns out there are a couple of classroom teachers on the Professional Educator Standards Board, and I’m not sure, but there may be a few more lurking within other groups. But Washington State deserves major credit for articulating goals and planning how to meet them with teachers almost entirely excluded.