Blog Post 14

Problem: Professionalizing Teachers
Solution: Academic training, better recruiting or selection of teachers, proper compensation

Problem: Seniority Distraction
Solution: Terminating the least effective, demanding a knowledge base, formal set of peer relations, supervised internships, examinations

Problem: Radical Change
Solution: Merit-based career ladders, teachers board to police the profession, promotions based on specialty exams

I am entering my senior year of college now.  I am really looking forward to fulfilling my dream of being an educator, a teacher!  However, I am nervous about the process.  I have several friends that are already teachers in public and private schools.  I know that for some of them it has been a great struggle to keep their position.  This is not due to their performance or their ability.  Most of them do not have tenure.  I only have a few friends that have received tenure and are not in danger any longer of being pink slipped at the end of the school year.  This frightens me to no end!  I love teaching! I want to teach!  I am going to school to learn all that I can to be a good and efficient teacher. BUT, that is not where this journey ends!  To be a great teacher these days, you have to know the right people, have connections, get great references, not create enemies with parents or students that you have taught in the past....the list goes on.  For today's teachers, you must walk a very fine line.  That line is riddled with rules and expectations.  None of which are actually taught to us in our own educational path to become teachers mind you.  I agree with Albert Shanker in that we need to create a system in which teachers are promoted or not promoted due to their ability not their time.  I am older than most of the students I call my peers here.  I am older than most of my friends that are already teachers.  This does not mean that I know more or that I am more capable of being a teacher.  My point being, just because a teacher has been teaching for more than 5 years, does not mean that they are still effective or even good.  It just means that they have done a good job for who they report to.  I know of a few teachers that are way behind the technological times and they need to be re-educated on these things.  I know of a few teachers that struggle when doing anything remotely technological.  They simply have not had the instruction.  I think that teachers should be required just like doctors and lawyers and even nurses to maintain a certain criteria and a level of excellence.  I think that we should, as educators be responsible for keeping ourselves up to date on current technology as well as methods of instruction.