Teacher Professionalism
Read more about efforts to professionalize teaching and improve its status, and hear what teachers think about their profession
Teaching Profession
Opinion
What the Shortage of Substitute Teachers Says About Public Education
We ask more of babysitters, playground monitors and burger flippers than substitute teachers--more qualifications, more on-the-job training, more care in selecting and retaining the right person for the job. If you start with the bar for admission and reward extremely low, you're making a statement about the work, as well as the people willing to do it.
Federal
Opinion
Amusing Ourselves Into Oblivion
When the election is over, schools will still be expected to exemplify neutral public spaces, accepting all students and honoring all family beliefs. Media and money, helped by attractive electronic technologies, have reshaped our values, and we will not be able to acknowledge that, as public institutions.
Student Well-Being
Opinion
Teacher Leadership vs. Teacher Professionalism
Teacher leaders are everywhere. Often, they're doing precisely what the established system wants them to do--accepting leadership roles and tasks pre-defined by that same system, for the distinction of being named a leader in a flat profession. Sometimes, they even get compensation or perks. But are they acting as professionals?
Teaching Profession
Opinion
The Glass Ceiling in Education
Women are role models for each other in all fields, including those that are supposed to be open to females. We've got nobody else. It was downright heartening to see a woman my age who successfully made it all the way through a grueling presidential nomination, the ultimate glass ceiling in America, because she was just that stubborn--no matter what you think of her politics.
Teaching
Opinion
Teachers, Tragedies and Politics
It's times like this that I'm glad not to be in the classroom on a daily basis. It would be hard for any teacher to pretend to be calm, neutral and gracefully able to push the world out of the classroom in favor of the spelling list and converting fractions into decimals. Like all teachers, I've experienced days when the curriculum was--whether you chose it or not--about what was going on in the world, your town or your school.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Rx for Teacher Burnout
The role of teacher-leader supports an individual's own self-image as an efficacious person. Teacher-leaders see themselves, first of all, as teachers. They are educators who want to continue to work as teachers rather than as managers. They also want to invest their know-how and energy beyond the classroom in ways they feel will help improve their school and its instructional effectiveness, their school/community relationships, and the profession at large.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Public Education vs. Charter Schools: A Tale of Two Cities
Why are the papers and the policy-makers all over those protesting teachers in Detroit--while the white-collar crime in charter world goes virtually unnoticed?
Classroom Technology
Opinion
Do Teachers Read Professionally?
Who wants to read scholarly journal articles confirming teachers' conviction that they have lost control over what should be their work: instruction, curriculum, assessments, teacher evaluation and which qualifications should permit entry into profession? Not a lot of inspiration there.
School & District Management
Opinion
Whacking the Mole Again: More Thoughts on Teacher Leadership
I have seen any number of education organizations, with thoughtful and important goal statements on their websites, position teacher leadership as something they can somehow teach or imbue (kind of like grit, come to think of it). Yes, there is Stuff You Have to Know to become a teacher leader (teachers don't wade around in policy-making, traditionally). Yes, it helps to collaborate with others who have good ideas. But is there a formalized pathway to leadership? In a sense, it's an insult to excellent teachers everywhere, who have held their grade level cohort or department or buildings together through determination to maintain good programming or to mount campaigns against dumb policies. They are leaders, badge or no badge.
Classroom Technology
Opinion
Ignore Insults and Falsehoods About Public Education? Or Push Back?
Blaming public education for things over which it has zero control is now thoroughly woven into the national discourse on a myriad of issues. Stupid voters? Blame the schools. Lazy workers and economic downslope? Public education's fault. Anti-intellectualism? They must have learned it at school. Just another opportunity to take a cheap, unsubstantiated shot at public schools. Who does that? And believes they're justified in doing so?
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Do Teachers Get to Have Dignity?
In a sense, a teacher is a public person, with an audience of a few hundred students, parents and colleagues, rather than millions of viewers. Like a sportscaster, a teacher's professional reputation is built on her public face, the respect built around her visible work and expertise. She has a right to draw a line between her private life, and her public persona. It's not easy to be a teacher and maintain a private life, entirely separate from your career.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Teaching: The Most Valuable Human Resource
If districts, states, and the country don't make sweeping changes to public schools and the cities housing them, recruiting more teachers is going to be a waste of time and money and trying to retain those teachers will be a fool's errand. Great teachers should be rewarded for being great teachers, and they can be identified as such without an over-reliance on test scores. While financial incentives may work for some, increased autonomy and the ability to pursue customized professional development are equally important to others, and retaining great teachers will require both.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Defining Teacher Leadership
Is the goal of teacher leadership to "improve teaching and learning practices?" Well--it's one possible goal. But isn't there a panoply of goals involved in teacher leadership? What about the assertion that we're wrestling with leadership for one reason---to increase student learning and achievement? Pushing teacher leadership into the "practice" box and narrowing its scope to jazzed-up instructional strategies and "measuring" learning is precisely where "reformers" would like to lead us. Notice who's being "influenced" in the definition-- not policy-makers, the media or the general public. Stay in that classroom, teacher. We'll make the big decisions that shape your work.
Equity & Diversity
Opinion
Do 'Upper Crust' Teachers Ignore Our Most Critical Problems in Public Education?
Affluence makes even mediocre teaching look good and poverty can make masterful teaching appear mediocre. It takes many clock hours within classroom walls to decipher the difference. Few education change-makers and upper crust teachers dedicate that kind of time to our neglected classrooms. The essential resource that is missing is our presence. Detroit's inhumane classroom conditions didn't occur overnight; they existed for at least a generation. Where were we?
