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's Going Down in Detroit Today?
Today, a group of Detroit teachers--fed up with Darnell Earley, the same Emergency Manager who presided over the Flint water scandal, and a raft of further harmful offenses to real Detroit children and their education--organized a sick-out. They did so in frustration, knowing full well they would be accused of greediness, or keeping children from their federally subsidized meals. They did so knowing they will be labeled "unprofessional," led around by their unions (false)--when their actions represent what is ultimately the core of what professionalism means: autonomy over important work.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
When It Comes to Education, America Has a Lot to Learn
Themes around quality education are woven into Michael Moore's latest film: From France, delicious fresh-food school lunches, including a cheese course, designed to make students healthier and more conscious of good eating habits. Free college educations for all students in Slovenia (including American ex-pats, escaping absurd loan debt back home). Enlightened, non-punitive sex education. Teachers who feel entirely autonomous in their classrooms. European teachers who pity American educators, because their work is evaluated by their students' testing data.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Five Cynical Observations About Teacher Leadership
Who's really in charge of explaining school-embedded teacher leadership, selecting the right goals and purposes for individual classrooms? Who is inspiring teachers to find their own paths--based on the own carefully honed experience and observations--to lead? Is what we're seeing about teacher leadership in the media driven by the big cannons--the federal government, the well-funded organizations and grant-receiving universities--rather than actual teachers working in grubby classrooms, scattered across the country?
Teacher Preparation
Opinion
Certification, Genuine Teacher Leadership, and Power Struggles
When authentic, experienced teacher leaders step out of their boxes to speak about education issues, they always run the risk of stepping on the toes--or in the limelight--of someone above them in the pecking order. Simply expressing a widely shared viewpoint feels like subordination to some school leaders. When teachers have a national platform and thousands of readers or fans--when their voice and leadership are elevated--they become a threat.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Let's Blame the Parents!
Just try to read an editorial or feature piece on education, via any media outlet at all, without coming across a commenter who wants to righteously and indignantly toss all the problems--from low test scores to Security Guards Run Amok--back into parents' laps. It's as if the rest of American society didn't exist. As if grinding poverty, political corruption, greed, cultural debasement and racism had nothing to do with the so-called failings of students and their families. Let's blame the parents.
School Climate & Safety
Opinion
Calling Parents: To Keep Kids in Line or Help Them Learn?
Parents don't just want to hear what's wrong with their children. Telling them what's right about their children earns trust and cooperation--from them and their children alike.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Professional Development Is Useless! Or Not.
I have to say I'm grateful that I taught for 30 years in a district that did not try to help me "understand my weaknesses"--a process that all teachers go through, with varying degrees of introspective pain and effort, even those (perhaps especially those) who have long-term careers in the classroom. The implication here is that teachers' own assessment of their effectiveness is worthless--they're oblivious to or ignorant of their shortcomings. This is patently absurd.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Five Things to Incentivize in Teacher Compensation Plans
Does "differentiating" teacher pay (beyond the usual salary schedule) result in Better Teaching and More Learning? Can we use financial incentives to build the teacher force every school leader dreams of: bright stars relentlessly pursuing the all-important data, working 60 hours a week, cheerfully compliant?
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Thank You, Ordinary Teachers, for Doing Extraordinary Things
Teachers go beyond their everyday roles to support students and families every day. But they need better support from their districts.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Stop Preaching and Start Teaching
Don't tell students they can be successful. Show them how to be successful.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Six Questions About Teacher Evaluation
Recently, nearly every story about improving teacher evaluation begins with the Bad Old Days, where substandard teachers slipped through the cracks, due to thoroughly inadequate attention to and assessment of their work. If you believe these op-eds, teachers' core work was essentially carried out without scrutiny. Until--drumroll--new and rigorous evaluation protocols, always including lots of student testing data, turned everything around. Evaluations! The cure for both listless teaching and anemic test scores!
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Four Things I Want to Say to Novice Teachers
Four things novice teachers should know: Welcome to a changed profession. Beware of media oversell. Act on your beliefs--but clarify them, first. Choose your heroes carefully.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Nancie Atwell Gets It Exactly Right
Teaching in America has been systematically de-professionalized. It's no longer a job where experience and creativity are valued. The evidence around that--beginning with test score-based teacher evaluation, and ending with federal funding for Teach for America-- is incontrovertible. We keep saying we want teacher leaders at the table, informing policy. But when Nancie Atwell was given a seat at a big, shiny international table, we're stunned when she tells her truth?
Assessment
Opinion
I Love My Job. Really.
You cannot measure self-esteem, self-worth, or readiness to face the world. You cannot quantify these teachable moments, ever. The more you try to do this, the more you tell me that my professionalism is equated to the scores that a set of my kids have received on a test that has no relevance to their daily life, the more you demean the battle against poverty, adolescence, and apathy that I fight each day.
