Comments on: Teachers as a Sustainable Resource: Supporting Mid-Career and Veteran Teachers

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:42:09 +0000

Thank you, Vishu, for broaching a point I rarely hear in these discussions: one person cannot effectively do all of the things today’s teacher is expected to to. A simple observation that should be obvious, but I don’t often hear people talk about it. Is that because we’re so blinded by the old paradigm leftover from the one-room schoolhouse days that we can’t even begin to imagine a school that builds in supports its professionals as well as their clients? The rest of the professions get this, as you say. Even nurses have assistants to change bedpans, and no doctor would be expected to assess, operate on, and orchestrate the care of 150 clients in one day, with all of the support systems doctors already have in place notwithstanding. We’ve come along way from considering surgeons as “sawbones,” yet teachers are still romanticized, for purposes of convenience (primarily economical, I’d guess), as solitary agents who can do it all. Well, we can’t. Times have changed, and with them the demands. If society really wants higher student achievement, we have to stop trying to ignore this reality. You can’t get to the students except through their teachers. Schools need to look more like the other professions in terms of these support systems, then. With a little imagination and a lot of redesign, the role of “preservice teachers” could be elevated to “apprenctice teachers” who, after a semester of traditional student teaching, begin a year of apprenticeship where they receive a stipend and get an extended opportunity to hone their craft. Nonteaching duties could be given to nonprofessionals freeing up time for in-house, just-in-time professional development for teachers. Certainly I am not the first to suggest these possibilities, but why are they part of the prevailing conversation on educational reform? I suspect an ugly paradox at work: The same society that claims to value education for all its children does not really value the people who educate them. I think many teachers would agree with Neema Avashia’s statement regarding a willingness to take even less pay in exchange for more support built into the system to help boost student achievement.

By: Free XBox Live

Free XBox Live — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 23:16:02 +0000

I agree with the person above me, parents need to become more involved with their children.

By: rita

rita — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 23:19:15 +0000

Unfortunately in many schools where improvement is needed, support of parents is very minimal. Teachers can work the hardest, come up with new ideas to teach the material and provide stimulation to motivate students but if parents have time and capabilities to pitch in the results would be more obvious. The elderly retired work force can provide this non-teaching resources which would be beneficial to students, teachers and elderly people. it would be win win situation.

By: Vishu

Vishu — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 08:22:31 +0000

The problem in its current state cannot be addressed by quick fixes. But I can offer 2 thoughts:
1. Getting parents more involved can be one way to achieve sustainable learning experience for the child and lessen the workload on teachers. It seems that the entire workload of “educating” a child is being put on the teacher. Part of the reason teaching is such a high touch profession is that the teacher needs to develop a personal relationship with the student to teach effectively. In some sense this type of a bond is already existing between the parent and the student, but I doubt parents are as effective or as inclined as professionally trained teachers. While parents can’t be asked to grade or prepare a lesson plan, they can definitely be asked to share in the responsibility of following up on the Teacher identified areas of improvement for the student. At the end of the day, the parents need to acknowledge that schools are not the entire solution.

2. So it seems to me that corporate america does a good job of separating brain work and muscle work for every business function/process. It then leverages the right kind of resource (human and technological) for each work type and manages to do a somewhat better job or keeping resources “sustainable” and “effective”.
Over-doing this type of work classification does have its downsides, but I doubt that this concept is being leveraged in teaching. If the core value of good teachers is in the classroom or in personalised intruction, then there might be an opportunity in using non-teaching resources to help the teachers. It just seems like teachers are a 1 person team responsible for everything that goes in to teaching a child. And if you look at any business organization, there is a team of multiple people behind a happy customer.
Clearly this approach requires hiring more people but if the right type and amount of work is delegated to other members in a Teacher team, the teacher’s overall efficacy will improve. I think the increased cost incurred in this mechanism will yield better results than increased pay for teachers.

By: Nicole Huett

Nicole Huett — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 05:56:14 +0000

I think technology aid must be sought to facilitate teachers, so the smarter the teachers are they will seek technology involvement to make it more useful for themselves and students and also making it fun and easy for both. FunnelBrain, which is an online study group based collaborative learning system is one such platform that aids teachers very well. It has already drawn attention of many professors and students.

By: Mark Pennington

Mark Pennington — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 00:56:07 +0000

Neela, Perceptive post. Teacher burn-out is a real problem. Check out and comment on What Remedial Reading Teachers Want (A Manifesto).

By: rstanton

rstanton — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 12:55:50 +0000

Another way to think about efficacy: We work in a job that requires creativity, high social skills, intellect, current professional knowledge, and a lot of energy. Our best moments have to be when our students are with us, and our daily routines need to be focused on that class time. So we should be rested and feel like humans. Even in residential schools, the teachers have some time to recharge. Maybe the equation of commitment to long hours is faulty.

I have been dismayed in the past several years to learn that teachers are being basically commanded to go to student games and expand their knowledge of the students. Teachers absolutely should do this kind of thing, but they should never be commanded. That coercion undermines the whole point of going to the game. Further, the same principle applies to extra help sessions.

We burn out when we lose the power to decide to do the right thing on our own.

By: GGW

GGW — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 11:25:26 +0000

Sustainable High: Teacher Day

Lesson Plans: 1 hour
Grade, record, analyze student work: 1 hour
Rehearse lesson plan, make copies, organize room, get supplies: 1 hour
Record demerits and rewards, make parent phone calls: 1 hour
Prep for strugglers: 30 minutes
After school help to strugglers: 1 hour
Emails/admin: 30 minutes
Duties: 30 minutes

Teach: 2 one-hour periods, same prep.

6 hours of prep and follow-up would support 2 good hours of teaching.

Lunch, PM coffee break, 15 minute walk: 1 hour

No meetings unless teachers rated them 8/10, no PD unless teachers rated it 8/10.

By: Neema Avashia

Neema Avashia — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 05:47:30 +0000

I think money is a partial solution…but I’m not convinced it’s the real fix in the long run. A colleague of mine, Bob Ettinger, once dreamt up this ’sustainable school’, where teachers’ workloads were cut in half–half the students, half the courseload–thus giving them time to work on planning, assessment, parent contact during the school day. In all honesty, you could probably pay me LESS and I’d still be excited to work there, because I think I’d be more effective with the students I taught, and more likely to stay in the work for the long haul…

“Pay more” feels like the quick and easy solution, but I don’t think that this issue can be solved quickly or easily…

By: NancyEH

NancyEH — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 00:59:06 +0000

Great post!

Teachers who care about their work have a continuous learning curve – new ideas (usually from outside the profession); new demands; new problems, new challenges. It may become more rewarding as they remain in the classroom, but it’s seldom easier. There’s no resting on laurels for teachers.