Better Teachers = Better Schools

It is politics as usual. The cry has gone out across the nation once again
that we need better teachers. With better teachers we get better education.
Of course our schools are in bad shape, but not all of them. And of course
there exists bad teachers, but again, not all of them. The cry up and carried
is the same whether it is this administration or that one. "We need to better
educate our teachers!" Well, excuse me, but I'm a pretty educated fella.
The problem isn't in "better educating" our teachers -- but rather in retaining
those great teachers we have.

I remember in another life when I was the executive chef at a resort in Northern
Wisconsin. It was my first gig as an "executive Chef" and I thought I was
way in over my head. As it turned out it was the easiest and simplest job
I have ever had. And for you critics out there "thank you" for we received
many great reviews. Unfortunately, somewhere in the deep recesses of "politics"
the resort was forced to close down. The new owners mad a lot of "hoopla"
about their reopening and how they even "replaced the chef" intimating that
I was not good at what I had done. This really hurt (obviously since I'm
writing about nearly 20 years later), because they were replacing a problem
of upper administrative politics and placing the blame elsewhere.

See the correlation? People are up in arms about the problems within our
schools, governing our schools, and what our schools are supposed to be doing.
Everyone has a definition of education or education reform. And everyone
points to the teacher -- "the teacher is no good, the teacher is lazy, the
teacher is teaching outdated lessons, the teacher cannot relate to the students"
and so on and so forth and break the damn record already.

I agree there are a lot of bad teachers out there. I have a teacher who "team"
teaches with me by sleeping in the soft comfy chairs donated by Title 1.
(These are meant for the kids to sit in when they are not feeling good or
to just to read a story). I also have 25 other teachers who are very active
in our children's education. Does this mean I should get rid of the chairs?
Throw out all of the teachers? Shut down the schools? Or worse and even more
ridiculous -- reeducate all new teachers.

Teachers feel the need to justify their roles in the school system -- they
 accept the low pay, the stressful conditions, the abuse both from students
 and from administrators, and work in conditions other than …  
   because  they want to. This does not mean that teachers
are any better than the next  profession -- but teachers tend stay with
their work because of desire. Let  us be honest. There are better paying
jobs, even within the education system,  that we can take with less
grief, stress, and abuse. But teachers tough it  out until they burn-out.
And therein lies the problem. When a teacher burns-out  they do one
of two things: they keep their job marking time, "Only 5 more  years
until I retire…" or they move on to more lucrative career, like  "real
estate".

We need to keep our teachers from burning-out, from quitting, from moving
on, from becoming "bad" teachers. This isn't done through reform of the teacher
education programs, this is done from telling teachers that they are doing
a good job, by compensating teachers who are proactive, who teach well, who
demonstrate the power of education, who light up in the morning because they
cannot wait until they get to school to begin teaching.

And how do we know who these teachers are? Is there a test we can give, a
benchmark to see how Mr. Smith contrasts/compares with Mrs. Jones?

Teaching is a subjective profession. You want to see how well we are doing?
Judge us through our kids. Are our students learning? And I don't mean a
standardized multiple choice fill in the circles measurement… but through
observation.

I wish that for a day all professions would be judged in the manner that
teachers are judged. Think about it: doctors barely can write out a legible
prescription much less a lesson plan or a letter home. Would you trust your
life to a heart specialist who could ace a standardized test on the names
and dates of when and how the heart is developed? Or would you want to use
subjective observation? Ask others for a referral, "see" if this doc has
had any practical experience.

What about a mechanic? What if we told our mechanics that they had to memorize
all of the facts about every single car make and model and then "diagnose"
and "fix" a car without the assistance of an "open book" exam? We expect
this from our students and we expect this from our teachers.

I am reminded of Capt. William Kidd: he was a great British seaman and gentleman
as they say, well as gentlemanly as he could get since he was not of the
proper breeding nor wealth. But William Kidd was a fine sailor and someday
it was mused he may even be a captain of a British government vessel. A smallish
one perhaps, something representative of his station in life. Kidd was a
great sailor but he worked within a system that would not allow him to excel
for one political movement over another. Kidd finally took things into his
own hands, quite literally, and we remember him today as being one of the
bravest and fiercest Pirates to sail the seas.

I guess the question then is what do we want our teachers to teach?