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The incompetent teachers who have tenure make life miserable for the new teachers by giving them the worst students and the worst assignments and worst schedules. That is why some of the best teachers leave the profession within five years.
Somehow you make it sound like you believe that there is a large percentage of tenured teachers who are incompetent. What percentage? More than half? Less than 5%?
I had a few incompetent teachers going through school in the 60s and 70s, when there was a shortage of teachers for a variety of reasons. Even so, I got a pretty good education, earned a scholarship, and did well enough to land an internship at NASA before I turned 19.
Would it have been better not to have had those incompetent teachers? Academically, certainly. However one of the most important life lessons I ever learned was when I innocently corrected my World History teacher when he was 18 centuries off on a date. I assumed that he misspoke and that he would want to correct his mistake. Was I wrong! He went off on a tirade about how he was the teacher and I was the student. "You do NOT correct MEEE! You do NOT correct MEEE!" I felt like a cartoon character that had been blown back by his blast of anger.
But I learned something that day about people that has served me well. It's hard to put into words, but it has stuck with me. I'm certainly not advocating exposure to incompetent teachers as a character-building experience. I'm just not certain that students are subjected to that many of them. If a school is overloaded with incompetent teachers, that says more about the administration than it does the faculty.
As as student, the responsibility for my education lies with me. My teachers were a means to the end of getting a good education, but I did not depend on them to "give" me one. I read my history book, so I still learned World History, despite my ignoramus of a teacher. I read all my textbooks, and I learned most of what was in them, yet I did very few assignments that wouldn't teach me anything. For me, there is a dichotomy between schooling and education. In my mind schooling is about educators teaching the curriculum, while education is about teachers teaching the children. I was a good pupil--I liked to learn, I read my books, paid attention to all my teachers, and took copious notes. I was a bad student--I skipped school a lot, wasn't always clear-headed when I did go, didn't do homework, and generally followed only those rules that I agreed with.
School was more of a necessary evil in my life, as compulsory attendance didn't exist in Mississippi at that time. The Accountability in Instructional Management reform came a few years after I graduated, requiring teachers to write lesson plans and test the objectives that they included. My favorite teacher, the one who inspired my teaching method, refused to conform and even refused to fake conforming. He retired instead, and the students lost one of the best teachers I have ever known. Next to Socrates, he is my model.
Those students who take responsibility for their educations still do okay despite the odd screwball or do-nothing at the head of the class. It is the ones that don't take responsibility who need better teachers. You get them by paying good people enough to decide that the good outweighs the bad. And we don't do that now. Therefore, even incompetent teachers are valuable because they are willing to do what many people won't.
In other news, does anyone know two English teachers ready to step into impossible situations for not enough money? Because we needed them Monday. One week with subs, and no teachers in sight, incompetent or not. 37 weeks to go. Oh, and there's no tenure either.
Teachers don't control which students other teachers get. Administrators do. Sadly, they often give the worst classes to the new teachers to see what they're made of.
That's because with tenure, there is no way to reward a more experienced teacher except with a better schedule and better students, meaning the more challenging work should be easier for the more experienced professional teachers. They are so burned out, or they are teaching the same thing, the same way for 20 years in a row, they aren't better than the less experienced teacher.
And for some people, it simply sucks to work your best and know that the lazy teacher across the hall is getting paid the same as you, based on seniority. They lose their motivation when they realize that no matter how hard they work, they will only make as much as the pay scale allows. And teachers who don't work as hard, will make as much or more.
That's because with tenure, there is no way to reward a more experienced teacher except with a better schedule and better students, meaning the more challenging work should be easier for the more experienced professional teachers. They are so burned out, or they are teaching the same thing, the same way for 20 years in a row, they aren't better than the less experienced teacher.
And for some people, it simply sucks to work your best and know that the lazy teacher across the hall is getting paid the same as you, based on seniority. They lose their motivation when they realize that no matter how hard they work, they will only make as much as the pay scale allows. And teachers who don't work as hard, will make as much or more.
Research does not support this. Teaching effectiveness goes up sharply in the first 5 years then continues to increase at a slower rate until about year 10. Just about any teacher beyond year 5 is better than a new teacher. What I have seen done is the new teacher get trial by fire because they want to now what they're made of before they tenure so the new teacher gets the chit schedule. If they survive they're proven themselves. If they don't, they go on to the next candidate. Only once have I seen a new teacher given a gravy schedule. She was related to someone high up in the district.
What does tenure have to do with this? Tenure does not speak to schedules. In what ways could admins reward teachers if there were no tenure that they can't do now?
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 08-22-2014 at 08:56 PM..
i dont think we can fix our schools by mass firings of teachers alone. i think that is only the first step. the next step is mass permanent expelling of violence prone so called students.
Research does not support this. Teaching effectiveness goes up sharply in the first 5 years then continues to increase at a slower rate until about year 10. Just about any teacher beyond year 5 is better than a new teacher. What I have seen done is the new teacher get trial by fire because they want to now what they're made of before they tenure so the new teacher gets the chit schedule. If they survive they're proven themselves. If they don't, they go on to the next candidate. Only once have I seen a new teacher given a gravy schedule. She was related to someone high up in the district.
What does tenure have to do with this? Tenure does not speak to schedules. In what ways could admins reward teachers if there were no tenure that they can't do now?
When I was a new teacher, I was better than the older, tired, and burned out teachers. I had more practicum experience than they did. I had a bachelors degree in my subject area, not in elementary or secondary education. And I had a special education endorsement. I also had more experience with inner city high schools.
Some elementary teachers were certified K - 8, and teaching middle school level content areas. They were awful teachers. They didn't know their content area.
i dont think we can fix our schools by mass firings of teachers alone. i think that is only the first step. the next step is mass permanent expelling of violence prone so called students.
You have the order of action wrong. Do your second action first and you'd be amazed at how competent teachers are.
The incompetent teachers who have tenure make life miserable for the new teachers by giving them the worst students and the worst assignments and worst schedules. That is why some of the best teachers leave the profession within five years.
Gee, in your school, the teachers get to assign students to other teachers? No place I taught at ever had that option. Administrators assigned the teachers to their classes and yes, new teachers often got the worst classes, but it was never the perogative of other teachers to give out these assignments.
here is the counseling department link.......many do not even have masters, and they all make 100K......with pensions of 90K....
great gig....while staff teachers starve filling up half of the actual teaching "gigs", the counselors here have it made.....
I'm curious about this statement. If I'm sick, what is the alternative?
There is nothing wrong with calling in sick on any job, within reason, though, in the current job market, that can't be easily done itself anymore. Just that it is so accomodative(the sub system).....can't think of any other occupation which has a separate category of worker with the only function of filling in for absentees, without being vested with the same benefits of the worker being substituted for....call it a serfdom of sorts, if you will..
Even more egregious when you have underpaid, unvested TA's teaching college classes, while the professors can't be reached at all.....doing research, or God knows what......
Last edited by scottkuzminski; 08-23-2014 at 01:26 PM..
Can you please stop posting images which have absolutely no relation to your post.
Thanks.
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