Academic Course Diversity
This educational issue is near and dear to my heart, for obvious reasons. Dedicating my life to education in the form of an elective and Career and Technical Education encourages a deep passion for classes that are outside of the core subjects. I wish I could say that electives are more important in high school than in other stages of the students’ educational journey, but that would simply be wrong. Every age group needs a class that teaches the importance of physical activity, expressing themselves through art, theater and music and being able to utilize hands-on activities to reinforce the core content.
There is research to show that electives bring out personal student interests and higher levels of achievement than core classes (Rambo, 2019). As we all know, a four-year university is not ideal for every student that we teach, although I am a huge proponent of furthering education in some form. That may be community college, trade school, beauty school, an accounting program, etc. In order for those students to receive the education they deserve out of our public schools, we must always have Career and Technical Education (CTE) offered through their time with us. If our job is to teach them career-readiness skills, so they are beneficial members of society, we must teach them content that is relevant to today’s market (Moore, 2015). I also believe that we have pushed four-year degrees for so long that we now have a terrifying shortage of trade workers. Over 60% of plumbers, electricians and mechanical technicians are over 45 years old (“Labor Shortages Loom as Most-In-Demand Group of Workers Retire”, n.d.) This means they are ten to fifteen years between now and their retirement. If we were to take CTE and other elective classes out of our course offerings, we would have an even larger skilled trades shortage.
Admin Support
I would argue that support from your administration can make or break your career. I have spoken to several teachers who have left districts - and even the profession - because of lack of admin support. According to the Learning Policy Institute, teachers claim that the principals are a key factor in determining if they choose to stay at their current school or not (Espinoza, Saunders, Kini, & Darling-Hammond, 2018). The article also states that 21% of teachers leave the profession due to dissatisfaction with administration.
This may not seem like a huge number, but let me restate it this way: if you have a staff of 30, that means that six of the teachers are unhappy with the administration. This still doesn’t seem like a large number, but if you think about six teachers leaving a high school each year and having to fill in those revolving door positions, that is still a sizable number to impact the culture of the building. There are two main ways that teachers look to their principals to determine their level of contentment with their current school: administrative support and leadership style. When it comes to administrative support, research suggests that support from principals is a greater deciding factor for teachers to remain in the school than teacher workload (“The Role of Principals in Addressing Teacher Shortages”, 2017). This makes sense, we would all rather work hard for someone who is on our side, rather than someone who works against us. When it comes to leadership styles, principals who identify their leadership styles as collaborators, facilitators, team leaders or leaders of leaders often time see a larger teacher retention rate because they attract and retain competent teachers (Sutcher, Podolsky, & Espinoza, 2017). In my opinion, principals and other administration can improve this by continuing training in teacher retention and leadership. I also think it’s important for administrators to have a prerequisite of teaching experience before they step into a leadership role. There are several friends that I know within the educational realm who have administrators that have never stepped one foot into a classroom as a teacher, therefore they must build up respect from their subordinates in a different way.
Collegiate Teacher Preparation
The things we have all said about our current method of teacher preparation. Everyone has an opinion about this topic, whether they openly admit it or not.
If you don’t have an opinion about it yet, you will after your first week in a classroom with your o students. I appreciate the student teaching experience because I think it is just the right amount of time: one semester. Student teaching is a great time to see if this is really the career for you, given that you are matched up with a quality mentor teacher. However, if you have a negative student teaching experience, it can ruin it for the rest of your life. I think the amount of time is just right because you can’t have a job while student teaching, so it adds stress to your life about how you’re going to make ends meet because you can usually work through college. I also think that by the end of one semester, you are ready to create your own style of teaching in a room that belongs to you. According to research conducted by the National Council on Teacher Quality, 93% of teacher preparation programs fail to send student teachers to highly skilled mentor teachers and do not give critical feedback to better their teaching (“Study Shows Teacher Training Inadequate”, n.d.) Although, as far as the other courses, I feel that I was never prepared for any of the obstacles that have come my way. I did come across an article that talks about students with special needs and how teachers are not adequately prepared to handle those needs within their classroom. I mentioned this in my reply to Ash last week, but I agree that the reason so many teachers just pass students on an IEP along, is because they were never trained how to handle it in the first place. If teachers were educated and exposed to these types of issues in college courses, there would be a lower number of discipline issues in the classroom because we would be better prepared (Smith, 2020).
Parent/Community Relationships
One of my strongest beliefs is that building strong parent and community relationships might just be the most important aspect of being an educator. I probably feel this way because I spent so many years being more than a classroom teacher, I was a coach, an advisor, an avid participant of board meetings and now, athletic director. I have always told younger teachers that building any program and being a teacher is like being a salesman to the kids.
You have to sell your program and/or content to the students every day, this is the same for parents and the community. I know I say this in every post, but I truly live it: students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care and that goes for parents and community members, as well. If you want to be successful in education, you must try your hardest to maintain relationships and always make sure to keep those key people on your team. Furthermore, positive relationships between parents and teachers encourages a more positive view of the school by the entire community (“The Importance of Positive Parent-Teacher Relationships”, 2018). Although, the look of parent involvement in the classroom has definitely changed, as it used to be about birthday parties, Christmas parties, show-and-tell and chaperoning field trips. Now, parent involvement usually looks like partnerships and donations to partner with the school and its affiliated programs in order to better the community (Van Roekel, 2008). I know that elementary schools still have class parties and celebrations, but so many more parents are moving into other ways that they help and volunteer with the school, other than baking and bringing baked goods to the class parties. I also think that as students continue through the educational system, they begin to morph and mature into other things. Parents and the community must always be searching for ways to evolve with them. This support could be anything from donations to cheering on their son on the football team to attending booster club meetings. I believe that the more relationships we can form with parents and community, the more value they will all see in what we are doing as coaches, educators, directors and administrators.
Staff Development
Throughout my 20 years of being an educator, I have definitely sat through my fair share of staff meetings, professional development and in-service days.
I have always thought it was interesting that teachers are told to make lessons engaging, fun and no longer than 45 minutes. However, we will go in for staff meetings on PD or in-service days, and we will be expected to sit in the same spot and maintain active engagement for three to four hours at a time from a PowerPoint. Now that I get to plan and facilitate meetings for people who are not high school aged individuals, I follow the Golden Rule of keeping the meeting under 50 minutes, unless there are questions, in which case it is so important to listen and allow them to provide input (Alexander, 2018). However, as much as I dread our staff meetings, I do appreciate making sure that everyone is on the same page with everything school-wide. For the first time this year, I have an assortment of new meetings that I never needed to attend for the last 19 years and I also think those are valuable and serve a purpose to make sure we are all in agreement about the process of athletics throughout our state. I do have a strong opinion about professional development and it relates significantly to who I am as an educator. I have written in my posts several times about how if we assign work to students and want them to see the value and be engaged, we must also believe there is value in the content. I know this will be a surprise to you, but I also believe that professional development should be led and implemented the same way! I agree that it should be required for all educators throughout their years of teaching, as strategies and new research comes out, I just stress that it must be relevant. If we believe that learning is endless, we must practice what we preach. Professional development should always utilize new and innovative ways to engage students, teach content, encourage students to reach the learning targets, relate education to industry and provide a way for teachers to gain organizational skills (“The Importance of Professional Development for Educators”, 2020).
References:
Alexander, M. (2018, May 8). 5 ways to keep people interested and engaged during meetings. Retrieved April 29, 2020, from https://www.techrepublic.com/article/5-ways-to-keep- people-interested-and-engaged-during-meetings/
Espinoza, D., Saunders, R., Kini, T., & Darling-Hammond, L. (2018, August 29). Taking the Long View: State Efforts to Solve Teacher Shortages by Strengthening the Profession. Retrieved April 29, 2020, from https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/long-view- report
Labor Shortages Loom as Most-In-Demand Group of Workers Retire. (n.d.). Retrieved April 29, 2020, from https://www.careerprofiles.info/skilled-trade-worker-shortage.html
Moore, J. (2015, March 4). The Importance and Relevance of CTE. Retrieved April 29, 2020, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/putting-america-work/201503/the- importance-and-relevance-cte
Rambo, E. (2019, February 19). Why Electives Matter. Retrieved April 29, 2020, from https://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2011/04/13/tln_rambo_electives.html
Smith, V. (2020, January 23). How Teacher Preparation Programs Can Help All Teachers Better Serve Students With Disabilities. Retrieved April 29, 2020, from
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/educationk12/news/2020/01/23/479675/ teacher-preparation-programs-can-help-teachers-better-serve-students-disabilities/
Study Shows Teacher Training Inadequate. (n.d.). Retrieved April 29, 2020, from https://www.educationworld.com/a_admin/teacher-prep-inadequate-says-study.shtml
Sutcher, L., Podolsky, A., & Espinoza, D. (2017, February 27). Supporting Principals' Learning: Key Features of Effective Programs. Retrieved April 29, 2020, from https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/supporting-principals-learning-key-features- effective-programs-factsheet
The Importance of Positive Parent-Teacher Relationships: Independent School Management:Advancing School Leadership-Enriching The Student Experience. (2018, April 17). Retrieved April 29, 2020, from https://isminc.com/advisory/publications/the- source/the-importance-of-positive-parent-teacher-relationships
The Importance of Professional Development for Educators. (2020, February 6). Retrieved April 29, 2020, from https://online.queens.edu/onlineprograms/medl/resources /professional-development-for-educators
The Role of Principals in Addressing Teacher Shortages. (2017, February 27). Retrieved April 29, 2020, from https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/role-principals-addressing- teacher-shortages-brief
Van Roekel, N. P. D. (2008). Parent, family, community involvement in education. Policy
Brief. Washington, DC: National Education Association.
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