To understand a person you must first understand where they come from. I enjoyed, and still do to this day, playing video games. I loved the idea of a foe to be vanquished, a problem to be solved. I suppose that, along with my love of athletics, led me to become a coach. It was the influence of educators that I grew up with that led me into the education field.
I'm used to the concept of formulating a plan to solve a problem, to defeat an opponent. Black and white, good and bad, right and wrong. The good guy, the smart guy, the guy in charge with a vision and a plan.
The challenge comes when a problem lives in the grey in between. How amazing it is to watch an event when those that are trying to help actually become a part of the problem! I think this truth has taken hold in the educational system today.
There is no one enemy; no simple fix. From my point of view, here are the issues that hurt us in the educational field and hold the collective whole from moving forward.
1. Fear - Unions have fought for decades to support the plight of the teacher, but along the way we've walled our self into a position where we have become partly to blame. Our rules, the one's that we've put in place, have slown best efforts to move forward. Do we truly believe that there are no bad teachers, and that all teachers should be protected from evaluation or suggestions of best practices? Many of the teachers that I hear speak appear to fear accountability, they fear being held responsible for the performance and growth of the students in their classroom. Many who will read this are educators. Honestly, are you afraid to be held accountable that students that are you in your classroom should show a year of growth in a years time while they are in your classroom? Is it too much to ask that students, no matter where they are at when they enter your room, demonstrate growth because of your guidance? Should you not be evaluated? What other line of work allows an employee to work year after year without evaluation or demonstration of productivity? Because of the "us vs them" mentality we act out of a place of fear, out of perceived enemies hiding behind dark corners. In my 12 years as a teacher it's become obvious that teachers fear change. Can you imagine a group of teachers, complaining of stagnant salaries and rising insurance costs, voting against a proposal that would not only raise their salaries but bring support into their classrooms! They vote against the very thing they rally for out of fear of change, that things might be done different.
It has become obvious to me that unions, especially those in education, are designed to support seniority over performance. Salaries, teaching assignments, summer school positions, tenure; all of these issues are dependent on one simple issue: seniority. We support even those that are found to be ineffective at their jobs through evaluation processes over time. It's amazing when you consider it.
They fear other adults coming into their classroom and telling them how they might improve their craft. The best educators, in my opinion, never stop looking for a better way. Whether it Don Meyer, retired basketball coach with over 900 career wins or someone else the observation will always be that the best in their line of work, whatever it may be are on the forefront of best practices and what the consumer needs in that particular field. The best coaches and teachers that I know are always looking to find a better way, are always learning. We work to serve our communities, and we should work to meet their needs without fail or hesitation.
2. Vision - Many administrators lack vision. I was taught as a student at Valparaiso University to use the Backwards Design Method, or simply put to teach with the end in mind. The concept is simple enough. The educator, when planning a lesson asks themselves "What do I want my students to know when they master this lesson?" What I have seen in my time as an educator is leadership that moves without an overall picture in mind. At my school we are faced with avalanche of acronyms and programs, all designed to improve student performance but often conflicting in nature and working against one another. Rather than allowing a vision to drive us forward and then evaluating all that comes after simply by asking, "Will this help us reach our goal?" Instead, we ram round pegs into square holes and engage our educators to put hours upon hours of valuable time into programs, only to replace that program with something else. Even when you buy into a program, you do so with caution because the pendulum of education will surely sway the other direction leaving you clinging to a method that is now condemned as outdated and ineffective.
These are just a few of the issues that will need to be addressed if we are ever to move forward. It's an interesting question to debate; does poor education drive poverty or does poverty drive poor education?
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