Not a day goes by that the airways, print media and casual
conversations don’t involve a discussion targeting teacher pay,
tenure, seniority, teacher evaluation and unions. Many teachers and
their unions are getting the blame for just about everything that
can go wrong in schools
Not a day goes by that the airways, print media and casual conversations don’t involve a discussion targeting teacher pay, tenure, seniority, teacher evaluation and unions. Many teachers and their unions are getting the blame for just about everything that can go wrong in schools. “Waiting for Superman,” a recent movie now released on DVD and On Demand is just one example of teacher bashing and laying the blame of failing schools on the unions and the teachers.
Teachers have become an easy target for politicians, pundits and the public. It is so easy to blame the teachers, blame the unions, blame the administrators, blame, blame, blame … Instead, we need to reexamine and redesign our entire educational system including how we assess students’ achievement.
Traditional education of imparting knowledge, socialization and custodial care are no longer needed in our new society. Knowledge can be accessed using technology anytime – day or night.
Schools must have a new function and that is to help children ask relevant questions and then be able to find reliable answers. In the past, schools were a place to learn to get along with other children.
Through innovations in technology, our kids now have to learn to get along with people from around the world. Schools still offer custodial care, but if that is the only thing they offer without meaningful learning opportunities, they are ripe for trouble. Meaningful, relevant, real world learning experiences are the golden tickets to educational success and life-long achievement.
There are some teachers who need to change their profession, as they are ineffectual in their teaching practices. Morgan Hill Unified School District’s new teacher evaluation program should help to weed out those who are not making the grade or help them improve their competencies.
Our teacher’s colleges need to also do a better job of preparing future teachers to meet the needs of the 21st Century.
Our society needs to support teachers and our schools with the necessary resources to be successful. It is a crime that so many teachers spend their own personal money on educating others’ children.
The largest change that needs to be made is the perception that education only happens within the four walls of a classroom and within the school building. We (parents, community members, friends, coaches, support staff) are all teachers and can all contribute to a child’s education.
One community volunteer program that illustrates this point beautifully and is making a difference in educating our youth is found at the Boccardo Center. Since 2001, Gamma Alpha, the local chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma Society International, an honorary organization of women educators, “adopted” the Boccardo Center in San Martin, a shelter for homeless and migrant families. This program was based on the teacher’s passion for improving literacy in the South County involving teachers and high school volunteers who read with and to a child.
The program uses graduated reading materials that the Chapter has purchased. Free books from a local division of Reading is Fundamental and from Newspapers in Education are given to the children as they finish each tutoring session. These books are used to help them build their own personal libraries.
The program not only helps these students become literate, but also helps the high school volunteers take a leadership role in their community. This program is an outstanding example of how meaningful learning experiences can be offered to enhance many students’ education.
It is time to stop blaming teachers for the ills in our society. Instead, we all need to refocus our efforts on supporting the education of our youth and acknowledge that we all need to be involved in our children’s education.
Margaret Rodrigues is now a retired teacher of the Morgan Hill Unified School District after 37 years of service. She was the former Vice President of the Morgan Hill Federation of Teachers and a former Board Member of the California Association for Gifted Education. Presently, she is the Teaching American History Grant Program Facilitator providing in-service training to teachers in four districts that are a part of this grant.
