The ASCD blog posted yesterday regarding a new economic report that basically stated that the achievement gap has a significant economic impact that has lead to recession and will keep up there, if not remedied. Of course, all the bigwigs have the remedy for this... data collection and breaking union contracts to get rid of all the super-bad teachers (of which there must be millions because everything wrong with education is due to contracts that keep super-bad teachers in their jobs).
Really, I can only offer my anecdotal evidence that to a certain extent, the economic report is true. There are signifcant number of my students who are completely convinced that school is a boring waste of time until they get a JOB. Not a career, not a profession... a JOB. What the job will be is, well, at tad unrealistic. Part of this lack of reality is due to the fact that they're teenagers and everyone over the age of 25 is viewed as an idiot. No matter what is said, adults aren't really believed. Part of is lack of opportunity and part is just a lack of vocational education. Suffice it to say that it is likely that many of my students will be a drain on the economy. They will never achieve employment with full health insurance. They will probably live a lifestyle where a transmission replacement is a major crisis.
So what do we do? And by "we" I mean teachers... not those who view educators as a necessary evil/babysitter. I think that professional development is a necessary step, but it has to change. Most of the development programs are really "sit and listen" types of programs. Seriously, we're teachers... does this work in our classrooms? We almost never get any time to figure out how to implement the information, how to use it to create best practices or improve student learning. There are only so many hours in the day and I would like to also have a life (I know... I'm a horrible teacher because I refuse to sacrifice my personal life for the children. Maybe we should go back to only unmarried spinsters as capable teachers. Wait... I am an umarried spinster. Nix that idea.)
I would love to be able to sit around all summer with my fellow teachers and create really great lessons, but that's apparently out of reach. In fact, anytime teachers ask for time to work with collegues on curriculum, we're looked at like time-thieves. Nobody wants to actually pay a teacher for an extra minute beyond interaction with students. Entire days? Crap! Teachers might have to be paid like a professional business person instead of stupid drudge who couldn't get another job. In fact, my district will probably not offer any professional development or collegial time next year at all due to budget cuts. Instead, I'll be teaching summer school (completely different curriculum), and my collegues will be painting houses, working contruction and putting sports camp after sports camp to achieve a middle class (the real one... not George Bush's) life.
Comments