Rough Draft paper #3

The places where I have left two parentheses ( ) are places where I need to insert a citation and have yet to do so.

Critiquing Education

There are endless varieties of teachers in this great nation, some who display passion and patience, others who simply "babysit" and retire each day with a paycheck. Students in Kindergarten through 12th grade rely on their teachers to provide them with the best education possible. This should not differ from state to state or district to district, all teachers should be giving these students a foundation for a future and the tools to develop the mind. It is not the job of one teacher, but of all working together. Evidence has presented itself that if we are not helping to guarantee this quality education, then what are we doing? Each teacher should be held to a certain level of expectations that will result in a better education for students, and a better group of teachers there to represent our American students. In America today we need to fix the problems in our educational system by changing the way we encourage and monitor our teachers’ proficiency.

There is evidence that proves the power of teaching. When diagnosing the movie "Freedom Writers" we are presented with a prime example. The teaching shown by Mrs. Gruwell shows the qualities that should be present in all schools, amongst all teachers. She is faced with a lack of encouragement and an obvious lack of student involvement. The location of the school and the culture of the community are challenging to say the least. Mrs. Gruwell found encouragement on her own, from her students.() She was stalled by other teachers’ criticism, skepticism, and pessimistic attitudes, those teachers were great examples of teachers that needed a reminder of why they were there. A quote that represents the kind of learning Mrs. Gruwell inspired goes like this, “We’ve bought into the idea that education is about training and “success”, defined monetarily, rather than learning to think critically and to challenge. We should not forget that the true purpose of education is to make minds, not careers”

 ― Chris Hedges.()  Mrs. Gruwell came in as a first year teacher and inspired the minds of her students; she did not hold them to career expectations like we saw done by Mr. Escalante in Stand and Deliver. He put the goal in the students heads to learn in order to become successful(), which poses the question of how did these students do in other classes? Teachers should be reminded at certain regular intervals in their career that they are molding minds, not careers. Remind them that all minds are different and try to see the potential in each student instead of focusing only on the academics and getting through the lesson curriculum.

Something that caught my attention that is proof of the need for teacher standards and proficiency is the “Lemon Dance”, or as some call it the “turkey trot’, or “pass the trash”(). It is a system used by principles and school boards to recycle their teachers from school to school. When one teacher is not working out at school A, they are moved to school B at the beginning of the next school year. The teacher who was not working out at school B was moved to school C, and the teacher who is not working at school C will then be recycled over to school A. School A then feels like they have a better teacher than they started with simply because it is a different teacher. That does nothing to improve our teaching standards. That system allows teachers to bring their bad teaching habits over to another group of students who will then suffer the consequences. Those teachers should be evaluated instead of sent somewhere else. Quite possibly they have become tired of teaching, or maybe they truly need a refresher course! These teachers should be monitored by other teachers or principles to find out what they are lacking. Even Mrs. Gruwell may have come to a point of boredom, or repetitive routine that could have hurt her teaching methods and success, which is why teachers need to have that support from their staff to keep each other at the top of their game and motivated to be doing the teaching.

Merit pay will help to separate the good from the bad; ultimately cancelling out the option of teachers being the reason for our failing education system, and then focusing on the next problem can become a reality. Merit pay is the option for pay increase due to a teacher producing results with students. A teacher who shows they are working harder, or better at molding the student mind will then receive a raise in pay.() In Washington DC no one was allowed to vote on instituting merit pay because of the teachers union(). The teachers union is put in place to protect the teachers, but not the student? The teachers union of Washington DC has made it near impossible to fire a teacher who has not produced results with students(), but isn’t that their one and only goal? They say that all teachers should be treated the same “a teacher is a teacher is a teacher”(), most of this country would disagree due to different teaching methods that all have experienced. With merit pay we would clearly be able to see who is capable and proficient in their job and create higher standards for teaching.

Teachers who are supported and support one another have programs available to them to help build their teaching skills, handle a problem in class, and bridge the gap between home and school. In one of our own areas elementary schools where I held an interview with a 1^st grade teacher, Kelley Daniels, I was informed of some of these programs. Mrs. Daniels has an entire staff available to her for round table discussion, bouncing ideas off of one another and committees to develop new strategy for teaching core math and reading curriculum. This school has Para educators, in class advocates for students who struggle, and special needs assistants, all of which work together to produce great results(). Each teacher is aware of the other teacher’s struggles and they have incorporated a system of helping one another find solutions.

When observing dedicated and goal oriented teachers who work FOR the student, KIPP and Geoffrey Canada come to mind. The KIPP schools that have flourished across our country and grown to 82 locations are producing results(). The mentality of the teachers there seems to be more focused on the children than on what the adults want. Michelle Rhee said there is “a lack of accountability” on the part of the adults and we need to produce results for the kids(). This has been done by Geoffrey Canada, who opened the Harlem Children’s Zone which serves 17000 children today. This is an example of adults helping children to flourish, with dentists, counselors, and nutritionist to add to the teachers who already serve the children(). These types of schools have attracted the kind of teachers our country needs.

As a result of years and years of dysfunction because of lack of accountability, tenure, social problems and funding our nation needs to consider a plan for evaluating and monitoring teachers for proficiency. We should be asking ourselves what we want to see in every classroom across America. The answer is learning, dedication, and teamwork. A level of acceptable efficiency needs to put in order to obtain the best teachers for our students. This field of work varies between those who are good at teaching students and those who have lost their drive and ambition for teaching. How can we guarantee that students are receiving intellectual stimulation to help develop their minds as well as the right core curriculum to succeed? We can do this by retraining or replacing those who do not produce results.