(Untitled)

[aerlewis]

Pulled from WSJ online

Amazing Teacher Facts
June 14, 2008; Page A10

This month 3,700 recent college grads will begin Teach for America's five-week boot camp, before heading off for two-year stints at the nation's worst public schools. These young men and women were chosen from almost 25,000 applicants, hailing from our most selective colleges.

Comments

Re: Questions...

[eagle97]

Ok, have been working on a proposal lately and haven't had time for much blogging. So my response, albeit delayed, is this:

I agree with you that in general, we should strongly encourage innovation in teaching -- like we do in the rest of our economy. My point was that the TFA should not, as you say, be considered a "silver bullet" for curing public school ills.

And, specifically, we absolutely can learn from this program. It has many lessons about teaching that challenge that conventional wisdom, including:

1. Instead of doing what many school districts do, including forcing new teachers to go through years-long certification programs mostly focused on esoteric "theories of teaching", then putting them on highly restrictive probationary periods where they're expected to teach in a very restrictive fashion and to toe the district line on curricula, teaching methods, etc., we should recruit young teachers who graduate near the tops of their programs (mathematics, history, etc.)at universities, get them in the classroom quickly, and turn them loose to impart their knowledge and passion to students.

2. We should pay young teachers more (and more quickly), so that more young people are motivated to consider teaching as a profession.

3. We should remove much of the bureaucracy surrounding teaching, as young people are notoriously intolerant of "red tape", and should be provided an environment that allows as much "freedom of movement" as possible.

I agree that teachers unions, like many other unions, would benefit from being more flexible and open to new ideas. And, the teachers' unions would benefit the professions they are ultimately supposed to support if they would refrain from actively sabotaging new ideas in the manner you discussed. Unions often mistake obstructionism for assistance to their members. In doing so, they weaken their membership, their profession, and ultimately they pave the way for their own obsolescence.

Finally, I just don't have the time to dig up the evidence you referenced (or discover the lack thereof). So, I will have to rely on anecdotal evidence and my own sense (having spent many years around teachers, since my mom is one of them), and having a sense that in many cases, veterans handle situations better than rookies, that veteran teachers handle the "extra" duties surrounding teachers better than greenhorns who are fresh out of school.