The Education Dilemma Part II: Teachers and the Classroom (What's going on in there anyway?)

This is really a two-fold dilemma for teachers.  On the one hand, they are rarely held accountable for what they teach and for what actually happens in the classroom.  Generally the feeling of teachers is very territorial.  “This is my classroom, my space, stay out.”  The defensive nature of an educator is universal.  This could be for several reasons, including feelings of being unappreciated, wanting to have control, and perhaps even lack of confidence in being able to do their job well, the fear of being judged harshly for their hard work.  And it is probably some of the hardest work in the world.

On the other hand, teachers often feel very alone in the wide, wide world of education.  They feel as though they are given a huge, seemingly impossible task and left out in the ocean alone with a sinking raft in a hurricane to complete it.  The impression of being in total solitude without support or help is not uncommon, and is probably a huge factor in why so many new teachers leave within the first three years of a career that has historically been lifelong.  It isn’t because they don’t care; it’s because no one cares about them.  They care, but so should you.  Whether you like it or not, teachers affect everyone – they teach our children, guide our future, lead our nation.  However, teacher “support” teams seem hardly existent.  The DuFour Professional Learning Community may be an old-ish idea, but it’s taking a while to catch on.

This Professional Learning Community, or PLC, was not described very well to me the first time I ever heard it presented as a student teacher.  But after a year of being a real teacher, several books, and input from a lot of good, experienced teachers, they seem heavenly.  Teachers meeting weekly to discuss strategies, lesson ideas, unit plans, management and organization, etc. etc. etc. – to share ideas and spark new ones – sounds fantastic!  (We’re really not alone out there!)  If done right, if done well, the PLC could really help alleviate some of that teacher loneliness.  It also has the potential of keeping teachers accountable for actually teaching.  Believe it or not, adults learn very similarly to high school students… in that, if everyone else is participating and doing well, the average person will feel inadequate and want to work harder to contribute, particularly if each teacher is asked individually, or if there was a system where everyone had to bring in or share something from their classroom at every meeting.

Most teachers that want the PLC are not the ones that need accountability, although it certainly doesn’t hurt.  One of my students was commenting today about another teacher in our school and how education can’t just be the student; there has to be some work from the teacher, too.  In efforts to support my colleagues, I said little, although she is absolutely right.  But what can I do about a teacher with tenure?  Once a teacher has tenure, whether they do their job or not, they have to really screw up for the school to be able to ask him/her to leave.  So there is a flaw in the system.  I don’t ever want to imply that all teachers who get tenure become lazy.  I’m a teacher, and my intention is never ever to give teachers anything but hero status.  And not because I want hero status, because I have very little confidence that I do what a really good teacher does (yet).  I do know, though, what good teachers do and what they look like.  I also know what a bad teacher does and what that looks like.  So when that teacher is able to stay in the system until they get tenure because there is no accountability, no team support, no observations, and poor professional development, what do we really expect?  Learning does not happen where there is poor instruction.

I mentioned the influence of families in Part I, and the discussion arose about how poor community schools can do better than what we generally see from urban and very rural schools.  I’ve also read a lot about standardized testing and how they aren’t fair for those types of schools.  Let’s just make sure we have our education philosophy straight: with good teachers and the right services appropriate for the students in any given school, any school body can succeed, any student can learn.  All students can be successful.  Standardized tests have nothing to do with their lack of learning.  But when teachers are left alone out there, it becomes a problem for the actual instruction of those standards.  This is not supposed to be an alone job, and yet that is what it has become.  Our education system cannot continue in this direction.  We need group support and accountability if we expect our teachers to be better than what they are.  Oh, there are great teachers out there, but they need to be the ones leading and sharing with the poor teachers, making us all better.  No one can do this alone.  If we expect great things out of an education system, we need to expect great things from our teachers.  And if we expect great things from our teachers, just as we need to provide opportunities for our students, we need to provide appropriate opportunities for growth and success for our teachers.  It is a profession where one is never finished learning and growing.

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