There are many recent calls for educational reforms that try to turn my head to cover the whole conversation and to understand exactly what is being said to try making. Let me from the perspective of a break in the classroom as teacher education reform looks like.
The first, with movies like “Bad Teacher”, “Waiting for Superman”, etc, that a good teacher in the hostile climate of today is difficult. I am one of those teachers who try to get as much time as possible to spend all of my 150 + students to teach them to love to read and write with passion. I’ll be the first to admit that there are many “bad apples” in education. I work with these teachers every day and sometimes I’m angry and crawl through their words and deeds. I also work with many teachers who strive daily to a positive role model and influence in the lives of students, while also dealing with the politics and policies that arise in our way almost daily.
Second, national efforts to standardize everything from testing the curriculum concern. When President Bush began pushing his “No Child Left Behind” policy, many of us welcomed the idea because it is true that all children can learn and succeed. On the contrary, given the constraints on what can or can not learn the biases of the publishers of textbooks, the leadership styles of top-down, overcrowded classrooms, and the crushing budget cuts in education, many good teachers and are passionate about leaving education all. Some of the best teachers I know of has been shown the door because there was not enough “money”, while other teachers left that should have long ago dismissed.
Thirdly, there are many public misconceptions about the teaching profession and that is wrong in the teaching profession. For years we have our unions to our struggle. These battles, which were originally over pay and working conditions have made its way into the curriculum. For example, I worked for the past six months with a team of teachers to completely revise the way we teach English / Language Arts. To say that we are reinventing the wheel would be able to implement a language. When I began teaching, my curriculum is based on the stories and novels that were considered “canonical”. The new approach is the opposite. We have the skills our students need to know to succeed and to use those skills to create interactive, engaging and yes, even fun learning strategies we completely reverse the downward or stagnant in our schools. Design We face almost insurmountable obstacles placed by our society, in which teachers were able to participate in this process. Decisions are not based on who was best for the job, but it was better for the union.
Participation in fourth place, the parents – one of the best and perhaps the most important part of education – not in so many schools. My own school can not even maintain a working PTA because we can not get their parents to help. I’m not knocking the parents do not misunderstand. In this climate of economic crisis, many of our families lost their homes or both parents work day and night and have no time for such things as parent conferences and contribute to the work of the PTA. This is not the fault of the parents has an impact on schools and students.
How can we solve problems and move on? If I answer that could change the world on his own. I truly believe that education reform is not the law or policy or curriculum or teachers or parents. Educational reform is everyone’s responsibility for our children, our future. We need all the noise of public conversation filter and focus on what’s most important – preparing our children for adult life in the future.