The Institute for Educational Leadership produced a report in 2001 that discusses the problems that limit teachers assuming leadership roles and provides advice on how teachers can become more involved. The article begins with a discussion about the current status of teachers as having some the lowest salaries in comparison to other professional careers. The prospects for advancement are limited and usually mean taking an administrative position, organizing teacher-activist movements or working with teacher unions to enhance work conditions. Furthermore, due to the ease of communication in today's information age, many professions are changing their vertical hierarchies to a more horizontal structure. Unfortunately, teachers still must work within a vertical hierarchy in which the teacher lies at the bottom of the hierarchical ladder. This article describe ten areas that limit the ability of teachers to embrace leadership roles:
1) Teachers have little to control over the choice of textbook and instructional materials.
2) Teachers cannot choose the curriculum and must abide by rigid state standards.
3) Teachers cannot set the standards for student behavior and must abide by whatever the school policy may be.
4) Teachers have limited control over student tracking.
5) Teachers have little control over designing the staff development training.
6) Teachers have no control over staff hiring and retention policies.
7) Teachers have little to no control over school budgets.
8) Teachers do not evaluate other teachers' performances.
9) Teachers cannot control who is hired at their school.
10) Teachers cannot select the administrators of the school.
While all of these factors limit teacher leadership, the 1998 article Teachers Leading the Way: Voices from the National Teacher Forum, provides advice and offers suggestions from teachers about ways to assume leadership positions. This article discusses the notion that many feel teachers are not doing their job if they are not in the classroom teaching. This article emphasizes the need for teachers to attend professional development workshops and become leaders by expanding their passion into the community and outside of the classroom. This article also addresses the need for high quality substitute teachers who can sit in for teachers who attend professional development workshops. Furthermore, this article describes how teachers who want to have a leadership role must take an active role in creating these positions as these positions are few and far between or need to be created from scratch. Some suggestions include teachers working twelve month years in order to develop these important leadership qualities.
Personally, I really enjoyed these two articles. The teacher leaders described by these two articles describes the teacher I wish to become. Although I love teaching in the classroom, I believe it is essential for teachers to have leadership and community roles that extend outside of the classroom as it makes teacher's content more relevant to the students and more valued by the community. Also, teacher who develop their extracurricular passions are able to help erase that persistent stereotype that teachers are merely book-smart people who do not have lives outside of the school. If teachers are to be valued by adults, teachers need to be visible to the adult community and demonstrate their value to the community.
I have come to learn that society sets contradictory standards for those in the teaching profession. Hollywood perpetuates the idea that teachers are expected to go above and beyond their call of duty; these teachers dramatically transform low achieving and bad-behaving students into well-mannered Harvard bound superstars. While this idea of a teacher is certainly noble and seems to reflect the high-value of educators, the salary of teachers is minimal and serves to detract the high achieving college graduates from entering the profession. Although society expects educators to possess an exceptionally high moral compass, the lack of leadership roles available to teachers seems to show that society does not trust teachers enough to assume these roles of responsibility. Although teachers are charged with educating the minds of our nation's youth, teachers are given little control over what content to teach and are constantly forced to abide by whatever standards the administrators feel is necessary at the time.
When I consider the high value society expects from teachers and the low value it accords to them, my mind is simply boggles. Is it rational for society to expect any profession to be a community of saints? Only saints feel compelled by an invisible calling to selflessly work for little to no money and we know that saints are few and far between; that is why we dub these people "saints," right? Teachers, like most humans, are not saints and like most people know: you get what you pay for. This basic concept extends into our everyday lives so why is it so hard for people to apply it to the teaching profession? It should come as no surprise that many people raise complaints about the public schools of today; if society is not willing to pay the price for a good education, the youth of society will not receive a great education. Teachers are people who love to work with young people and love their content. Good teachers are those who lead a community of students to success and thus if society highly values the goals of this profession, society needs to value the workers who fulfill this goal accordingly.
This is not to say that the only that will improve education is to pay teachers more money. You can't always throw money on a problem to fix it, rather, teachers need to assert their worth to the community by demonstrating their value as citizen leaders. This means that teachers need to assume more responsibility choosing curriculum and setting standards for their students behavior. This means that teachers need to know what is relevant in their community and the best way for teachers to know what is best to teach in context of their community is to get to know and be involved with the community. Teachers need to experience life outside the classroom by discussing issues with the community and developing their skills through professional development workshops. Without this control, teachers face a much more difficult time getting students to find their content relevant and will have a more difficult time helping students refine the many skills that will make them successful, productive citizens.
In the future, I plan on being one of these amazing teacher leaders. This means I need to speak up and voice my opinions and get involved in my community. If I want to see an improvement in the way society values my profession, then I need to make the effort to prove to them that I am not simply a book smart nerd who merely dispenses trivia to students. We teachers have many impressive skills and it is essential that we develop our creative, communicative, and other unique skills and put them to work in our communities. I believe that once society truly understands the tangible value that teachers have and create, they will begin to accord greater value to the profession, in the form of augmented salaries. Also, when teacher unite their passions with the community and become visible to their society, the members of society will hopefully begin to see teachers as real passionate people, not saintly volunteers.
What do you think about society's perceptions concerning teachers? Do you think that if teachers were more visible to the community by actively participating in improving it, that the profession would gain respect and an augmented pay check?
Saturday, November 7, 2009
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Society expects too much from teachers, not only do they want us to teach students but they expect us to instill values in them. It's bad enough were underpaid, but it's another thing to expect us to raise your children. Where are the boundaries? Teachers are often blamed for the behavioral and academic performance of students. Where the hell are the parents and community, like the saying goes, "it takes a village/community to raise a child". Parents need to do their jobs as well, a teacher can set rules in her class to help reduce behavioral problems however, students will not fully comply if their is not any structure at home or if their parents do not set any rules for them to adhere to.
ReplyDeleteTeachers who are involved in the community are respected more because their participating in community affairs and networking with other parents and residents. By getting to know other people within the community, teachers are able to advocate for higher wages and school resources. If all teachers were more involved in community and political affairs, teachers would be paid more.
I think the problem with society and teachers today is that a lot of parents see teachers as glorified babysitters. A lot of people have the misconception that people only teach because they can't do anything else, which is not accurate. A lot of people change professions to teach. Getting out in the community and becoming actively involved in our students' lives might force parents to see teachers in a different light.
ReplyDeleteTeachers in Japan did not make a lot of money, but they were given a lot of respect by both their students and community. Of course, the teachers there played a huge role in their students' lives, maybe more than their parents.
I do think that if teachers made themselves mroe visible to the community at large in a positive way, more respect would come with that. I mean, people think the profession is important, and everyone wnats their children to have good teacher, but people don't truly respect the profession itself, or the people that choose to do it. They think it's almost a waste of talent. Hence, I don't see the augmented paycheck coming any time soon, no matter what.
ReplyDeleteI guess most peoples' perception about teachers stems from their personal experience and as a society our bad memories can sometimes take precedence. However, as you alluded to within your post, I believe that if teachers were to become more actively involved in the community that parents would start to notice how beneficial educators are. Unfortunately I think a lot of people view public school as a day care system.
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