Lately, I have been asking many of our brightest students to consider teaching as a career. It has become evident to me that people like myself are not the ones that are going to change education. The truth is that anyone who has been in the profession for a while is part of the problem. It is hard for any of us, most with the best intentions, to admit that we need to re-examine the way we are doing things.
When I look across the room at many of my students I am convinced that if they were educators that they would make our system better. They have the creativity, energy, and leadership ability to bring major change to this profession. They are the type of people who have the proper combination of big heart and big ideas.
If you get by money, one of the biggest obstacles they face is that they do not think that they have the patience to deal with kids. The lack of patience might be a good thing. Maybe this would produce more teachers who would demand excellence from their students. Maybe it would create teachers with less patience from their bosses? Maybe it would develop teachers with less patience for mediocrity.
The lure of money sometimes is what keeps people from becoming a teacher. However, when you get that letter, e-mail or eventually tweet that tells you that you have made a difference in their life, you are hooked forever. You can not put a price tag on that feeling or what you have done for an individual.
So, even when I am extremely frustrated, i always realize that teaching is the only job that I want. There is no other job I would want at this stage of my life.
So these past couple of years I have been blessed to teach students who I know will make a difference in the world. They are the type of kids that will make the world a better place. My hopes however is that they decide to make the world a better place by fixing our education system.. That might be our biggest strategic advantage a great education system
I agree that we need to encourage more of our exceptional students into education. One way to do that could be to changing the profession itself to allow teachers more autonomy and creativity in leading their students to success. The current approach is to search for "magic bullet" solutions to educational problems which are then hailed as the approach needed to successfully reform education. This is then rammed down teachers' throats in a top-down manner. No matter how respected and successful a teacher has been, the higher-ups are tone deaf to their input. No exceptionally able individual would want to enter a profession where their professional training and expertise counts for nothing. If they did enter the profession, they would probably leave in a short time. On the other hand, there are some who fit this mold who have chosen to stay in the classroom and forge their own successful path, often in defiance of the powers that be. If more of this type of individual entered the teaching profession then "leaders" would have to sit up and notice.
ReplyDeleteFelipe, I agree we need to get our best and brightest into the teaching profession. It is the greatest job in the world. It is wildly important, you get to work with kids all day, you have a schedule that allows you to know and love your own kids, everyday is different, and get the opportunity to push kids to levels that they may have thought unattainable. We need to evolve to the competitive nature of say, Singapore or Finland. It is cutthroat, and only the best can even become teachers. We need more people in the world who have the focus of changing the world, instead of just making a buck and having a nice house.
ReplyDeletePeace