Nine years ago, I began my teaching career. By all standards, I was a late starter, though I believe that teaching had been in my blood since I was a little girl. I remember an early fascination with office supplies, esp. carbon paper (does anyone remember what that was?). I'd use the carbon paper to make up games and stories and tests and then I would play "SCHOOL" with my two younger sisters and, a few years later, with the the kids I babysat. Though I had originally worked in Public Relations, the field had never captured my heart and as my divorce neared, I couldn't imagine resuming that career. Instead, I decided to return to school and get a Masters in Teaching. Luckily, Rice University offered a wonderful program and I was accepted.
My first job, after graduation from Rice, was in the International Baccalaureate program at a local public high school. I felt lucky to get a job and esp. one that was so near my home. However, the experience of working in a large public school was a huge eye opener. I loved the I.B. program and I believed fully in its mission. The administration of the school, however, was not as exemplary. While the students were diverse and interesting, the principal (and his cohorts) were small-minded, illogical and I suspect even corrupt. I was appalled by the lack of respect afforded both students and teachers in the system that made up this large high school. There was a level of ineptitude on the part of many administrators (and quite a few of the older teachers)that made me feel embarrassed to be among them. Stories of laziness and incompetence were rampant, though I tried to believe they were widely exaggerated. However, the longer I stayed, the more I began to believe that the accusations were fair representations of the life of the school. It is probably fair to say that I would not have lasted as a teacher if I had not been fortunate enough to move across the street to the fine private school that I am still teaching at.
I remember that after a few weeks in my new school, I spoke to my dad and said: "I used to think that there was a river between public and private education; now, I know its an ocean."
We are right smack in the middle of my sixth here at this school and my ninth year as a teacher. My teaching career has been fairly unique since I was already a mother and a (yikes) middle-aged woman when I began this journey. As a career, it is both exhilarating and exhausting. It challenges me in new ways every day. I take this job very seriously and I realize the important role I play in the lives of so many young people. It is a responsibility that I do not take lightly.
Things are much clearer and more respectful on this side of the public/private divide, but they are not perfect. There are always differences of opinion in terms of curriculum goals or pedagogical principles.
On top of that, we are not robots, we are people with unique personalities and that in itself can result in challenges as we struggle to communicate with people who may or may not have a personality style that complements our own.
Yesterday, purely by accident, I happened to see a portion of a CNN special on the current educational system in the US. The PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) report tests and ranks 15 year olds in 70 countries. The US came in 14th in Reading, 17th in Science and 25th in Math. Two of the top ranking countries were S. Korea and Finland.
What is fascinating about that is that S. Korea and Finland have virtually opposite views of education. The CNN program did a wonderful job of quickly summarizing each country's system. I was not surprised to see that the S. Korean teenager they interviewed spent most of the hours of his day studying. His routine was rigorous, bordering on abusive, and he clearly felt the pressure of his highly competitive environment. In fact, the govt. official who was interviewed said that they are trying to find ways to mitigate the overall stress and intensity of their educational system. Does it work? It does, but at what cost? The students are not only sleep-deprived and sometimes even suicidal, but they are also devoid of a true love of learning. Everything is focused on pushing your brain to contain the maximum amount of data.
Finland, on the other hand, has a lack of pressure that is a bit surprising, even to the American eye. There are no uniforms, sometimes not even shoes (because Finnish people are usually barefoot at home and the school environment is supposed to be nurturing). There are not even any tardy bells. When the Finnish school official was asked how they can get such great educational results with such a seemingly lax environment, he responded that they hire great teachers and trust them. It was like a light bulb suddenly went off in my head and everything that I have been thinking in the last nine years suddenly coalesced into one real idea. YES. Teachers should be highly-trained and carefully selected, and then there should be a certain degree of autonomy afforded them to be passionate and creative instructors in their classrooms. The following blurb comes from the GREATSCHOOLS.ORG website and does a good job of summing up the Finnish teacher selection/training process.
The level of respect accorded to Finnish teachers tends to grab attention, especially in America where teaching is viewed as a "fallback" profession occupied primarily by the lower third of college graduates. That equation is flipped in Finland, where teachers boast the highest vocational status (followed by physicians.) A full 25% of Finnish youngsters select teaching as their career goal, but only a fraction succeed. Only 10% to 13% of applicants gain acceptance into the masters' degree in education program.
In other words, all teachers, of all grade levels, must have Masters Degrees, and the selection process to get into those programs is highly competitive. I truly believe that if we are ever going to solve the problem of our failing schools, we need to start by looking at how we value and train our teachers. In my ideal world, the salaries for teachers would be competitive with other professional careers (like Law and Medicine) so that our "best and brightest" could aspire/would aspire to be teachers. I do not believe that the secret to fixing our broken schools is to keep kids in school longer hours and give them more and more material to regurgitate on standardized tests. Instead, I believe that the secret lies in the teachers. We need to completely overhaul what it means to be a teacher. It is a profession that requires great skill, creativity, dedication, passion and ingenuity. It should NOT be a "fallback" career for the "lower third of college graduates!"
Let me know what you think about all of this. As for me....I might just have to move to Finland!
3 comments:
I agree there is much to admire in the Finnish model, but let's not forget, they are working with a hugely demographic. They are homogenous as regards culture (for the most part)so they face fewer instances of teachers having to bridge a cultural gap to reach students, there is much less poverty (so teachers don't have to wonder if a child ate that day or if there's electricity at home)and there's no standardized testing until students are well into their teens (removing the driving curricular imperative of test performance). All of those differences add up.
*edit: hugely different demographic (in line 1)
Those are valid points, Selene. I agree that we cannot over-simplify this complex issue because our needs may be unique due to our ethnic and socio-economic diversity. However, I still firmly believe that a great part of the problem can be traced back to our society's lack of appreciation for the teaching profession. Valuing teachers and training them well would not be a panacea, but it would be a HUGE step in the right direction.
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