Bird Droppings April 24, 2012

Where have all the teachers gone?

 

Over the past few days I have been talking with a veteran and a few new teachers to be, college seniors who are getting ready to go out and teach and even a few who are student teaching with our facility. As I meander around this morning getting my odds and ends done for the day and feeding the critters in my room I could not help but notice the lack of young new teachers. I spoke with my principal earlier this week and he said he only had a few apply this past year and only hired two new teachers in recent years although we do have an Australian with an E3 visa at a nearby high school in the county. I had spoken with this fellow from Australia many times over the past five years and of course have to get my late great Crocodile Hunter questions first and then ask about E3 visas. It seems we now have an allowance of E3 visas which allow indefinite stays to work. Of course they apply to needed areas in certain fields of which teaching is one.

            But why are we running out of teachers. One article I read and my principal also quoted was that within a few years the US will be seven million teachers short. I complain about no child left behind and it seems that soon there will be a lot of children left behind because there will no teachers left to teach them. Amazing how things work out. I “Googled” the question, where have all the teachers gone? I had over seven million hits. The very first hit was a paper entitled; Where have all the teachers gone from nearly ten years ago.

 

“It was earlier noted that the quality of teacher preparation and the quantity of available teachers are not independent. A traditional interpretation of this statement is that higher preparation standards by limiting access threaten the supply of teachers and the staffing of schools. It would be unfortunate if the projected need for more teachers were to cause an erosion of standards for teacher preparation. This scenario leads towards lower student performance, less job satisfaction, higher teacher attrition, increased public discontent, and further erosion of standards. Easier teacher preparation programs and emergency permit hiring are expedient solutions to short term employment needs. However, such expediency may bring about greater long term problems. “ Mark Eric Fetler, Ph.D., California Commission on Teacher Credentialing

 

This is not something that just happened. Dr. Fetler addressed the issue in 1997. I recall many years ago when I was in undergraduate teacher education and experienced a class where the professor believed men should not be in elementary education. My own graduate school classes have been literally enlightening and uplifting as both colleges that I have attended are progressive in their scope and views on teacher education. So why do we need teachers so badly? I should rephrase that and say why do we need good teachers so badly? I keep humming the folk song where have all the flowers gone except inserting teachers instead of flowers.

Teachers are not created simply by a certification process contrary to the beliefs and understandings of many politicians and administrators. Teachers are not simply trained and like an assembly line we produce teachers which so many people think happens. This may be a silly example. Something so simple as it takes a hundred years to grow a hundred year old tree may seem silly yet in our hurry up world we really do not want to wait that long. We genetically engineer and manipulate and bring in exotics that in our climate grow faster and then sell old growth remaining trees to Japan which amazes me in the paradox.

A hundred year old tree isn’t all that old considering the 500 year old plus redwoods and sequoias on the west coast and sadly other countries will pay small fortunes for them. Part of that willingness is respect for the age and consideration of the tree which we have lost.  Easterners revere and honor the age of the wood and intricate and tight beautiful grains that produce veneers and furniture that is near priceless. An interesting thought a 500 year old redwood takes 500 years to replace, Easterners understand such things we fast paced immediate answer western people do not. Could be why we so easily put aside the devastation of an oil spill or so quickly say drill baby drill in a wilderness area.

Another interesting thought as I get started this morning I picked up a book actually several at Barnes and Nobles the other day and I am just getting started on them. One was “The Tao of teaching”, it is so far intriguing.  A comment is used that I like “the art of teaching” which has become the basis of my one day dissertation.

 

“When I see – I forget, when I hear – I remember, when I do – I understand”

Ancient Chinese saying

 

As I go deeper into my reading I will share but teaching as an art form is an interesting and intriguing concept. Reading this ancient passage is also akin to progressivism’s John Dewey thinking on experience and learning. As I consider the term art of teaching it is sort of like some folks will always be finger painting and others painting masterpieces from day one. School for a good teacher always starts tomorrow and school for some folks never starts it is just a job.

 

“The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence. He inspires self-distrust. He guides their eyes from himself to the spirit that quickens him. He will have no disciple.” Amos Bronson Alcott

 

Questioning investigating teachers should inspire not constrict such endeavor. I always go back to the famous Moby Dick question of “In your opinion what was Herman Melville trying to accomplish with his writing of this book?” Ms. Stern did not appreciate how he was writing a historical fictional rendering of the whaling industry and its financial impact on the society ofNew England. I received an “F” and the response “That’s the wrong opinion”. I never knew an opinion in theUScould be wrong, maybe different but not wrong.

 

“Who dares to teach must never cease to learn.” John Cotton Dana

 

 I never realizedhow true this was till I came back directly to teaching about twelve years back. As I was going back to graduate school and reading more lately than when I was in school years back all 12 years of public school and all 12 years of college and such.

 

“The real difficulty, the difficulty which has baffled the sages of all times, is rather this: how can we make our teaching so potent in the motional life of man, that its influence should withstand the pressure of the elemental psychic forces in the individual?” Albert Einstein

 

How in life do we make any lesson important enough “potent” to borrow from Albert (I am on a first name basis now)? This came up in my class yesterday that a teacher needs to be excited about what they teach and in turn that excites the students. Being in a co-teaching situation and never knowing semester to semester what classes I might be co-teaching sort of takes away from the excitement but it is the interaction and relationships built in teaching that are a driving force.

 

“The man who can make hard things easy is the educator.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Making something hard easy, someone who can make it potent, and is always learning but is humble, a true teacher.

 

“What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.” George Bernard Shaw 

 

As I look at Georgia Performance Standards, GPS’s and all the standardized Testing and such,  is knowledge pursuing the child or do we not teach enough art recognition  in the teaching of teachers and teach too much mechanics. I can show anyone color and texture and each will offer back a finished piece rarely will they be the same and every once in a while a masterpiece will be produced. We should search for teachers as we search for masters find those that can and then we can seriously educate children.

I was cleaning my vast store of old files in my closet. Things that when I saved them were crucial. I have thinned out the ten or so boxes to one now and found a spring of 2004 newsletter “Reaching Out” produced by Dr. James Sutton, author, consultant, lecturer, clinical psychologist and leading authority on Oppositional Defiant Behavior and Conduct Disorder. There is an article on page five only a paragraph or so about Stevie the wonder snake.

 

“Frank Bird is a teacher in Georgia. He believes strongly that a classroom should have student appeal. After all, it’s about them anyway, so why not make it interesting. To this end, Franks classroom is pretty untraditional, even cluttered, but it’s full of all kinds of “kids’ stuff.” Frank has a classroom assistant, Stevie. Stevie is a Ball Python… a snake (a very large snake). Students will do anything (even work) to hold Stevie if Stevie can sleep in their laps. Now that’s a pretty creative way to keep a student in a seat.” Dr. James Sutton, Reaching Out, Spring 2004

 

It has been some time since I talked about this with James Sutton. But it reminded me with a significant change coming for me in the next year moving from a room I have been in since before this article was written of my main tenet in my classroom and in schools period. Kids have to want to be there in order to learn.

 

“Students will learn better when they are somewhere they want to be… Opportunities expand for learning when a student comes in wanting to be there… Learning is constructed by the learner and must be a social experience before it is a cognitive experience” Max Thompson, Learning Concepts

 

If only teachers would listen in their Learning Focused Schools Seminars and Professional Learning sessions. If only teachers would respond to students as people rather than things as Dr. Glasser points out in The Quality School. If only is a big issue in education. Today I have been pondering a bit much about a critical issue and will end will please keep all in harm’s way on your mind and in your hearts and be sure to always give thanks.

namaste

bird

 

PS. “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.” Albert Einstein