.3 Policy Making (as well as Implementing)

We can talk theoretically about feedback and encouragement, but what does this mean in terms of your role in educational change? Are you just going to wait for someone to do it for you, or are you going to take some responsibility to manage and shape and develop and direct it? I value being in charge. I value my discretion, and I
value my choice. I value being able to make judgments and being able to follow those judgments. I don't like to feel that I am tied down or that I have to do what somebody else is telling me to do. I want you to learn how to take more responsibility for your lives and to be able to have the confidence to make mistakes. If you see that mistakes are not that big a deal, then you are going to be more willing to make those mistakes and learn more about effective teaching as a result.

The mentoring role is important in regard to junior staff members. At the beginning you are going to be on the receiving end. You will be mentored, but that doesn't mean you have to be passive. You don't just have to wait for a senior teacher to come to you. Seek out mentors from among your senior teachers. As you become more senior, you should extend the courtesy to your junior colleagues.

We tend to not focus upon student feedback. I want to know what you think, because if I know what you think I am better able to prepare for questions and areas of concern that you might have. If I don't know what you are thinking then I don't know how to respond. You need to know what your students are thinking. Remember the 2+2 technique. At the end of the class, if you have a few minutes left, have your students write down two compliments and two suggestions about the class. Some of these compliments and suggestions will be useful, and some won't. Some teachers actually resent student feedback or fear it. There are teachers who won't allow student evaluations.

Another issue is staff development. One of the things that I resent about our profession is that we as teachers are expected to do our own staff development on our own time with our own money. This is so well understood that we often don't see it as a stupid system. As a teacher, you have a responsibility to keep your credentials up to date. Why shouldn't the school district build this into your professional assignment? It would seem to me that the right place to do this is on the job, not in the summertime.

We also have to look at the role of the teacher in parent education. This is not very common. Teachers don't usually think that they have a role in parent education. I think that for the teacher to be remote from the parent and the community is wrong. Parents can do a lot to support you as a teacher, but they need to know what you are up to and what you are interested in. We are making the school a resource for the parents as well as for the kids. Parents do care about what their kids are doing and a joint effort with them will provide great rewards.

We have to look at the teacher's role in policy development. Teachers don't view themselves as policy makers. They view themselves as policy implementers, the bottom end of the food chain. I see teachers as policy developers. Who knows more about the status of kids then teachers? Teachers need to think that their opinions are important.

The teacher is also a public advocate. Teachers need to sell the schools to the public. Anytime you can get the public behind the schools, the schools have an easier time with their budget and teacher salaries go up.

	Teachers do not always take initiative to make changes, and in many ways the system is constructed to discourage that impetus in teachers. Name some ways in which teachers can be more proactive an thus improve their jobs.	Answer Here
	Mr. & Mrs. Morris live in a suburban community in Virginia. When Mr. Luster announces that he has gotten a promotion that will cause them to move to New York, Mrs. Luster is faced with finding another teaching position for high-school mathematics there rather than here. When she finds a position and arrives for her first day at the new school, she finds that there really is no set staff development for her department, the teachers are all hated by their students because they teach to the chalkboard rather than to them, and the teachers at the new school tend to shy away from calling parents when they notice their students are having difficulties. As a new teacher in an old system, what can Mrs. Luster do to better the policies that her department has set forth?	Answer Here