TOPIC: Staffing Practices
Lesson Element .1: AMisuse
of Teacher=s
Time@
- Present Staffing Practices Are Less Than Ideal.
- Dr. Allen argues that if we took our present practices and reversed them,
they would be better than what we currently have.
ã In order to fix the
problem we must first understand it.
- Problems:
- Security Guard and Monitoring:
í Using teachers to supervise
lunch rooms or act as security guards is a ridiculous waste of professional
time.
- Often times assigned to sit in hallways.
- Also includes supervision of non-instructional areas such as lunchrooms
and study halls. Also includes other supervisory responsibilities.
- Clerical and Disciplinary Duties:
- These practices should be eliminated.
- Teachers should not have to do their own copying, stapling, and organizing,
or spend their time in repetitious clerical tasks.
- Teachers also shouldn=t be required
to supervise time-out areas, or In-School-Suspension areas unless those
detention areas involve some professional activity.
- Analyzing the Situation.
- Dr. Allen prefers to first ask what is the ideal, show that what we do now
is less than ideal, and then suggest that these are the items that we should
be working on to create ideal practices.
Lesson Element .2: APicking
Teachers@
- Teachers Should Not Be Thought of as Interchangeable Parts.
- Teachers should be thought of as individuals.
- Current practice is to simply deal out students to teachers by grade level,
without regard for parental wishes for assignment of their child to a specific
teacher.
- This is wrong. Teachers come in all varieties from good to bad.
- If a parent desires that their child be taught by a specific teacher,
then that should be the policy.
- Dr. Allen advocates that parents use the principle of the mother duck
defending her young.
- If a parent makes enough noise about their kid to the principal, then
they increase their likelihood that they will get the best teacher for their
child.
- Difficulties in Making the Best Matches.
- Difficult problem in deciding how to make the best match of student and
teacher.
- We currently don=t know how to
do it, so the system retreats to the safety of having everybody do the same
thing.
- The mode of thinking follows the line that except for the mother duck
kids, I can=t allow all the kids
to pick, so we shouldn=t allow
any of the kids to pick.
- What criteria should be used to break this cycle?
- Dr. Allen believes that the students who are failing the most courses should
get to pick their teachers.
- Choice is the Key to Making the Best Matches.
- Having a choice is very important because if you have a choice, your involvement
is much higher than if you are simply forced to accept something.
- Just having the process of choosing is a benefit.
- Dr. Allen would start with allowing the kids with the most problems to pick.
- It doesn=t make much sense to
place the best teachers in the honors class with the students who need the
least attention, while often the least experienced or worst teachers are assigned
to the kids with the most problems.
- Ideally, all teachers should also be good teachers and the kids should be
able to pick their teacher according to preferred learning style or personality.
Lesson Element .3: AIncreased
Standardization@
- Teachers Should Have Great Personal Discretion in Curriculum.
- They should have some discretion about what they teach, and how they teach
it.
- Dr. Allen thinks that this discretion on what they teach should be 20-25%
of the total curriculum.
- The current system does not give teachers discretion, particularly in the
k-12 grade levels.
- In reality, the discretion is getting less because of the pressures to get
students to pass core tests.
- The concept behind the core tests is that we would know how good a school
is by how well the test scores are.
- This leads to the result that we are increasingly making the tests the
same and making everybody accountable to those tests.
- In Norfolk, they will have the same exams in every subject. No discretion.
- The Uniqueness of Teachers Is Another Facet of Discretion.
- This is a valuable facet. Teachers should be themselves, not identical cogs
in a machine.
- There are many teachers of widely varying personality and style, that are
equally successful in terms of establishing relationships with their students.
- People also vary in regard to what type of personality to which they respond
best.
- Standardization would disregard this valuable aspect of teaching.
Lesson Element .4: ACutting
Edge@
- Teacher Training Should Emphasize the Technology of Education.
- Teachers should be ahead of their students in technology.
- Currently, most teachers are behind their students in terms of technology.
- Also, the old teachers are behind the new teachers in terms of technology.
- Some teachers at ODU will not touch a computer.
- Dr. Allen believes that this is a menace to the training of teachers.
- It sends the wrong message. It models the wrong attitude.
- Teacher have to be ahead of the curve, and teachers of teachers have to
be even further ahead of the curve.
- Unfortunately, that isn=t how
the current system works. Teachers of teachers are usually as backward as
the teachers. We are training teachers to be backwards.
- Then these backward teachers go into schools and teach. This is one of the
reasons that things in school can=t
change.
- The Training Should Be State of the Art.
- Too often the training is not state of the art because the system is at
fault.
- The system is defining expectation in an unreasonable way.
- The system has to become much more supportive of everybody getting involved
in technology, and giving it a higher priority. Technology is here to stay.
- Dr. Allen believes that computer education is going to become more important
in the future, not less important.
- This is actually a conservative prediction.
- The Use of Technology Should Be Embedded in the Training of Teachers, Not
Just Added On and Taught.
- Use of technology should be a core objective in all facets of teacher training.
- We need to get used to technology to a degree that it=s
use is second nature.
- Net surfing or the use of overhead projectors and VCRs should be automatic.
- Sadly, there are many people who do not even know how to program their
VCR.
- An example of how useful the technology can be:
- CNN has a special program for schools every morning at 3:30 am. They will
even fax a lesson plan for the show.
- If you can successfully use a VCR, you could tape it and show it to your
class as you desire. Current information!
- Bottom Line: School systems are not currently geared up to deal with new
technology, and as teachers, we are on our own in trying to adapt to the use
of technology.
Lesson Element .5: AOpen
Door to Feedback@
- Teachers Should Not Teach in Isolation.
- Currently, many classrooms are closed to outside visitors.
- Teachers are trained to not expect unannounced visitors.
- Dr. Allen believes that every classroom should be open to anyone, as long
as they don=t interrupt the class.
- This could be parents visiting the class.
- Ideally, it should be teachers, visiting other teachers for feedback and
encouragement.
- Feedback and encouragement are the ways through which we change.
- If Teachers Visit Other Teachers, Feedback is Increased. Lots of Information
is Gained.
- The feedback can be supportive, especially on a bad day.
- A helpful hint, suggestion, or even just empathy for a bad situation can
be valuable.
- Teaching Should Be a Public Act.
- Having people in the room shouldn=t
be a big deal, even on the bad days.
- The teacher isn=t putting on a
show for anyone.
- People should be able to come in at anytime and offer compliments and suggestions.
- Teachers Should Also Routinely Evaluate Each Other.
- This is not consistently done at present.
- Most teachers are resistant to this because they don=t
want to say negative things about their friends.
- This is a mistaken impression.
- If this is a avenue for improvement, then isn=t
this a natural thing for friends to do?
- Constructive criticism is a valuable tool.
- Better to hear it unofficially from a friend, than through formal evaluation
by the administration.
- Dr. Allen believes that if a teacher is doing a reasonable job, that they
ought to welcome the chance of other people coming to visit.
- He personally welcomes having other people coming to his classroom and
giving compliments and suggestions.
- It gives him ideas that he hadn=t
personally thought of, allowing him another perspective on his performance
as a teacher.
- It allows him to change and improve.
- Many Teachers Don=t Feel Confident
in Evaluating Each Other:
- Ex: Prime School Project.
- Supposed to use the 2+2 observation program.
- 2 Compliments and 2 suggestions for improvement.
- Many teachers claim that they can=t
think of any suggestions to give.
- Dr. Allen thinks this is weird because in his opinion, he has never taught
a lesson that couldn=t be improved.
- Does the statement of AI can=t
think of any suggestions,@ mean
that there is ideal teaching out there?
- Dr. Allen has the expectation that however he is teaching, he can find
a way to make it better.
- The more information you can get from your students and from visitors,
the better off you are.
- We need to welcome evaluation.
- If you are reasonably confident that you are doing a good job, why not
welcome evaluation and make use of the suggestions?
- Evaluation can be a means of confirming the good job you are doing.
- Valuable Information Can Be Gained Through Student & Visitor Evaluations.
- Ex: University of Massachusetts (UMASS) teachers clinic.
- The heads of the English and Computer Science departments were the first
teachers to attend the clinic.
- Observed and evaluated by education students using the TABS format.
- TABS: Teaching Analysis by Students.
- Most questions on the form concentrated on basic criteria:
- Do you find the lecture boring?
- Does the professor use good examples?
- Does the professor really value the students=
opinions?
- The professors were told that the analysis might be dead wrong, but they
were also persuaded that the evaluations might be of some value.
- The professors were asked 25 questions not from the viewpoint of how they
thought they had conducted the lesson, but from how they thought the students
viewed the lessons.
- Consistently, of the 25 questions asked, the professors were out to lunch
on 2 or 3 of their responses as to how they thought the students responded.
- The English department professor was enraged to see a response that claimed
he didn=t value the student opinions.
Only after reviewing the videotapes of the session did he sheepishly admit
that his behavior was not receptive.
- Moment of valuable insight was gained by the English professor.
- Teachers Should Take the Attitude That There Is Always Room for Improvement.
- Being evaluated should be welcomed as a powerful, important, logical, and
simple state of affairs. However, due to our culture, this is not the norm.
- Teachers often display a facade of self-confidence.
- Dr. Allen contends that in actuality, teachers are frightened rabbits
at present.
- Teachers are afraid that someone=s
going to criticize them for something.
- This attitude should change because teachers should be confident.
- If you are doing a good job, you should know you=re
doing a good job.
- However, if nobody ever comes to see you, then you don=t
have the feedback to confirm the good job you are doing.
- Evaluations boost confidence in abilities and provide reality checks.
Lesson Element .6: ABack-up
Option@
- Teaching Is Often Thought of as a Back-up to Other Career Choices.
- Nothing wrong with having teaching as a back-up if it=s
the right kind of backup.
- Ex: People who want to be a musician.
- Difficult field because of a lack of job openings.
- Dr. Allen believes that the musician should be encouraged to try that
field, but should also have a back-up plan in place.
- If not successful in 2 or 3 years, then move on to the back-up plan.
- However, if teaching is your back-up plan, then that person better like
kids and like teaching.
- People who view teaching as simply a way to pay the bills, or as a lesser
alternative to what they really want to do, are creating a disastrous back-up
option.
- You can end up with teachers that don=t
like kids.
- Nobody wins.
- The kids hate the teacher, and the teacher won=t
be an effective teacher.
- Ideally, Teaching Should Be a Profession That Is Admired, and It=s
Value Easily Seen by Society.
- When society urges their children to be teachers, the ideal is realized.