A lesson for teachers
Learning to teach well is a long journey, and not an easy one.
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New teachers, celebrate your calling to join one of our society's grand professions. What is more important than fostering the development of young people's lives? Cherish this calling, for it will be tested.
You are entering the profession at a troubled time. For all the political talk about the importance of education, cities and states are trying to balance their budgets through cuts to schools. You will also hear conflicting messages in the national conversation about education. Teachers are universally praised as the solution to our educational problems — and condemned as the root cause of all that's wrong with our schools.
Underlying this craziness is an ideological battle to define what teaching is. And though there's not much you can do to revive the economy, you can be tough-minded and vocal about what it means to teach.
As often happens in so many spheres of modern life, there is a strong push to define teaching in technical and managerial terms. Curricula are "scripted," directing the teacher as to what to do and when. Student learning is reduced to a few scores on standardized tests. The teacher becomes a knowledge delivery mechanism whose effectiveness will be determined primarily by those scores.
You hear little from the federal Department of Education or the local school board about engaging young people's minds or about teaching as an intellectual journey. You don't often hear about the values that brought you into teaching. They are the mind and heart of the work you will be doing.
Teaching is a profoundly intellectual activity, and this applies to kindergarten as much as to Advanced Placement physics. Most people will grant the brainwork in physics, but what is neglected is the intellectual chops it takes to teach any subject to any age. The good primary school teacher knows about child development and how to engage young people across a range of subjects. She take
You are entering the profession at a troubled time. For all the political talk about the importance of education, cities and states are trying to balance their budgets through cuts to schools. You will also hear conflicting messages in the national conversation about education. Teachers are universally praised as the solution to our educational problems — and condemned as the root cause of all that's wrong with our schools.
Underlying this craziness is an ideological battle to define what teaching is. And though there's not much you can do to revive the economy, you can be tough-minded and vocal about what it means to teach.
As often happens in so many spheres of modern life, there is a strong push to define teaching in technical and managerial terms. Curricula are "scripted," directing the teacher as to what to do and when. Student learning is reduced to a few scores on standardized tests. The teacher becomes a knowledge delivery mechanism whose effectiveness will be determined primarily by those scores.
You hear little from the federal Department of Education or the local school board about engaging young people's minds or about teaching as an intellectual journey. You don't often hear about the values that brought you into teaching. They are the mind and heart of the work you will be doing.
Teaching is a profoundly intellectual activity, and this applies to kindergarten as much as to Advanced Placement physics. Most people will grant the brainwork in physics, but what is neglected is the intellectual chops it takes to teach any subject to any age. The good primary school teacher knows about child development and how to engage young people across a range of subjects. She take
