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S.H. asked:
Our school culture has a growing sense of [unhealthy] competitiveness. I believe a lot of this stems from the fact that our administration does not recognize (or maybe they do and simply don't voice) teacher expertise using specific, positive praise. We do receive thanks yous - but they tend to be blanket statements and pretty general. (For example, "Thank you Ms. _____ for helping your team out.")
This appears to have led to some teachers to measure themselves against others. Rather than feeling grateful that the students in our school are being taught by many talented teachers, it has become a zero-sum game and fed rivalries and pettiness.
It's sad for me to admit this, but I don't think there's a ton of hope in my administration changing their ways. I guess my question is, how can teachers create a sincere, supportive environment for each other?
I've asked Bill Ferriter and Parry Graham, co-authors of Building a Professional Learning Community at Work: A Guide to the First Year, to provide guest responses to this tricky question, and also include some excellent reader responses later in this post.
I think they offer excellent specific suggestions. The one thought I'd like to contribute is that a challenge to many of us -- whether it is how we operate as teachers with our colleagues or
iteachTEXAS, begun in 2003, is the first for-profit, non-university based alternative certification program to expand across state lines, with the newly created iteachU.S. operating programs in Louisiana and Tennessee. Additional offshoots will soon come to Michigan and at least two other states.
Diann Huber, president of iteachU.S., said the program’s goal is to provide a new career opportunity for people who have been laid off in other industries, like auto workers in Michigan, who may be able to use their knowledge to teach high-need subjects like math and science.
Texas began experimenting with alternative certification programs in the mid-1980s. Then, the
Teacher Stories
Submitted by Teacher Man on November 29, 2011
My principal recently made it very clear to me that the only written works produced by my 7th and 8th grade students worthy of display, are their constructed responses. In the Philadelphia School District and in my school especially, children are regularly expected to write these limiting and repetitive responses per the direction of our central leadership. According to my principal, it is vitally important that students score the maximum amount of points allowed for the opened-ended responses on the PSSA test. He
