The Teaching Profession
Posted on April 18, 2015 by debmeier
Dear readers,
I am off to Chicago for the tail end of AERA, for a Save our Schools meeting and for the second annual Network for Public Education gathering and, most importantly, to visit friends from “the old days.” My three children were born in Chicago, I started to teach there, and only left… let me see… fifty years ago! Can that be??
As I was packing I ran across an unusual piece in the April 15th Education Week, by Jack Schneider, at the College of Holy Cross in Massacheusetts. I am going to read him more often.
Why?
He is the first writer on education reform who mentions the issue of “downtime.” He has five concerns about the profession (?) of teaching which even the unions don’t seem to really get: (1) Lack of downtime; (2) workload—for high school teachers up to 150 students, with frequent turnover; 3) Lack of the kind of autonomy that often defines professionalism; 4) Structural isolation; 5) Not much feedback; none from colleagues.
But what astounded me most was what he put Number One: time to plan, prepare, and reflect. Time to collaborate. When I would hear folks demand MORE homework I would wonder—what kind of teacher time does that require. In elementary schools, with only The Teaching Profession | Deborah Meier on Education:
