By Tom

Finally finished

documenting all of my

professional growth!

By Tom

It looks like we'll have to accept a new reality next year. There will be fewer teachers, teaching more kids, for less money and with less support. There's no other way to look at it. It's grim, bleak and discouraging.

Many of us tried to mitigate what's happening right now. We blogged, lobbied and wrote to our representatives, trying to protect what was precious to us. And to some extent we were successful. The National Board bonus, for example, seems to have survived. But overall, this legislative session was a horrible disaster for education in Washington. Things will be different next year. And beyond. And by different, I mean worse.

So what do we do?

By Guest Blogger Terese

I woke up today thinking, “How did I get here?”

Just a few short years ago I was teaching fourth graders, working hard to do the best job I could and otherwise minding my own business. On Tuesday I was at the state Capitol, talking with a legislator about an amendment to a bill that had just been proposed. 

What happened in between is a long story. But out of my experiences I have developed a belief that is now central to everything I do. I spend my days thinking about it, planning, trying to figure out what to do next. I toss and turn at night, problem solving. I am dedicated to promoting what I believe in every way that I can.

I believe in the power of teachers’ voices.

First year teachers tend to avoid it. It typically takes a veteran teacher to pull the newbie from their fortress of solitude, clutching piles of paper, screaming, “I have so much to do!” Thank goodness there was a veteran teacher who pulled me out of my room 13 years ago.

By Tom

I took my third graders on a field trip the other day. We went to all the important buildings in our community; the fire station, recreation center, city hall, public library and police station. It was fun, especially when everyone got to go into the holding cell at the police station. And when we got back everyone chose their favorite place and wrote a paragraph about it. The paragraphs were fine. Each one of them had an adequate topic sentence with three to five detail sentences. Exactly what I asked for.

Then we went on another field trip. This time we went to the local sewer treatment plant. When we got back to school we did some more writing. But this time the writing was incredible. There was far more elaboration and an incredible amount of authors' voice in their writing.

A recent article printed in the Christian Science Monitor covered the issue of teacher training (http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0327/p01s01-ussc.html?page=1). The key controversy is that ”Some policymakers say the focus needs to be on improving traditional education schools, which produce 4 out of 5 teachers in the United States. Others are strong advocates of so-called alternative models designed to streamline entry into teaching for exceptionally talented students or mid-career professionals.”

As I sit through yet another sound bite for differentiating instruction based on the needs of my students, and as I am being asked to contemplate taking part in an alternative academy for low-performing ninth graders next year, I marvel again that we, as educators, don’t practice what we preach. Why should we expect every prospective teacher to flourish under the exact same training? We certainly don’t expect that from the kids in our classrooms.