Class Notes - 3/10/2009

EDUC 600 Notes - 3/10/2009
HOUSEKEEPING!!!
--Note-Voting! We opted to allow flexible note-taking vs. blog-posting such that a person may substitute an additional blog posting for note-taking and vice versa for the "blogging" portion of his/her grade. (i.e. make only 1 "notes" post instead of 2, but make 3 "class reaction" posts instead of 2 to compensate, or vice-versa, still equalling a total of 4 posts)
--If you are thinking about writing a paper instead of taking the final, talk to Dr. Pope SOON to hammer out a topic and that jazz.
MAIN FOCUS: THE PROFESSIONAL STATUS OF TEACHERS

MERIT PAY FOR TEACHERS
First, a topic about Obama's education plan & implications: "Merit Pay" for teachers.
How is "merit" defined? Is it like SALES, where more sales dollars define good salesman? Teaching is not so simple.
NOTES
-Teachers can gain pay now by taking board exams and such--proactive measurees on the teachers' part. Teachers have more control over this than they do over test scores of students.
-Some districts propose rewarding students and teachers for passing scores on the AP exam ($100 for each!!!).
-Coaches just get fired instead of just getting a pay cut for bad performance--no union.
COUNTER-ARGUMENTS
-Poor teachers teaching bright students may appear to be more effective than they really are. -Some schools see greater improvement even if they are not achieving as highly as some other schools.
-If you need better teachers in the highest risk schools, merit-based pay that relies on student scores as a measurement drives teachers toward the "easier" schools instead of the more challenging ones where they're likely needed most.
-Merit-based teaching might make teachers angry because some students/parents just won't care, regardless, which handicaps teachers.
-Making teaching a somewhat commission-based system, it destabilizes a teacher's sense of "I do my job and I have stable pay." Makes teachers go even further than they already do to do a good job, even when they're already doing the best they can.
-Assessment is very difficult--Standardized testing doesn't account for all the different demographics, AND negates the desire for mastery (rather than regurgitation) of concepts.


WHAT IS A "GOOD" TEACHER?

So what defines what a good teacher IS? (That depends what your definition of "is" is?)
-1. Performance model - we know a good teacher by what s/he does in the classroom in relationship to their students. There are many ways to assess that performance. Standardized testing is the one we've talked the most about. "No Child Left Behind" only gives a snapshot with regard to this rather than looking at each child's long-term progress. Good teachers help kids know more stuff! So try the "longitudinal" model and follow progress. Observation by other teachers and administrators can factor into performance assessment as well. WHAT A TEACHER DOES - then we figure out what a teacher does.
-2. Credential model - we know teachers are good when they've passed certain benchmarks and gained certain certifications. The most basic is a teaching certificate, then Master's degrees, National Board Certification, etc. (Law and Medicine are like this - the credential-gaining process ensures that you will be a good doctor or a good lawyer because the process is hard. Constant competition with peers weeds out the weakest--like lawyer Darwinism?)

- Performance vs. Credential - the highest-regarded professions tend to go by the credential model. Teaching is somewhat credential-based in that they must have a 4-year degree to get into it, but many alternative certifications exist (Teach for America, Lateral Entry, 6-week Community College programs). The performance model measures teachers in the profession to see if they're doing well.
POINTS MADE IN DISCUSSION
-Having knowledge of the material doesn't mean one can communicate that knowledge effectively to students. Content knowledge alone isn't sufficient to make a teacher good.
-You can also communicate a lot about little substance... which is also bad.
-Maybe create an incentive program for situations where teachers bring in grant money (performance-based), instill some competitive spirit in teachers
-Competition can breed contempt, and it can de-center the teacher from the actual teaching of the class.
-If what teachers are "supposed to teach" is not well-defined, it's hard to determine if teachers are deviating from that plan.
-this is the way most other "professional" occupations are evaluated

WINTHROP'S MODEL & WOULD IT TRANSLATE TO K-12 SCENE?
Winthrop measures "good teaching" by student, self-, department chairperson, and peer evalutions for content knowledge & pedagogical knowledge + content expertise (published works in the field) + committees served and other utility contributions by teachers.
How could this translate to the K-12 scene?
-It would be hard to have this much of a personalized evaluation district-wide.
-Couldn't merit-based raises happen the way they do in other career paths according to annual review? Circumstances are very different from school to school and class to class, but then again teachers can rise above adverse circumstances.
-Lean-time treatment of education vs. Good-time treatment of education is different-- in lean times, teachers are under much greater scrutiny.
--What could raise the status of teachers in lean-time, if it's a low-status occupation?
Dispel negative connotations about teachers:
-lower salary & part-year work
-glorified babysitter
-content knowledge vs. pedagogical knowledge "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach."-memory of incompetent teachers from childhood
-we've ALL been taught in our lives & assume that we know what teachers do--overfamiliarity makes us believe we underestimate teachers' importance & skill
-originally a "female" profession, so male teachers can still be seen by some as weak and less important than other typically "male" professions (about 70/30 women/men across teaching, 93/7 at elementary level)
-Why mostly women? Guys are afraid of (or less fond of) kids, guys are more interested in the content area than being enthusiastic about kids in general, guys are more afraid of sacrificing the professional status (i can't be a scientist, so I'll go teach instead), the "pedophile" stereotype sticks to men more than women
DR. POPE'S HISTORY OF GENDER & TEACHING
-Originally teachers were mostly men. They'd go to college and teach public school while finishing degrees. Along the way, women started entering the profession as men found other career opportunities, and women were more genetically nurturing and thus more suited to the teaching profession. Eventually, women were more predominant in the classroom, but Teddy Roosevelt got scared that boys were becoming "little sissies who didn't ride horses and shoot things and fight." In short, that the female teachers were feminizing the boys. Women thusly got caught in the Catch-22 of their being more nurturing, but had to sign contracts that prohibited them from getting married... which created that school marm (old maid, lesbian, other unsavory names) image where women got ostracized or considered undesirable... so it's the family or the career, lady! (Aren't we still kind of facing that to some extent?) Men after WWII weren't teachers as often. Until very recently, men were more often administrators in schools than women, but the gender evens out a little bit.
WHAT IS A TEACHER? All three of the readings discuss this question. Does the professional status of teachers hinge on the answer to that question?
--Strike: (p176) argues that teaching should be self-governing rather than democratic, like doctors and/or lawyers. Where does the accountability lie for those professionals? In their peers--not in democracy.
(p177) Navigates the tension between the authority of the knowledge base of teaching vs. democratic authority of public schools. Does teaching have an esoteric body of knowledge that non-teachers don't? Other professionals do.
DO TEACHERS KNOW THINGS THAT NON-TEACHERS DON'T?
-Teachers know how to teach kids things that parents don't--that's specialized knowledge.
-Not all people have classroom management ability.
-Teachers go through the preparation process of teacher certification, but that begs the question a bit--AND there are alternative means to certification. (There are no alternative means to become a lawyer, for instance.)
-It doesn't take any longer to become a good lawyer than it takes to become a good teacher. BUT experience-based learning is less risky for teachers than for doctors, for instance... or maybe not. It all depends on magnitude of the surgery or the lesson... not learning phonics can affect one's life as much as botched surgery (I disagree, but that's what the class is thinking).
-Is it easier to tell if the doctor failed or a teacher failed? Can you tell if the message isn't getting across, and then do you try another approach? So we present the three steps of teacher-fail: 1. Students aren't learning 2. Teacher doesn't realize that students aren't learning 3. Teacher does not change something to better foster learning.-Learning is cumulative, so if the lower-level teachers aren't teaching right, do the higher-level teachers have culpability for remedial teaching if the lower- teachers didn't do their job right? How do you teach algebra to a kid who hasn't learned pre-algebra? Do you have to go back and teach the remedial kid the pre-algebra and ignore the rest of the class? Ideally, it should be the teacher AND the child AND the parent who are all responsible for bringing the remedial kid up to speed--not just the teacher.
-Teachers would have more authority if the public perception of the esoteric knowledge of teachers were given more legitimacy, like doctors' orders, and more people would listen. Consequently, the structure of schooling would change in favor of the opinions of better-equipped people if people gave more credence to the word of teaching professionals. -Standards should come from the profession--i.e. other teachers--and not from outside the profession. Doctors and lawyers do this... but teachers can only do this if teaching has an esoteric knowledge base of the magnitude to make it a true profession.
-Does Strike say definitively if such a base of esoteric knowledge exists? He says on p179, it is doubtful.
-Do we agree? It is POSSIBLE, but we're not there yet. We must teach what we know about learning more universally, and we must change the level of respect that teachers receive before they'll be seen as professionals. Stereotypes persist, so knowledge must be gained WHILE public perception is altered.
-Clothing as projection of professionalism. Teachers are also responsible for the image they project from themselves--dress more professionally to appear more different from the students. Parents perceive professional dress as professional teaching. What about trying to relate to your students? Some teachers would wanna be "cool." Jeans and a tie? Is it more about how teachers carry themselves rather than what they're actually wearing? There isn't a uniform standard for teachers like there is for lawyers and doctors and such--people expect to see certain dress in those situations... but not so much teachers. Does teachers' dress motivate or de-motivate kids anyway? Maybe the suit is intimidating to students, and wearing jeans is more relaxing to them. Dress-wise, you can't always compare teachers to doctors or whatever other profession because they don't have as much emphasis on connecting with kids. IT IS UNCLEAR WHAT IS EXPECTED.
-Strike says too much about teaching seems like common sense--the perception is that this knowledge can be picked up in the profession without the requirement of the training.
-Just because teachers CAN teach it doesn't mean they are the ONLY ones who can teach it--thus it is not esoteric.