2008

Linda teaches in a suburban high school in a fairly well-to-do district in Michigan. This was Linda’s second year in the high school and third overall in the district. She started in the Middle School. Linda mentioned that she had certain unpaid duties due to the fact that she taught Freshmen.  As with many teachers there were fund-raising duties for class events as well as advising and directing Student Council representatives from the Freshmen class.

As I entered the main office in order to receive clearance for the building, I noticed an Annual Report folder that displayed the fact that 95% of the district’s school population was white. Also, even though there are several women Social Studies or History teachers in this book, women are in the minority in high school Social Studies or History Departments.  Males are the majority and many of those males are also coaches, as are more than a few of the male teachers in this study.  None of the female teachers noted any outward uneasiness with the fact that they are in male-dominated departments and on the surface, it appeared they were accepted into the fraternity.

Linda’s classroom had student-created posters on the wall from previous assignments. She also had four different maps and a globe in her room, a states and capitals poster and some attitudinal posters focusing on doing good work. Overall, the room seemed well-organized, with some thought put into what appeared on the walls and on the desks and filing cabinets. She showed me her planning guide based on the state Social Studies standards and content expectations, as well as a pacing guide for the World History course she would be teaching for the first-time next year.

At that time of my visit this school was on a trimester schedule. Linda’s entire teaching load was Economics, a subject that many Social Studies teachers shy away from teaching.  Like all the people in this study Linda had the daily agenda written on her whiteboard. This day her class was to set up a “Reality Store,” take notes on taxes, particularly the difference between regressive and progressive taxes, and also begin a half-page writing assignment.

The textbooks Linda was using were nine years old and that made it necessary to heavily supplement the text with teacher-created materials.  She told me later in the hour that the district was purchasing new Economics and World History textbooks for next year. There was no district curriculum for her to follow at the time of my visit. Linda had her students choose a career to study, and with the materials she gathered the students were to figure out their yearly salary; divide that by 12 to get their monthly salary; and then devise a budget that equated with their financial reality.  Many of the students required to or chose to use a calculator to figure out their monthly salary.

Linda commuted from a distance to her school each day.  She arose at 4:45 AM in order to make it to school by 7 for a 7:45 class time. She seemed to take the chore of the early rising and driving as just something she had to do for her job. While it might be nice to work closer to her home, she did not protest about the almost hour long daily commute.

Once the students calculated their monthly salary, Linda had them roll dice in order to arrive at a random number. That number was applied to another factor in their expenses; the number of dependents in their household and their marital status. As the dice rolls continued the students became quite engaged in learning their marital and dependent fates.  One student exclaimed, “Gross—I have three kids!”  Another student laughingly reported that her role was that of a divorced wedding planner.  Somehow being divorced and yet planning weddings seemed humorous to her.  There was much cross-discussion amongst the students about their roles in this budgeting simulation.

Linda told me in an aside during the class that she was assigned a mentor, but she really did not have much contact with that person because Linda “really didn’t work that way.”  She also said that there was very little sharing amongst the members of the high school Social Studies Department.  Most of the Department members were in different parts of a sprawling building and Linda said that the members were fixated on Advanced Placement (A.P.) courses versus the regular courses in the curriculum.  The consequences of this fixation, in her estimation, was that a clique had developed based on whether a teacher was teaching A.P. or regular courses.

Next, Linda displayed a check register/balance sheet on her overhead projector while she discussed the difference between credits and debits. Then she asked a question which evoked student comments concerning withholding taxes on their paychecks. Several students had jobs outside of school and were definitely plugged into the opinion that they should not have money deducted for any reason from their salary.

As the discussion developed it became obvious that more than a few students had not completed their reading homework.  To assist the students’ background knowledge Linda handed out a sheet which contained information necessary for the simulation, as well as an area for the students’ note-taking. At that point Linda provided an example for progressive taxes, which for many states and the federal government is income taxes.  Linda then gave a definition for regressive or proportional taxes and asked for an example.  A student correctly replied, “sales tax.” Linda then asked the class whether or not they thought proportional taxes were “fair” and at the same time foreshadowed a future lesson on global economics and the living conditions and earnings in other countries that tied into a theme concerning poverty and relative worth.

Next, she put up an overhead that represented a federal income tax chart. She had her students subtract their taxes from their gross pay and calculate their dependent deductions. The next sheet of information which was handed to the students provided information for their spouses’ job and salary, if they had a spouse. One of the students received her spousal salary information and asked if she could trade spouses with someone.  Perhaps she had not married wisely in her estimation.

The next part of the assignment for the day was a half-page predictive essay.  “What do you think you will have to pay for all your bills on a monthly basis?” There were only eight minutes left in the period so the class was prompted to bring their finished essays to class tomorrow, along with their calculators.

Linda started out her Second Hour Economics class by explaining that there would be quite a bit of direct instruction today and asked for her students’ patience and cooperation. She also offered a make-up session for students who might have missed previous classes. The students in this class immediately engaged in the simulation.  Linda made reference to an MTV show entitled “True Life,” a program that held relevance to the students.  The level of engagement and discussion increased as the students found out how many children they had to support.

Linda started her lecture and the class immediately quieted.  The students started to ask good questions concerning the implications of game, e.g. “If I am divorced, who has the kids?” Several students commented that they had real-life checking accounts, while only one student in the first class responded to that question from Linda.  Several times during the round of questions Linda complimented her students on their queries.  Most of Linda’s questions fell in the middle or upper level of Bloom’s taxonomy. The students were analyzing what she said and that analysis provoked even more questions. When their questions displayed some lack of relation to the simulation versus their real lives, Linda stopped and provided further examples in which the class found relevancy.

The active instruction and questioning ended with about the same amount of time left as the first class. These students did not focus on continuing to work on their writing assignment as the First Period class had and Linda had to quiet them and they did quiet down with no problem. Linda later told me that she thought this class was better behaved today because of my presence, but I think it was more due to her classroom management. The students sitting near me hardly recognized that I was sitting in the back of the class taking notes.

Linda’s instructions throughout the day were clear, with very few or no follow-up questions from the students. They understood what their assignments were and how to go about completing her directions.  Linda did say that she had used this simulation in previous years and that she updates the statistics to reflect changes in the cost of living and wages. She explained that she used the Michigan Occupational Outlook^[1] website as a source of research for her and her students.

Throughout the day Linda was careful in checking for student understanding and when there were questions, which were few in number, she found examples that drew quick recognition from the questioners. She checked for student progress throughout her lessons and did a good job of moving around the classroom, and helping students with questions and providing examples, without giving away answers that might have made their decisions easier. She wanted them to be responsible for their work and develop the skills through the simulation that would benefit them later in life.

Interview, 2008

Defining Success

Linda’s first word in defining success was confidence. She admitted that in her first few years she did not have confidence in herself.  She was not confident in the content she taught, in her ability to manage a classroom, or in making connections with her students.  She did not feel confident in making connections with her students as a teacher should; helping them learn the content, setting a proper teacher/student relationship with the correct amount of classroom discipline which also fostered a positive, trusting, respectful learning atmosphere.  In other words, Linda felt like most rookie teachers.  She needed to find what methods best work for the kind of teacher she wanted to be.

Content, 2008

Part of her solution for confidence was feeling well-grounded in the content she taught when she started teaching and she suspected that that aspect of her career would never change.  She knew that she must continue to refresh and build upon the content she had when she left college.

When asked whether her college experience prepared her for success in the classroom, Linda was very positive in terms of her Education classes, including SST 310, the Social Studies Methods class taught by a member of the History Department.  On the content side of her teacher preparation courses she was not as positive.  Linda thought the Social Studies major was too broad.  Her main concern was the fact that in her next year she would be teaching World History and her major only required 6 credit hours in that area. She admitted, after studying the state standards and curriculum she would teach, she did not feel she had the content necessary to be successful, or at least, she needed to devote much time in preparing for content she did not feel she learned while at GVSU.  She could not really pinpoint what area within World History where she felt inadequately prepared, just that she knew she was going to have to spend most of the upcoming summer reading and planning for her new course. On the other hand, she felt she was much better grounded in U.S. History, but she was not sure whether that was due to her college preparation or just her own personal background and experience outside of college.

Linda thought that some college professors strayed from the general syllabus found in the college handbook and focused more on a professor’s own area of study and expertise, to the detriment of future teachers who were held responsible for the standards dictated by the state.  This raises a question about academic freedom.  Professors know there is a syllabus of record that anyone should be able to find in a college’s handbook, but do individual professors hue to that syllabus and does that official syllabus coincide with what future teachers’ must teach in order to feel confident and successful in their careers?  Is it a matter of the specific content offered or the skills imbued on college students that make for their future success, not a matter what changes are in store for their standards? Standards do change. Teachers must change to meet those reforms and no professor can read the future minds of the policy-makers who determine what will be taught or how that content and the teachers who teach that content will be evaluated.

As mentioned in the early part of this study, Grand Valley State University’s (GVSU) program has the students complete or nearly complete their content major before their last year wheN students take the majority of their Education classes and do their student teaching.  In Linda’s case she took one of her two World History classes her freshman year. Now it would be four years into her teaching career before she taught the class, based on content she learned almost 8 years prior to teaching it the following year.  Potentially compounding that stretch of time from learning the content to applying it in the classroom are Advanced Placement Classes offered in high schools.  A.P. is a great way for students and parents to save money and get a jump start on their college careers. The syllabi for their courses, if properly applied, give students a taste of college level work.  If Linda had taken A.P. World History in high school, it would have been more than a decade before she had the opportunity to teach the content.  How much information should be person be able to recall after a 10-year hiatus?

Luckily Linda retained all of her college notebooks so she had a resource for beginning her World History refresher course. She also considered taking a credit-no-credit community college World History course, but she was already involved in a non-History Master’s program, plus she had a family and a decent commute every morning to school. She did not see how she would have time, except for the summer, to brush up on her content for the upcoming Fall semester.

Methods and Strategies, 2008

The first teaching strategy that Linda said she learned in college that she used in her classroom was KWL (What the students Know, what they Want to learn and what they Learn).  As she begins a new lesson or unit, she wanted an idea of what the students already knew, whether it be from an earlier lesson in her class, from a different teacher’s class or from their life experience.  When that foundation was set, Linda wants to find out what the students wanted to learn so she had a chance to hold up those desires to the state standards and her curriculum.  I had a sense that Linda was willing to go beyond the state guidelines and provide students with the information and skills that they deemed important.  Lastly, it was necessary to assess or evaluate what the students learn.

Linda did use lecture, but she was almost apologetic when she thought she did too much passive instruction.  While observing her teaching I thought she more closely followed the Socratic model; providing some information while raising questions that probed student understanding and also finding out what the students wanted to learn.  She did a good job of varying the level of questions throughout the Bloom’s taxonomy so she never dominated the questions with pure recall.

Another teaching strategy Linda used was group work.  The students did both individual and group research and then pooled their thoughts in writing a group essay.  The group research allowed the students to divide up the various resources available and then assemble their newfound knowledge in coherent writing.  Linda remembered her writing skills classes within the History Department as being more focused on presenting the content correctly instead of the technical or grammatical side of things.  She said her college writing helped her develop her historical thinking skills and she had been able to pass that ability along to her students. At this point in her classes, she focused more on position papers rather than straight content-related writing, although she knew when she taught World History the following year content essays would definitely be part of the regimen.

In the back of her mind was the necessity for preparing her students for the state standardized tests at that time, the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP), which at that time required essays that were more along the line of position papers, rather than historical expository.  Contrary to other teachers in this study Linda did not feel pressured in preparing her students for state testing.  She just considered it part of her job and not anything she was forced to do.  She admitted that she had not received much direction from the Social Studies Department at her school so she continued to follow the guidelines she used when she taught at the district’s middle school.  She thought that if the Department needed to tell her what she must do then she was doing something wrong that needed correction. Since that had not happened, she assumed everything she was doing was correct.

Simulations was another method used in Linda’s classes and her students were currently involved in a simulation when I visited her classroom. She said she found the resources for the simulation online from a teacher in another school district and then she did further research in adding ideas to that teacher’s original idea.

I noted that Linda was very well organized and I asked her if that organization came about from skills gained at college.  She said she was a “Type A” naturally and her college coursework did not hone that skill.  She admitted that in her first year of teaching she was basically a chapter ahead of her students, but the second year was much better.  Since next year would be the first time she taught World History she imagined she would be back to being a chapter ahead.  Remember that Linda started as a middle school teacher, and then moved to the high school with new content in just her first few years.  Now with World History she would be building a whole new class with new content.

There was one course involved with teacher preparation that received both good and bad reviews by my former students, the teaching literacy course.  For the naysayers, the fact that the course was not based on the content they would be teaching in middle school and high school was the problem. The professor they had for the course came from an elementary background and focused on elementary resources.  The teachers who were positive about the course saw how the skills they learned could be applied to their content at any level,  and learned the importance of teaching literacy, especially when they had students spread across reading abilities.

At the time Linda attended GVSU there was no requirement for a course in how to accommodate special education needs.  Linda had special needs students in her classroom and she was helped out at the beginning of her career by team-teaching with a special needs teacher. At the time of my visit in 2008 her district was turning toward total inclusion, without a special education teacher in the classroom.  Linda said she would need some kind of coursework or professional development in order to feel confident in an “inclusive” classroom. She had very little background in differentiation, even with non-special needs students, and found herself wondering at times why students did not easily understand what she was trying to get them to learn when it seemed fairly easy to her.  She would catch herself at that point and try to deal with their problems, at the same time admitting that she felt inundated with communications from the district that suggested various tools in helping special needs students.  In other words, she felt she could not keep up with all the individualized education plans and how to implement them in her classes.  The easiest time she had in dealing with these complexities of learning was when she team-taught with a special education teacher. That teacher could work with students individually or in small groups, sometimes taking them out in the hallway or to a different classroom in order to read to them or work with different teaching methods.  Linda did say that there were some teachers who still team-taught with a special education teacher in their classroom, but she felt that was no longer a possibility for her.

We turned the conversation to the content side of Linda’s preparation at college and she said she felt she could have been better prepared, but did not fault GVSU too much because she also knew she probably learned some things that she has since forgotten. “If you don’t use it, you lose it.”  Linda did say that she retained the most information and historical thinking skills from her two upper-level History courses, one on Native Americans and the other on African history.  She had a clear recollection of the facts and the skill to research and apply new information she gained on her own.  She did not think she retained the same content and abilities from her survey courses taken early in her college years.

Pearls of Wisdom, 2008

Linda’s first pearl for new teachers and college students preparing for their careers was not to assume they knew everything they needed to know before they started teaching.  Even the best teacher preparation programs and the most knowledgeable and organized students find out there is still much to learn when they start their careers.  Linda felt that her classroom teacher during student teacher left her to do everything. When she had her own classroom, she found out that she did not do half of what teachers do.  She remembered a panel presentation during her last year at GVSU that featured some GVSU grads coming back to share their experiences.  As they explained the amount of work and long hours Linda became bored and thought, “these teachers must really suck.  Student teaching was a breeze.”  When she started her career, she found out she had no classroom teacher as when she student taught to lean on.  It was all on her. Parent communication through email and parent conferences was her responsibility and she was the one who was liable for her syllabus, material and how she taught.  In Linda’s estimation new teachers have to prove themselves to their students, their fellow teachers, and the administration, unlike experienced teachers who have knowledge and proven track record of success in the classroom to back up their words and actions.

Grading was another pearl.  After a little experience in her own classroom she started to question the purpose and usefulness of assignments. Did the assignment really help advance the students or was it just busywork?  She started to eliminate unnecessary assignments and thereby eliminated some of her paperwork.  That did not reduce the total amount, however. There were more than enough reports, official communications, and lesson planning to make up for any efficiencies in assignments and grading.  That said, Linda related that when she gave tests the grading time basically absorbed an entire Sunday or longer, depending on the length of essays she assigned with the tests.

Time, or the lack of it, was another pearl.  Linda realized the importance of supporting her students’ extracurricular activities. They knew when you attended their athletic events and music programs and your presence was important to them. Of course, teachers are assigned as ticket takers and sponsors in some districts and that is another chunk of time.  Linda was also beginning her Master’s program and wanted to complete as much of that as possible before her family started growing. The hours spent in the classroom in the evenings and the time reading and writing subtracted from the hours she needed for sharing time with her family, for relaxation and for sleep.  Anyone entering the profession who wants to be good at what they do and do the best job possible for their students must realize that teaching, no matter how much experience, training and organization, will always be hard work.  There is no substitute for the time and effort needed to be the best.

2015

In the trimester I visited Linda in 2015 her entire teaching load was Economics, although in the other tris she taught World History and Psychology.  There was some talk in the district about going back to a semester schedule, which would involve the re-figuring of the number of courses offered, teaching load and the pacing of material within courses.  In other words, much work by teachers in revamping their courses, daily, weekly and yearly schedules, and course pacing.

During my day-long visit this day Linda’s classes were involved in a simulation that had the students investigating possible careers and how those career choices might impact their personal finances.  The learning target for the day, posted on the classroom white board, cited investigating scarcity and personal economic choices.  The students were using Chromebooks from a computer cart.  Linda’s district did not have a one student to one computer initiative, as did several of the other districts in this study.  The fact that students did not have their own laptop during the day did not seem to cause any problem for the lesson. However there were several other factors that did cause a problem with using technology in the lesson. Several students in each class period were not careful when reading and carrying out Linda’s detailed instructions for logging into the school’s network and associated applications for the lesson.  Several students in her classes had learning disabilities that dictated some personal instruction by Linda in order for these students to participate and, lastly, the school’s network seemed incapable of handling the number of students trying to log in from her classroom.  The result was that several students in each class were delayed by 10 to 15 minutes in getting involved in the lesson.  Overall, a majority of the students were able to log on quickly and several students assisted their classmates if they were having trouble.  Linda had set a positive learning and sharing environment for her students early in the trimester.  She had been meeting with these classes for less than a week but already the students understood Linda’s standards for classroom expectations.

During my previous visit seven years before Linda was involved in pursuing her Master’s degree, with the hope she could finish it before her family grew.  By 2015 she had two young daughters, ages 6 and 4. Her parents were helping with daycare so that complication was lessened, but Linda still had a one hour commute each way every morning and that meant reacting to problems at home and dealing with the loss of two hours of family time, at the very least, probably added some stress to Linda’s day.

As soon as preliminary directions were given in her classes Linda immediately moved to help her students on a one-to-one basis.  She made multiple rounds in the classroom and connected with all the students who needed extra help with the tech and the lesson.  She was very aware of raised hands and responded as quickly as possible when students needed extra help.  Linda was good about asking questions in prompting her students’ problem-solving skills, without just giving the solutions to their questions and therefore promoting her students’ critical thinking skills.

Interview, 2015

Defining Success

Linda modified her answer to this question from the first time I asked her in 2008. As a fairly new teacher back then she said confidence was one of her measures of success.  She said now said that confidence was still important but she added organization, preparation and making connections with the community were just as important for success in the classroom.   Linda recently taught the fourth child from a family and she realized that she established a reputation for being a good teacher in the community.  Keeping up with changes in technology also figured into success with Linda and this day’s minor battle with logging students onto the network and getting the class fully involved with the lesson was an example of what teachers face when trying to be successful.  Linda’s last measure of success was dealing with the inevitable changes in teaching and learning.  In her estimation it might be easier for teachers to wing it after they have taught a subject for a number of years, but it was not the right way to teach.

One answer that did not change for Linda was that she felt underprepared in terms of content and that related directly to her Social Studies major.  She still thought the major was too broad and that prospective teachers needed more coursework in the individual disciplines which make up Social Studies.  I informed her that the university was investigating a Super Major that would add at least another course in Geography, Economics and Political Science, as well as specific requirements for History Elective courses in the various areas of the world.  When Linda attended GVSU she did take Native American History and African History, but no coursework in Latin American or Asian History. That made teaching a true World History course that much more difficult in terms of the work she had to do to feel confident in the content she taught.

Challenges, 2015

Linda’s answer to what were her biggest challenges in her life were three words: “Career, Family, Children.”  At one point in her career, she had to give up sponsorship of Student Council due to the birth of one of her children.  Now that her two girls were a bit older, she started to slowly rebuild some of her connections to her students outside of her classroom.  One example of the rebuilding process was that she was now the sponsor of the Table Tennis Club.  Maybe not as much work as Student Council sponsor but definitely a way to make connections with her students outside of daily lessons in her classroom.

Another challenge Linda mentioned was meetings before school, during planning periods and after school.  At the time of this interview the district was investigating using Marzano’s structure^[2] as part of the teacher evaluation process.  Linda did not say how many meetings were involved with this investigation but I gathered that it was more than two.

Teacher webpages were also a challenge for Linda. The district decided that each teacher needed to develop a webpage, updated weekly, with learning targets and all the basic information that described what they were doing in their classrooms.  Obviously making the time to keep the webpage updated, even if it was weekly and not daily, was a stressor for Linda and other teachers in this study.

Accommodations for students provided another challenge.  Linda related that parents were upset when teachers did not attend to the accommodations set up in their children’s Individualized Education Plans (I.E.P.s).  She did not criticize the parents for their concern, but that concern added another thing to the list that Linda and other teachers had to check on a daily basis. The physical and mental act of referring to the paperwork or digital log on what accommodations each student needed and how a teacher would meet those goals dictated another chunk of time in the day dedicated to a responsibility beyond just teaching and learning content.  When Linda started her career, she team-taught with a special education teacher.  Now she merely had a special education consultant who would confer with her time-to-time on how she was meeting student accommodations.

The last challenge Linda related was class size. When she started in the district, she had her classes averaged in the mid-20s.  Now her classes, and every teacher’s classes in the high school average in the low 30s.  More grading, more paperwork and more accommodations.

Dealing with Stress, 2015

With all the challenges Linda mentioned I was especially interested in how she was dealing with the pressures of her career.  Her first answer was being organized.  She established a daily routine for preparing her classroom for the day: opening tabs on her computer, writing the learning targets on the whiteboard for the next day before she left school in the afternoon, and making sure all her paperwork was organized and placed so she could find it easily.

Many of the teachers in this study mentioned physical workouts as a way of keeping stress under control and Linda was no different. She enrolled in a spinning (bicycling) class. She also tried to leave work at work, including paperwork during the week, and not bringing her problems and stresses home to her family at night.  That said, Linda arrives at school an hour before the school day officially started and stayed after school an hour after it ended.  Add to that her one-hour planning period and she had three hours a day to organize and prepare for her classes. She did tell her students that if they took a test on Wednesday, they would not receive the results until the following Monday because Sundays were grading day for her.

Linda was in eleventh year of her career and by this time she had prepared and taught five different courses: World History, U.S. History, Economics, Psychology and Child Psychology. She did not feel that variety was excessive and in 2015 she had three lesson preparations. The other teachers in this study were all over the map regarding coursework. One woman had bounced from middle school to high school several times within her district, teaching both in her major and in her minor. Another person was teaching the same subject in the same classroom, but also mentioned that he continually updated his resources and teaching methods.

Motivation, 2015

Linda’s first answer to what keeps her motivated to do the best job she can for her students was family, and as she explained her answer it was obvious that family extended beyond her husband, children and her parents.  Her family included her students, her co-workers and her principal. Linda said that if she was asked outside of school if teaching was worth it she might shrug and act like it was a burden, but when she arrived at school and began interacting with her fellow teachers, her administrator and, most importantly, her students, it was all worthwhile.

There were several caveats to her answer. She was worried about the new Marzano evaluation method used for her teaching.  She thought that “Every student should, at least, receive a C” in their coursework might be a nice goal but not a realistic objective. Even though Linda had positive reviews in her 11 years in the classroom, this new model changed the playing field for her. She connected that concern to the apparent lack of support for her special needs students and the fact that she only had a consultant instead of the full-time special education teacher in her classroom at the beginning of her career.  Along with the change in the method of evaluation was the fact that a union representative was no longer part of the evaluation process and she did not think that was fair. Linda and all the other teachers in the state were also dealing with a long-term lawsuit concerning the state-wide pension plan. Even though that case was decided in the teachers’ favor after 2015, the state was cutting back on contributions to retirement, meaning the teachers were responsible for more contributions and that equated with a loss in remuneration. Lastly, she thought the teaching profession was being unfairly criticized in the media, especially in the political process during election years. “I feel like we are always a target.  It’s just always changing things.  They don’t feel like we do enough or we get too much time off.” (Linda, v.t., 2015, Page 8).  As a counter to the too much time off criticism, Linda thought that year-round school might be a good idea.  Naturally, she would expect teacher salaries to increase to account for the expanded school year, but she thought that besides possibly changing public attitudes towards the teaching profession, the students would gain by having a longer school year and not losing contact with their studies due to a long summer break. On a last negative note, she admitted that sometimes she is a character in the movie, “Groundhog Day,” repeating the same grade over and over for 10 years.  Besides updating their teaching resources, approaching their content and methods in new ways or different perspectives, how do teachers keep fresh, motivated and not feel burned out?  My answer was becoming involved in teaching institutes and seminars through the National Endowment for the Humanities, continuing my postgraduate education and reading in my content area. Those activities kept me motivated, fresh and involved in self-improvement and that kept me coming back to my classroom ready to go for 46 years.

Strategies and Methods, 2015

Linda has made changes in the way she taught over the years and there was a positive and negative side to that change.  She said she has lessened the amount of content to more closely align to her students’ abilities, but was worried that she was dumbing down the material. She could not put her finger on the problem.  She was confronted at her spinning class by a college professor who claimed that high school students coming to her college level writing classes were poor writers.  Linda did not know the exact cause of this supposed loss of ability. She did not know if the students were not as smart now, or if they were not motivated at home to perform at a higher level or the influence of texting had lessened students’ ability to form sentences.  I will admit that I had college freshmen in a general education Western European History class who used text language in their essays.  It was not every student, but the ones who I corrected seemed somewhat taken aback when I told them that text language was not considered formal writing.

I asked her if she was using more technology in her classroom than she did in 2008 and her answer was less. She said that in the trimester schedule she had to cover so much more content ground in order to meet teaching and learning standards that she had less time to incorporate technology into her lessons. That comment and what I witnessed in her classroom that day led me to believe that her use of technology was for project-based learning and she felt pressured by her colleagues and the administration to use more direct, teacher-led learning and student-driven, technology-based instruction. On the other hand, she did say that she used the computers in her classroom for more student-directed research, versus just giving them data.

Evaluation, 2015

Linda had already mentioned the stress of the new Marzano-based teacher evaluation system being adopted by her district.  She said her district now had a two-tiered system which features heavier and lighter years. In a heavy year teachers received two formal, hour-long observations.  Light years have one formal observation and an informal, 20-minute observation.  Included in the process was pre- and post test data gathering on student progress, pre-observation meetings with an administrator explaining what the upcoming observation lesson will be and what standards are met and a post-observation meeting discussing how the lesson and observation actually happened. Based on those observations, teachers would be judged highly effective or effective.  Linda left out lesser outcomes such as ineffective or needs improvement. She remarked that there were several Marzano domains for evaluation and the district, at this point, had the teachers focus on just a few.  Linda assumed that more domains would be added in future years.  She also said that it was implied that no teacher would be judged highly effective in the first year of the Marzano system because that would leave no room for improvement.

Here is Linda, an 11-year veteran, who always received good evaluations and now because of change in the system all teachers, no matter if they were doing an excellent job in their classroom or not, were being told that no one was doing excellent work. I believe that all teachers have room to improve, but to arbitrarily say that no one can reach the top level because the system is new is beyond my comprehension.  What happens if a teacher is judged highly effective in their second year? Would some state-level committee cry foul? Would the media see that rating as relaxing a rigid evaluation system? Does a highly effective rating imply that a career teacher would no longer be committed to his or her craft and just relax for the rest of their years in the classroom? By the way, who rates the raters? Is the system fool-proof? Will it eliminate personal prejudice? Linda felt that the administration would help teachers whose evaluation reflected that they needed help in the classroom, but she thought the majority of the teachers at her school were just jumping through hoops.

That said, Linda felt that both her assistant principal and the administration generally were there to help the teachers and were not unfairly judging anyone.  She thought she might receive some constructive criticism on her teaching based on the new evaluation instrument, but the potential for administrative feedback did not provide any stress for her.

Mentoring, 2015

Linda’s experience was less than helpful when it came to being mentored at her school.  She said her assigned mentor did not meet with her very often and when she did meet with her, she ended up crying based on her mentor’s comments. Linda also thought that the situation was made more difficult because her mentor was not in close proximity to Linda’s classroom.  On top of those problems, Linda’s mentor did not teach the same subject as Linda did so besides pedagogical similarities, there was no help for Linda’s content problems: Linda admitted that she was not confident about some of her content background coming out of college.  She had a better experience with a teacher who was closer to her classroom who volunteered to help her in the beginning of her career. That teacher was very helpful. After Linda reflected about her mentor experience, she re-examined her relationship with her assigned mentor and said the person was going through some bad times personally and that might have been the reason for her mentor’s attitude.  More recently her former mentor has been a happier, nicer and better person to be around.

Linda also said that the mentoring system has changed in her district since she was a rookie.  Now there are after school meetings and a conference that new teachers must attend outside of school.  Linda thought that her district was doing more to help new teachers adjust to their careers and the school.

Continuing Education, 2015

By 2015 Linda had completed her Master’s program and 11 years into her career she had taken multiple professional development opportunities. Linda thought both her postgraduate learning experiences have helped her teaching. She could not cite specific examples where she used information or skills from these opportunities in her classroom, but she was sure the classes and seminars helped her teaching.  Linda was concerned about a change in the school’s administration. The curriculum director left for a different district and her district decided not to replace that person.  That work had devolved upon another administrator, who already had a full plate of responsibilities so Linda thought that curriculum help from administration would probably be lessened in the future.

Pearls of Wisdom, 2015

Linda’s first advice was for new teachers to be open to listening to experienced teachers.  New teachers should not assume that they can handle anything thrown at them, no matter what their experience was student teaching.  New teachers must realize that nothing equates to the real teaching experience of dealing with parents, the workload and all the other minutiae of teaching. Organization was the next piece of advice.  Linda saw teachers who are constantly stressed about their job and she realized that those teachers have a difficult time with keeping their work organized.

Linda also warned that new teachers should not look for appreciation outside of their buildings. She saw the media and government as very critical of education today and new teachers should be hardened to those comments. She also said that teachers should search for the grade level and subject matter that they liked the most.  Once a teacher realizes what gives them the most joy in teaching, they should pursue that position until they get it, especially when it comes to grade level.

Lastly, Linda returned to her concerns about the new evaluation process.  She thought that setting teaching goals was a good idea, but predicting student success based on those goals, e.g., “everyone should at least make a C grade,” was probably not a good idea. Teachers should want all their students to learn and succeed but the extent of that success is harder to predict.