The jubilation of summer vacation is still palpable in the air. But I believe that a series of issues simply must be addressed prior to first bell in September.
So much is at stake for us. The future success of our society is driven by the success of the schools today.
Teachers are seriously demoralized. Forget for a moment the financial and employment issues. Let’s just say that teacher salaries and benefits are a clear political target in lean times, and defending our livelihoods is a struggle all its own.
Why? They’re overwhelmed with administrative tasks. The nature of teaching has completely changed. I no longer recognize the profession I entered in 1985.
Teaching becomes an afterthought
The quality of the lessons, their fluidity and creativity, is far down the list when we are operationalizing and concretizing the day’s tasks. The average teacher now has a dozen different log-ins to use every day. We almost need to be a Microsoft systems engineer just to function.
We spend so much time documenting things, providing and interpreting data, and corresponding with stakeholders that we can’t ever get around to the substance of teaching. Preparing great classes becomes almost an afterthought in the face of what the institution demands.
It’s demoralizing to have our energies depleted this way. Of course we all must contribute to the running of the institution, but these chores, essentially unrelated to excellence in teaching, have consumed us.
Here’s an example of what I call serial processing. Imagine your ultimate goal was to walk toward the end of a corridor to exit a building. After a few steps forward, a door opens to your side, and out pops a problem for which you must halt forward progress to resolve. Fixing that side problem requires time and effort, and it must be solved before resuming the journey. What happens to teachers is, with so many side doors opening in a day or a week, is that reaching their ultimate goal (designing and executing great classes) disappears from view. We lose sight of what that goal even is.
Almost everyone today is affected
This is what is happening to teachers. Teacher creativity, the capacity to transform minds and touch human hearts with a great curriculum, is suffering. Too many side doors open. Just one computer error message will devour the one precious preparation period a teacher has, and can even eat up hours at home in the evening.
I know this isn’t just teachers. A nurse told me that in a typical nine-hour shift on the hospital floor, she helps patients for at most two of those hours; the other seven are spent on the computer documenting things for insurance companies. She can no longer reach the ultimate destination any more than a teacher can.
For teachers who want to teach, who want to bring learning joy to the students, this is soul-crushing.
Not only is what we went into teaching for no longer happening, it’s no longer even possible because of our jobs. When the institution moves at the speed of Google, the teacher must keep apace or drown. Teachers must now teach weak lessons because too many digital side doors are opening on us. Lost your preparation periods to a computer error message? Well, show a video to your 7th period class. The job of teaching is destroying the mission of teachers.
So what’s the conversation that I propose?
My proposal for our schools
The question for society is: what resources are we willing to part with in order to solve this problem?
I believe the solution is both effective and cheap. Simply align the teacher preparation programs with the schools. Student-teacher interns should be assigned into the classrooms for virtually all teachers. As interns, their jobs will be to trail the classroom teachers and carry out those information processing functions.
Deal with those side doors that are so time-consuming and draining for teachers. Free up the teachers for actual creativity with the students. The student-teacher intern would commit to five months as a worker in a school and receive no money, and this internship will be required for a full license.
An added benefit: by trailing a real world teacher, interns can truly determine if it’s their life’s work. Teach for America has high turnover rates (even higher than the rates for other classroom teachers, already unacceptably high) because many people who go in really aren’t committed to teaching a career.
We need to consider whether we value teaching or meta-teaching
My program would benefit teachers, students and society. When teachers re-engage their love of their subject and inject creativity into their lesson blueprints, learning happens. Good teaching takes time. An outside observer looking at a class lesson sees only the tip of the iceberg of what went into its creation.
Like Joe DiMaggio playing center field, a great teacher makes it look easy, but it truly isn’t. It takes time, something teachers no longer have.
It is true that there are not enough teacher preparation programs to furnish these interns. Perhaps community volunteers can step in. And yes, technical and legal issues exist. Background checks will be required.
But the problem of serial processing that destroys the mission is real. Try finding a teacher this summer who is eager to return in September to the administrative burden. Enough is enough.
Let’s get back to teaching.