A Career Ladder: The First Step in Ed Reform

EDU 6120 Week 4

There were significant ideas that stood out from this week’s readings about the Roman cultural influences on formal education as well as some ideas for consideration from Ellis’ appraisal of the American Education reform movement(s).

I am interested to hear what detail Dr. Scheuerman will offer about Quintillion, Cicero and Plutarch. Reading through the notes it is apparent that many of the ideas and practices of these educators and thinkers remain influential in current framework for education.

For example, Quintillion’s methodology that great teachers should be choosing tasks appropriate to a student’s interests is important to me. Considering that standardized tests take us further from such opportunities, it is an important reminder that there are ideas in education that are quite old and value student agency and creativity. Moreover, the emphasis on plasticity and interdisciplinary thinking and the integration of knowledge are important ideas for the overall learning and motivation of students. By placing each content area into a separate silo, we discourage students from making broader connections about the world around them and their place in it. I am guilty of this too. We ask young people about their favorite courses, teachers, etc. and almost immediately make the incorrect “square peg round hole” inference about what kinds of jobs such juvenile and ephemeral interests may lead to.

When I read “plasticity” the pop-up in my brain reminded me of work I did with a professional development group of teachers a few years back. We considered the language we were using with students to help re-enforce a “growth mindset” with our students. In other words, by language we chose for praise, critique and redirection, how were we contributing to our students’ beliefs that their brains were plastic and they could continually improve? We felt this work was especially important considering our students of lower academic performance who did not experience teacher or academic praise with the same frequency as their higher performing peers. Consider the differences how a student might internalize the two different examples of teacher returning a successful test and offering whole-group praise to a student. Firstly, there is: “Great job on the test Billy! An A+ Wow. You are so smart.” versus: “Great job on the best Billy! An A+ Wow. Congratulations on your hard work.” Each of these can produce a different internal response for a student regarding something intentional they did that contributed to their success versus an innate characteristic (i.e. “smartness”) of which they have no control. Language is powerful.

These ideas brought me to Dr. Ellis’ review of the Porter and Brophy research that yielded the 11 descriptions of effective teachers. I thought this list was illuminating both as a benchmark for my own self-critique and as aspirations and tenets for the field. The two in particular that stood out to me were 7 & 8. Considering my informal training during my first 8 years in the classroom coupled with the unconventional and non-standardized subjects I taught (Computer Applications and Media Literacy) I think I have developed habits and strengths in these regards. Number seven describes a teacher who does not rely on one almighty source (namely a textbook) from which to create the breadth of a curriculum. Teaching two courses that I designed from the ground up, without textbooks, forced me to be creative and continually discerning about the sources of information I curated for my students. I often shared this process with them, which created a meta-lesson about source selection in life and informing yourself with myriad opinions and options – not just letting inertia and convention inform you.

Number eight revisited metacognitive strategies, which I have mentioned here before, but I thought were interesting considering Ellis’ inclusion of the phrase “problem-solving.” One of the major standards or takeaways from my computer applications course was to empower 9^th-grade students to be patient troubleshooters. Some many of the “problems” we, as end users, encounter with our computers can be mitigated if not entirely solved by a deep breath, reading the dialogue box that has popped up and a willingness to troubleshoot through trial and error. These three steps are essentially what I relied on to teach myself the basics of personal computing as a student and are absolutely skills that I challenge myself to employ as an adult. This is a disposition more than a technical skill set. And coupling this strategy with a framework for learning styles and reflective metacognitive practices can be essential for student success in our digitally academic, professional and social spheres.

I appreciated Ellis’ illustration of “the Answers” to education reform. I am a proponent of the proposals for more rigorous teacher pre-service training programs. In the cases of some of the other countries that often out-perform the US like Finland, there is a much greater social status, financial compensation and prestige in becoming a public school teacher. And yes, simply paying teachers more could incentivize a shift in the initial applicant pool, but I think the lack of an actual career ladder is the logical first place to improve and reform the teaching profession.

Ellis writes, “the beginning teacher holds essentially the same rank as the veteran of many years.” This is not only true with regard to rank but ostensibly job duties and responsibilities as well. This is absurd. Think of any other profession where this is the case. Teaching is missing the adequate steps of apprenticeship by graduating up to the status, pay and responsibilities of a veteran in the field. A brain surgeon for example, has a residency that is seven years long, according to UCLA neurosurgery residency website. It is not expected that a first year would have the same knowledge or expertise as a fifth-year resident, let alone a surgeon with 20 years experience.

The education career ladder should be deconstructed and reworked entirely. Instead, we over-burden our under-experienced teachers with not only a full-load (which likely shouldn’t be the case) and often place them with the most challenging students and courses. It is not a wonder then that, according to The Atlantic in 2013 anywhere between 40-50% of new American teachers were burning out and quitting before being in the field for five years (source).

I am not sure that merit-based pay (especially problematic when based solely on standardized test scores/gains) works considering the art of teaching and dynamics involved in teaching students of various abilities and backgrounds. But Ellis’ logic is sound when he criticizes the status quo metrics for teacher raises, which are mostly limited to years of service or additional credentials earned. Neither of these guarantees or in anyway measures the improvement of a teacher’s skill or their students’ outcomes.