TEACHING | continued from 30
such a high learning curve in their first year are given four or five classes, the same load as an experienced teacher of 25 years. (Not coincidentally, almost 50 perent of teachers leave the profession by their fifth year — an unacceptable loss.) Most teachers can share horrific and sometimes funny stories from their first year. Almost all will agree that they are glad that they survived. Young teachers are also quick to acknowledge how much more effective they are in their second and third years of teaching. Although it is helpful to provide a first-year teacher with an inschool mentor who can explain how the school functions, we need to do much more. The teacher residency model, found in Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia, offers a model of assigning first-year urban teachers to co-teach with a mentor throughout their first year. We also should consider redefining teachers’ work so that the first year would explicitly include learning how to teach by observing other teachers and taking on-site classes. We need to reorganize schools so that teachers can become reflective educators who learn from their most effective colleagues. On the other hand, neither the traditional approach of higher education programs, which focus only on the pre-service preparation of teachers, nor the five-week summer programs of Teach for America (TFA) address the need to retain our best teachers. I would argue that TFA’s short immersion preparation not only underprepares those assigned to be teachers in the most challenging urban classrooms (which should instead have the most experienced and talented teachers), but also undercuts any concept of teaching as a profession. (Would you want the services of a lawyer or doctor who had only five weeks of classes in the summer before beginning 32 |
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It is time to change how we think about teaching. At a time of global challenges and changing demographics, our country needs to have excellent, well-prepared teachers in every urban, suburban, and rural classroom.
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work?) This is not solely a TFA issue, however, since almost all teacher education programs should be doing much more to support teachers through their beginning years in the classroom. In addition to restructuring the first year of teaching, we need to provide opportunities for teachers who are respected educators to assume teacher leadership roles in strengthening the schools’ instruction, climate, and organization. Second-stage teachers, professionals with four to 10 years of experience, have so much to contribute to beginning teachers, principals, and colleagues who want to improve learning or reform the school.2 Yet these educators do not necessarily want to leave the classroom to become principals. We need to recognize their expertise, create career ladders and roles for them in their schools and in university education programs, and listen to their voices about how to improve both instruction and schools.
(DON’T) LET MY BABY GROW UP TO BE A TEACHER Although we want only the best teachers for our own children, American parents are often not pleased if their children decide to become teachers. Teaching has been neither a particularly
valued nor well-paid profession in our country; it has instead long been seen as appropriate work for women until they get married. In contrast, Finland has a different perception of teaching as a profession; Finnish students in the top third compete to become educators and are prepared in free, fiveyear university programs. (Finland’s students also perform among the best on international assessments.)3 It is time to change how we think about teaching. At a time of global challenges and changing demographics, our country needs to have excellent, well-prepared teachers in every urban, suburban, and rural classroom. We must recruit, prepare, and support in the classroom reflective, collaborative teachers committed to creating inquiry-based curricula and instruction that challenges students to be creative and analytical problem-solvers. After all, what would it be like if all students could have the benefit of teachers like those who inspired and challenged us at Loomis Chaffee? ©
(Endnotes) 1 Feiman-Nemser, Sharon. Teachers as Learners. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2012. 2L evenson, Marya R. Pathways to Teacher Leadership: Emerging Models, Changing Roles. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, forthcoming in January, 2014. 3S ahlberg, Pasi. Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? New York: Teachers College Press, 2010. Marya R. Levenson ’60, served as a ninth-grade history and civics teacher in the Boston Public Schools, the principal of Newton North (Mass.) High School, and superintendent of the North Colonie (N.Y.) Central School District. She earned her doctorate in education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and served as a member of the Executive Committee of the New York State Council of School Superintendents. She is a professor of the practice in education and the Harry S. Levitan Director of Education at Brandeis University, where she received the Louis Dembitz Brandeis Prize for Excellence in Teaching. Marya is married to Andy Hawley, and is the grandmother of five terrific grandchildren.