Real Talk
Everybody has their own ideas of what types of change we need in education. However, if you ask the teachers, you will hear the same ideas over and over. In a recent survey, we asked teachers for their opinion. These desired changes were reiterated in multiple comments in multiple ways.
1. Implement higher wages for all educators now.
A low salary for educators deters the future generation from pursuing a teaching career and further exacerbates a teaching shortage in areas of low wages and poor treatment.
2. Respect for the profession should be a given.
Why, oh why, isn’t this happening? I’ll tell you why. It is because teacher bashing is commonplace in our society, and it trickles down to the students. Teachers are becoming second-class citizens when we should be pillars of society.
3. Parents should enable their kids less and hold them accountable more.
Hey, I was there, and I know it’s hard to let go, but stop making excuses for your kids. Trust me, they need to fail and experience consequences to grow as productive members of society. If you don’t bail them out now, you won’t have to bail them out later.
4. Teach life skills.
Managing money and debt are much more valuable skills to the majority of students than learning complex quadratic equations.
5. The administration needs to be more hands-on and proactive.
Let’s see administrators walking all over the school, forming positive relationships with students and staff. And, for goodness sake, enforce consequences.
6. Let’s have less bureaucratic bulls@#!
This means getting rid of the unnecessary paperwork and countless pieces of training that we do every year. Legislators who have never taught should not be creating mandates for teachers.
7. We need more support for behavior emergencies.
If one student is destroying the whole learning environment, something has to be done from the administrative level: more mental health, distance learning, and parent accountability. Something!!!
8. Data needs to stop doing so much driving.
We get it. Data needs to drive instruction, but we know our students’ weaknesses without looking at the data. We are expected now to collect, analyze, graph, and decimate countless numbers on a page. Students are so much more than data.
9. Bring back play-based kindergarten.
So, I am a kindergarten teacher, and kids are not ready at this age for a full day of textbook instruction. This is why we are seeing so much out-of-control behavior at this age. We are forcing testing on five-year-olds who need to interact with play kitchens and manipulate objects imaginatively.
10. Let’s use developmentally appropriate standards.
Writing a full research paper in first grade is a bit much. Have kids changed so much in the last twenty years that we are expecting so much more of them at a younger age? Does this really translate to future success? No.
11. We need less testing.
There is so much time wasted in schools on test preparation and implementation. This is the time when students could actually learn. The hyperfocus in schools on doing well on tests and judging administrators and teachers on the results is extremely counterproductive.
12. Cell phones should be banned during class.
Parents complain about students not having access to them in case of an emergency or if they need to get ahold of them.
Number 1- You do not need to have access to your child every second of the day. Call the office.
Number 2- In case of a true emergency, students need to be following safety protocol.
13. Outlaw micromanagement.
No, we do not need to turn in lesson plans or teach scripted lessons. Trust us to teach without constantly looking over our shoulders to try and catch us making mistakes.
14. Focus less on the politics of teaching and more on the well-being of students and teachers.
When educational policies and curriculum change, major textbook and testing companies benefit. Districts and schools are constantly changing curricula, and it is rarely for something better. When students and teachers are mentally okay, more learning will occur.
15. Let’s have smaller class sizes.
Every part of teaching and learning is harder when you have 30-40 bodies crammed together in a small space.
Will some of these changes actually occur? Some have taken place in many districts. These are the districts that are not seeing teacher shortages. When we start valuing and respecting the input of teachers, our schools will be transformed into places where everyone wants to be.
