It’s been a long time since I posted to you all. I am going to try to distill my on-going emotional and professional thoughts on teacher tenure, teacher pay and teacher greatness over the next few postings.
I had a great deal of sadness when the Vergara trial won in California to eliminate teacher tenure. And yet, there are some bad teachers out there. We’ve all had them, and our kids have had them. But, in spite of this, most teachers are fairly good, and most just want more support, better working conditions for themselves and their students, and hey, many of them want better pay.
The on-going rhetoric about teacher tenure doesn’t mention that you can eliminate the problem of many bad teachers if you just make the profession one that people want to have. Like better pay, valuing subject matter expertise, providing adequate lesson planning time and work materials such as functional computers and copy machines. And, how about valuing the ability of the teacher to create classroom community and getting to know all of their students well through the use of something called “smaller class sizes”?
Imagine that for every teacher position you had to sift through 30 or more amazing resumes! What a difference it would make if we had lots of professional people walking through the door.
Here is a nice little op-ed I read today articulating these nice little thoughts. Of course it’s written by a teacher.
Have a beautiful day and new year!
Maestra Malinche
“Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.”
― Jacques Barzun
― Jacques Barzun
teaching malinche 