‘Children don’t need teachers, they need great teachers’
6 09 2008
According to Phil Dye, from THINK Education group, ‘children don’t need teachers, they need great teachers’. His opinion article on ABC’s news website about education reform has got me thinking. Dye actually supports the government’s education reform by making teachers’ pay salaries comparable with the performance of students. His article can be accessed here – http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/05/2356033.htm
Dye spells out the reasons why the reform is good. It makes teachers accountable. It means that teachers have to change their strategies, stay innovative and fresh so that their students are performing well. He quotes ‘It seems our schools contain many teachers who have never left school. Coming directly from university or the old college system straight into the classroom, their experience and knowledge of the world outside their teaching cube is limited to the odd overseas vacation.’ I agree with Dye, that there are many teachers out there who have never left a school environment and do not know how the ‘real world’ works. For many jobs out there, your pay is partly determined by your performance. Why should teachers be treated any differently?
I know I don’t want to be those teachers that are so ‘old school’ and uninspiring that I am only in teaching because I’ll get paid. What a wasted life! Dye calls these teachers ‘death by superannuation’ teachers – those that are waiting for their retirement and using old and slack teaching strategies from the 1970’s in today’s world.
If this education reform kicks in though, and my pay doesn’t increase because my students haven’t improved…will I take it personally? Will I feel like a failure? What happens if I’ve done my best to change my teaching strategies but nothing can get through? What if I am at school and most of the kids are in transient families?
Well, I never studied teaching to become rich in the first place, but an extra $20k a year would be handy in paying the mortgage…
Josh check out Jen’s blog – she doesn’t talk about “making teachers’ pay salaries comparable with the performance of students” but she does refer to teachers getting stuck on an island. She reveals how she managed to get off her island regarding the use of technology. I think you will enjoy reading her blog.
http://jenuinetech.com/blog/?p=355
Lina
Thanks for that Lina. Dr Phil Dye in his article would perhaps call teachers ’stuck on an island’ as ‘death by superannuation’ teachers. I guess the only difference is that when teachers recognise they are on their own island, they can choose to change and learn new ideas and possibilities.
While the theory of paying for performance is good in theory I’m a bit hesitant to support something that can be so judgmental. We are encouraged not to assess students on performance and to give them every opportunity to develop their own understandings and yet now they are saying that the students results are all that matters. It is a bit of a double negative, I personally would prefer students who attempt to become better at what they do understand and consistently make the effort to learn more than students who can meet an arbitrary set of requirements so that I get an extra little bonus.
It is also promoting the wrong idea about teaching in that the teacher is encouraged to show the students great results rather than actually teach the students. There is a lot of controversy over teachers teaching ‘to the test’ for the WALNA. Imagine how much teaching to the test is going to happen if it means that the teacher is going to go home with extra money! Is this going to benefit the students at all? I personally don’t believe that it will help the students.
Another flaw I find is the fact that there are always going to be students who are slower to develop understandings than others, we all work at different levels and in different ways. Should a teacher be penalised and seen as a poor teacher simply because the students do badly in the test given to them? The VAP (value added program) or something similar could be a way to perhaps remove this but this is another system that would have to be implemented and again like the WALNA I can see it being manipulated, especially if money is on the line.
It is though an incentive for teachers to actually pull their finger out and make the effort to really teach effectively. But is it the wrong kind of motivation? The main reason people dislike the behaviourist views on behaviour management and such was the rewards system. Students were working only for the lolly and the pat on the head not from their own motivation. Isn’t this the same thing? Are we being a bit hypocritical by saying its okay for us because its money that is the reward?
Anyway bit of a long topic but this is something that will definitely impact on my future and and information about it is as such very important.