If you want better schools, rural or otherwise, improve motivation and discipline of students
My blog entry on rural schools, prompted by an AJC Sunday story on rural education in Georgia, spurred a lot of comments, including this email from retired educator and school head Dennis Brown of Villa Rica. (I have shared other responses by Brown on teacher quality.)
Here is his latest:
There is always a need for more great teachers in the classroom. But the title of your article this morning, “How do we entice great teachers to move to remote rural schools,” suggests there are none there today. That’s just not the case.
There are some great teachers already in place. But their effectiveness is muted and often their hands tied by pedagogy and lack of equipment. Let’s first attack the real problem – and while I hesitate to use it to identify what that real problem is, the saying “If you want to improve the prisons, improve the prisoners” is never more true in our schools than it is today.
State of mind and environment before the student even enters the classroom is the key – and that begins at home and in the community at large. Even the best of teachers can’t overcome a classroom filled with unmotivated and non-disciplined students. And even more than for the teacher, I feel sorry for the one or two motivated students in a classroom filled with another 30 just putting in their time and more interested in the social interaction than the learning.
Expectations are more often than not lowered and even some of the most basic academic challenges abandoned to teach to the masses. Of course, the results are sub par. The results I’m talking about include not only questionable standardized testing scores, but also increased drop-out and decreased high school graduation rates, and youngsters with entitlement mentalities turned loose in society.
Bottom line — let’s stop pointing the finger at the schools and suggest that attracting “great” teachers is the answer to turning things around.
Let’s put the money, the publicity and time where the problem really lies – first defining what educational outcomes are desired in that community and its schools and then addressing through public forums and workshops the parents’ responsibilities at home in the setting of guidelines and expectations for their children’s performance.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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113 comments Add your comment
Private Citizen
November 21st, 2012
7:46 am
Regarding mastering the “Smart board” there’s not much point in mastering anything when the school keeps moving staff around like they’re playing checkers. Certainly it can not be this way everywhere but it’s what I’ve seen. And I’m talking about good lifer master teachers, uprooted, moved around like pegs on a peg board. And they’d ask the teacher first, they just tell them what to do. Seen two teachers cry over this. Good people, excellent at their work, caring, loving, effective. When you get moved in your assignment, you have to build a whole new curriculum and resources. Many teachers are treated like hourly wage labor, not professionals. And yes, there’s a time clock now.
Private Citizen
November 21st, 2012
7:53 am
My references: nephew in medical school, niece just completed law degree and passed the bar.
Private Citizen
November 21st, 2012
8:42 am
One thing about “Smart Board” etc. is when it (a big thing) is mounted right in the middle of the wipeboard, so if you want to write anything down, you have to use the wipeboard areas on the left and right of the dominant “Smart Board.” It’s like “this thing” is now ruling your classroom, not you.
Private Citizen
November 21st, 2012
9:16 am
slob Great post on method however you seen to ascribe a mob mentality and get a little mixed up in doing so. You recommend an environment that must periodical feed the dragon so that the dragon can breathe fire. This is a cultural thing. A lot of kids love it and say “that teacher needs to be fired!” There is a culture where parents do the same thing. It is a mini-culture where people need to exert power. It is a consumer culture, except to consume and throwaway – like with abundant fast food packaging – is applied to humans. You advocate this and are wrong to do so. Your sole criteria for adults seems to be the wave of the mob and you enjoy this. Obviously it works for you, as you are “in-step” with the culture of the kids. Well and good except that you are planting seeds of intolerance to create young adults who want it their way and have very little tolerance for anything that does not fit their mob. Here’s what you say
If the entire class hates you as the teacher and are in full rebellion against you, please refer to my first piece of advice. Get out of education. What many educators dislike about peer mediation at any grade level is that it removes the educators personal power and hands it to the students.
You’re getting a little mixed up referencing “peer mediation” and then referring to students as the peers. I do not know of a single teacher who has any problem whatsoever with “peer mediation” or discussing with their teaching peers. You’re advocating something else entirely. What is your mob going to do when they encounter the “un-hip” university teacher or manager at a work place, or someone otherwise not like them in language and preference? It’s the mindset of a bully is what you are doing.
join Walmart
November 21st, 2012
11:56 am
What is the point? If you were called to teach, leave the state of Georgia. The people in this state do not have a clue about teachers and the burden on their shoulders. And yes, there is a time clock. You are supposed to clock in and out, as if you are going to get overtime. Maybe clocking out late will improve your TKES score. Administrator to teacher: “You leave at 3:30, so you couldn’t possibly be dedicated. I know that your hour ends at 3:15, but a truly dedicated teacher works until 6:00 PM. Your children aren’t important, and your husband WILL find someone to spend his extra time with.”
CobbHistoryTeacher
November 21st, 2012
9:00 pm
@JD “The truth, as always, is in the middle. Unlike other countries, our top college students prefer to work where they can earn more pay — most teachers are C and B students in college — hardly the cream of the crop.”
Really? C’mon man.
I graduated with a 3.52 in my undergraduate. I had a 4.0 on the first master’s degree but had to stop when my wife and I relocated. I started and finished a master’s degree 6 years ago with a 4.0. No I’m not an engineer, architect or a doctor, but without me and the others like me they don’t exist either.
CobbHistoryTeacher
November 21st, 2012
9:06 pm
@Prideandjoy…I think you missed my point. I don’t contend that they should earn those things, but it’s hard to understand the importance of an education that will ultimately earn you those things when they are handed to you now, and when pushed to succeed by you teachers and parents you cling to the delusion that as an adult you will be given those things and not have to earn them…oh wait I guess we’ll all be clamoring for our Obamaphones.
N. GA Teacher
November 22nd, 2012
12:07 am
I can’t believe how ignorant some of these bloggers are who think that the problems of lack of motivation, respect for the classroom setting, and self-absoprtion can be solved be “modern technological teaching methods”. Believe me, we have smartboards, computers in the room, document cameras, promethean boards, ipads, etc. The unmotivated disrespectful kids love technology only for titillating social trivia, not for research, calculations, or programming. If I had a device that removed the texting/sexting/music sites. etc and only allowed legitimate scholastic functions, the kids would just talk to each other or put their heads down. The decade of NCLB has created students that have no accountability, who expect to be passed on and “graduated” instead of EARNING graduation through their efforts and accomplishments.
What's Best for Kids?
November 22nd, 2012
10:10 am
Soothsayer,
I have been reading many articles about the Silicon Valley gurus sending their kids to schools that are completely off the grid.
Why would these people do that if technology is the only way to reach kids?
Time4change
November 24th, 2012
6:28 am
I have a 4.0 from my teacher education program and have been teaching in Georgia 15 years.
Private Citizen
November 24th, 2012
10:22 am
N GA teacher, Brilliant post. Concise! It seems that the missing link is having to work for grades. Maybe if they threw out the grades-based Hope scholarship program, it would help? Hope scholarship makes financial incentive (tens of thousands of dollar) for determined parents to demand or otherwise set the bar for how their child is graded. For a fully-occupied-worked teacher, it is much easier to go along with demands and forget about what used to be known as grading. Good subtopic: What is grading? I suggest this concept has largely been abandoned and therefore devalues the good working kids, and props up the wandering minds who may drift in an unregulated condition until they complete the year sequence of legally required attendance.
aCitizen
November 26th, 2012
12:29 pm
The discussion seems to point to the wrong direction. Discipline here is being defined wrongly. What is the correct definition of discipline? The application of talent — the willingness to work — to the tasks at hand in a timely fashion. The wrong definition of discipline ignores all points of true discipline and teaches only fear or respect of authority. To learn it, the student needs to be given a constant stream of examples of the love of learning, from all interested parties, parents, teachers, administrators, and friends. If any part of this set of people does not consistently and constantly show the love of learning, the student will never have it — except that some revelation or innate aptitude given by God demonstrates it to that student.
So discipline will not be learned unless all other people are examples of being disciplined. Talent cannot be turned on with money and content. Better training of teachers does not necessarily teach discipline. Unless the teacher is an example for the love of learning all the training in the world will do no good. Parents who do not read and study are poor examples. Parents who say they no longer need to learn and are done with school are defeatists destroying any love of learning the child may have. Administrators who have paddles at hand are certainly not teaching love for learning. And friends who declare there are ways to get by with laziness are no help at all.
Very little of what is taught in a lecture is retained. Testing shows nothing of the grasp of a subject — it only shows a temporary retention of a few facts without connection to anything else. The true proof of whether a student understands a topic is shown when he may teach it to another.
Perhaps if the definition of discipline were more generally understood we would have progress in our schools.
Title 1 teacher
November 28th, 2012
1:14 pm
Teacher & Taxpayer, feel free to segregate the pregnant girls — as long as you send the babydaddies with them. #ittakestwo