Posts Tagged ‘Teacher Welfare’

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

If You Respect Teachers, Please Stand Up

May 15, 2012

There is a growing hostility against teachers from the Government down, and children are picking up on it. There is little use reinforcing the message that respect for teachers is paramount to students whose own parents openly treat the classroom teacher with disdain. Teachers are not trusted to do their job, are having to write-up ludicrously long and detailed planners to prove they are covering the curriculum and are subjected to a distasteful smear campaign from elements within the educational system looking for someone to blame.

Why should we be surprised if children exploit the lack of respect for teachers within elements of society?

A STUDENT holds a replica pistol to the head of a staff member in the playground – while a Year 9 boy at another school sprays urine on his teacher.

These disturbing scenes are happening at schools across NSW, just two of 218 serious incidents logged during term four last year in reports to the Department of Education and Training.

The reports show teachers being abused, assaulted and sometimes forced to disarm out-of-control students during fights.

One student fight even featured a didgeridoo as an improvised weapon, while in another incident a pupil stole a teacher’s handbag and made off with her car.

Last November, a Year 8 student threatened a teacher with a replica pistol from the drama department at a south coast school. The deputy principal tried to intervene and was abused by the student.

Meanwhile, at an Illawarra school, a Year 9 student urinated into a bottle and sprayed it on a male teacher on playground duty.

Precise details of the schools, students and teachers involved are removed from the reports, which are published by the department with one-term delays.

A department spokesperson said nine in 10 schools did not report a single incident during term four.

“From time to time, incidents affect schools just as they affect society,” the spokesperson said.

Psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg said the number of violent incidents in schools wasn’t rising but were being noticed and documented “more vigorously”.

“Teenagers tend to be impulsive – all accelerator and no brakes,” Dr Carr-Gregg said.

“Violence as entertainment has desensitised teenagers and made them see violence as a problem solving device.”

He said another factor was teenagers becoming disaffected with rates of family breakdown increasing.

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Teacher Welfare | Leave a Comment »

Teachers Advised Not to Report Acts of Violence

April 8, 2012

Surely teachers are one of the most important figures in the educational process. If you were to do a hierarchy of influence when it comes to the education of a child, surely the teacher would feature prominently.

Why then, are teachers treated as if they offer next to nothing? Why is such a crucial ingredient in successful educational outcomes disrespected to the point where they aren’t able to defend a loss of dignity or report a physical assault?

The story below may come from New Zealand, but it looms as a universal story if the treatment and welfare of teachers doesn’t improve dramatically:

A teacher is punched in the face, another is shoved in the chest and their lunch stolen, one is regularly verbally abused while another has their car vandalised. But at the schools’ request, none of it is reported to police.

Post-Primary Teachers Association president Robin Duff called the situation “intolerable”.

He said, in the PPTA News, the teachers’ union could not continue to be “complicit in this conspiracy of silence” that concealed the level of violence within schools.

He said competitiveness in schools gave them an incentive to hide issues of violence towards teachers and staff, and some schools did not want police involved because it could lead to negative publicity.

The national executive was “particularly concerned” to learn that some schools were actually forbidding teachers from reporting instances to police.

In one case a teacher was sitting in their classroom eating lunch when a student walked in and punched them in the face. The school told the teacher not to go to police because it would be dealt with internally. Nothing happened.

Another a teacher was shoved in the chest and their lunch was taken.

There were also numerous reports of teachers being punched, kicked or threatened, and property including cars and houses, being vandalised.

One teacher said every teacher knew a colleague who had been verbally abused, physically threatened or suffered instances with students out of control and a risk to themselves and others.

“Senior management of schools are under pressure to reduce instances of suspension and expulsion and we all know of instances where there is pressure not to report assaults on persons, or criminal damage to teachers’ property.”

Standardised testing, dismissing so-called “poor teacher”, increasing teacher’s responsibilities and paperwork demands are all methods for improving the academic standards of schools.

I would argue that all those methods are doomed to failure. Any other initiative will have a similar fate, unless it comes on the back of a recognition that the teacher is a crucial stakeholder in the education of our children. Until they are respected, supported and appreciated, our children are unlikely to reach their potential.

 

Tags:, , , , , , , ,
Posted in Bullying, Teacher Welfare | 10 Comments »

When Will Principals Start Taking the Side of a Teacher Over a Parent?

April 3, 2012

Those who read my blog know how nervous I am about teachers who have readily accessible Facebook pages. I have read too many stories of teachers whose careers and reputations have been jeopardised by an update status or cheeky photo.

But the story below story reminds us that there is another important factor at play here. Teachers are people like everyone else. We have every right to enjoy the sorts of pleasures that non-teachers do. Teachers should be able to, within reason, use their Facebook page without the need to have it monitored or vetted by a superior.

And if a parent complains about content on a teacher’s Facebook page, or any other matter that doesn’t qualify as extremely serious, I’d love to see the hierarchy defend their teachers.

Principals and superintendents seem far too reluctant to back their teachers in the face of controversy. A healthy school culture requires parents to be involved in the running of the school. An unhealthy school culture has the parents actually running the school.

When a parent complained about a PG-13 photograph on a teacher’s Facebook page, the superintendent should have defended his/her teacher:

When Kimberly Hester of Cass County, Mich. posted with permission a photo a coworker sent her on Facebook, she didn’t think it would offend the public school where she taught, or lead the superintendent to demand access to her Facebook page.  But a photo of her coworker with her pants down did just that.

Hester, 27, was a full-time peer professional, or teacher’s aide, at Frank Squires Elementary in Cassapolis, Mich. for about two years. In April 2011, a coworker texted a photo showing herself with her pants around her ankles, with the message “thinking of you” as a joke.

“She’s actually quite funny.  It was spur of the moment,” Hester said, adding that there was nothing pornographic about the picture, which only showed the pants, part of her legs, and the tips of her shoes.

“I couldn’t stop laughing so I asked for her permission to post it [on Facebook],” she said.  The coworker agreed.  Hester said all this took place on their own time, not at or during work.

Hester said a parent (not of one of her students) showed the photo to the superintendent, calling it unprofessional and offensive.  Hester said the photo could only be viewed by her Facebook friends.  The parent happened to be a family friend.

In a few days, the superintendent of Lewis Cass Intermediate School District, Robert Colby, asked Hester to come to his office.

“Instead of asking to take the photo down and viewing it from my friend’s point of view, they called me into the office without my union,” she said.  Hester is a member of the Michigan Education Association, which represents more than 157,000 teachers, faculty and support staff in the state, according to its website.

The superintendent asked that she show her Facebook profile page.

“I asked for my union several times, and they refused.  They wanted me to do it right then and there,” Hester said.

Hester’s story echoes reports of employers asking job applicants for access to their Facebook pages.

Hester said she and her coworker pictured in the photo were put on seven weeks of paid administrative leave, and they were eventually suspended for 10 days.  She said the coworker, who was up for tenure, was forced to resign.

Hester said she returned to work in September when the school year began.  While Hester previously worked assisting a teacher for emotionally impaired students in kindergarten through the fourth grade, she was assigned another program and was placed under a strict directive.  She said she was instructed not to speak with coworkers unless it was about a student and could not go to the bathroom before asking.

She said her contract allowed her 14 paid days off but the school would not let her use them.  She said she was also directed to read books about communication and to take 49 online classes.  She said that and the work environment at school took a toll on her emotionally in November 2011.

“I had a nervous breakdown, went to hospital and was put on medication,” said Hester, who has been on unpaid leave since November.

I greatly respect parents who are actively involved in their childs’ progress. However, if they ever raise concerns over a teacher, that teacher should be given the support and assurance they deserve.

Tags:, , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Social Media, Teacher Welfare | 1 Comment »

Stripping Summer Holidays and Lengthening School Days is Not a Solution

January 14, 2012

If I wasn’t a teacher I think I would have supported Michael Gove’s push for reduced summer vacation and longer school days. Non-teachers are quick to remind us teachers that our vacation time is too long and our contact hours are just as generous. These same people wouldn’t teach if their life depended on it!

Firstly, while it is true that are holidays are long, we teachers get burnt out by the demands of our job. As much as I love teaching, towards the end of a given term, I am crawling towards the finishing line. Teaching is such a physically and emotionally charged career, it is simply impossible to envisage a 4 week annual holiday like other professions experience.

Secondly, our working hours do not stop at the end of day bell. Unlike many other professions, teachers are expected to take their work with them. From planning and marking to writing reports, teachers are forever working. This includes night, weekends and yes, holidays!

Michael Gove seems to think that quality will come with quantity. I am not so sure:

The school day could be extended and summer holidays reduced, Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, said yesterday.

Under the proposals for the extended day, pupils could remain in school between 7.30am and 5.30pm and attend on Saturdays, with an extra two weeks potentially being added to school terms.

Over a five-year period, the extended hours would mean pupils gained as much as a year’s worth of extra education, allowing them to take vocational subjects in addition to their exam material.

Asked how this would affect teachers, he said: “If you love your job then there is, I think, absolutely nothing to complain about in making sure you have more of a chance to do it well.”

Mr Gove said the move would benefit “poorer children from poorer homes”, who “lose learning over the long summer holidays”.

Mr. Gove’s assertion that if teachers loved their jobs they would have nothing to complain about is quite insensitive and offensive. I love my job and do the best that I can. But I have limitations. I feel that if I was teaching in England, this proposal would burn me out earlier and more severely. I find it very sad that the Education secretary is so out of touch with teaching and the demands of a modern-day teacher.

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Teacher Welfare | 4 Comments »

Time To Shut Down Teacher Bullying Websites

December 22, 2011


I commend head teacher Andre Sohatski for not only standing up for himself and his reputation, but also for representing the downtrodden teachers and students victimised by scandalous bullying websites proliferating across the web.

Web sites like RateMyTeacher.com allow students to post salacious accusations and damaging insults. These sites, together with sites that allow students to slander other students such as Little Gossip  have been allowed to remain unhindered under the guise of freedom of speech.

Until now …

Andre Sohatski, headteacher of Priory School in Dorking, Surrey, took action after being told by his pupils that children were being targeted on the website Little Gossip with homophobic, racist and sexist abuse.

The site contains abusive and explicit messages written by schoolchildren that can be rated “true” or “false” by their peers. It allows them to name their “targets” but the user remains anonymous.

Mr Sohatski called for the site to be shut down and said it could cause “really big problems,” for children.

“I think it’s irresponsible. It is a form of internet bullying. Any kind of comment posted anonymously about somebody is basically unfair and sometimes cruel,” he said.

Police said they would investigate the US-based website, which has previously faced heavy criticism, and said the consequences of online bullying were “worrying”.

I am a big believer in the freedom of speech. I can accept that people have the right to vent about any professional within certain boundaries. When a student slanders another student or a teacher with homophobic, racist, sexist or defamatory insults it is fair to say those boundaries have been well and truly crossed.

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Bullying, Cyber Bullying, Teacher Welfare | Leave a Comment »

Parents Revolt Against Teacher Who Removed the Word “Gay” From Christmas Carol

December 8, 2011

The teacher who swapped the word “gay”with “bright” so that her class wouldn’t giggle during their rendition of “Deck the Halls” was always going to draw the ire of at least one parents. As much as she may have made the change with the best of intentions, I am sure if she had her time over, she wouldn’t have fiddled with the lyrics:

A Michigan teacher chose to censor the word ‘gay’ from the festive holiday tune ‘Deck the Halls’ and was met by a frosty response from parents.

Parents thought the Cherry Knoll teacher had been naughty and not so nice when the elementary instructor replaced ‘gay’ with ‘bright’ after her students wouldn’t stop laughing when they sang the word.

They took to the school’s Facebook page ranting about the teacher’s decision to change that word in the traditional holiday carol.

Cherry Knoll principal Chris Parker told 7&4 News in Traverse City that he was disappointed the music teacher decided to change the lyrics, saying she could have used the moment for a learning opportunity on tolerance.

‘This would have been a great opportunity to teach that “gay” has more than one meaning and is not a bad word,’ he said.

Enraged parents took to the school’s Facebook page, which has since been disabled, to voice their complaints over the word-swap.

A teacher’s poor choice is not the real story here. The real story is the way the parents handled the situation. Instead of confronting the school or teacher with their displeasure, they did what many parents are now choosing to do, and turned their disapproval into a large-scale Facebook campaign.

I have no doubt that a few quiet phone calls from concerned parents would have been sufficient to provoke this teacher to revert back to the original lyrics and make a profuse apology to all offended. Instead, this teacher had to contend with a barrage of negative comments on Facebook, and now, worldwide media coverage.

This sends a shocking message. It says that whenever parents are upset over the actions of a classroom teacher they can turn to Facebook for a fully fledged smear campaign. This amounts to bullying of the worse kind.

Teachers make mistakes. Some small, some huge. But no well-meaning teacher deserves to be pillaged on Facebook – ever!

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Social Media, Teacher Welfare | 2 Comments »

Crying in Front of Your Students

November 20, 2011

I have never cried in front of my students.  However, in my first years of teaching, there were times when I felt completely out of my element and had to keep my resolve and try by best to pull through.

I’ve just read a brilliant piece by Caitlin Hannon, a first year teacher, whose introduction to teaching reduced her to tears.  And who can blame her?

I broke a cardinal rule of teaching several times last year: I cried in front of my students.

Sometimes it happened out of frustration. Just as often, I was overcome during very honest conversations about the struggles my students face within and beyond the school building. At least twice the tears were brought on by uncontrollable laughter at a student’s joke.

As a first-year teacher, I figured tears (of some kind) were inevitable.

I knew I wanted to make a difference, and I thought that difference needed to start in the classroom — not in an office as a policymaker, with little or no connection to, and understanding of, what happens inside schools.

This desire, and my nontraditional education background, led me to Teach For America, a program that trains recent college graduates from various backgrounds to teach in public schools. I spent my first year teaching English at Tech High School, which served a predominantly low-income, minority population. This year, I am teaching seventh-grade language arts at Emma Donnan Middle School.

By the end of that first year, I realized that the life I’d changed the most was my own.

Who is prepared to read a child’s disclosure of abuse in a journal entry?

Who is an expert at helping a student handle the loss of several close family members in a bout of gang violence over the weekend?

I experienced both of these scenarios and more during my first year, and it’s hard to imagine a traditional route to the classroom making it any easier to deal with such heartbreak.

Above is just an excerpt of the article.  I encourage you to read the entire piece. It strengthens my long-held position, that teachers are not fully prepared for the rigours of a classroom due to the failings of the teacher training programs. I also feel that new teachers are left to their own devices when they really need a non-judgemental mentor to help show them the ropes and counsel them through the tough times.

Ms. Hannon may not have had her last cry at school, but her passion and teaching philosophy suggests that she is going to have a great future. Her students are going to be the great beneficiaries of her blood, sweat and, yes, tears …

 

Tags:, , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Teacher Training, Teacher Welfare | 6 Comments »

Teachers Stripped of the Ability to Give Punishments That Work

November 11, 2011

We are currently living in the age of “the hamstrung teacher’. Never has it been so hard for teachers to gain control, receive respect and maintain some semblance of authority.

Blogs and staff rooms are replete with dispirited and powerless teachers struggling with unruly and defiant students. It wasn’t long ago that teachers were able to meter out tough and effective consequences for bad behaviour. Unfortunately, it is so much harder now than it ever was to find the right penalty for inappropriate and insubordinate behaviour.

Why not send them to the Principal?

The Principal used to be an imposing figure. – someone you didn’t want to meet, even to get a certificate or compliment. Students used to avoid the Principal like a plague. Principal’s used to concern themselves with discipline issues and take charge when students overstepped the mark.  But nowadays a visit to the Principal’s office is not all that dissimilar to a trip to the fun park. A Principal’s job now is to keep parents and students happy and leave the real disciplining to the teachers.

“Next time try not calling the teacher those names.”

What about suspending them?

Nine hundred students are suspended every day in England. In Australia it is 100 per day. Being suspended used to be a humiliation. It would involve notifying the students’ parents, who would be none too happy to receive the phone call. Now suspensions presents just another opportunity to get back to the Playstation or X-Box. Parents often reassure their kids and allow them to go home and vegetate. Hardly a real punishment!

What about taking away their recess?

Don’t tell the civil libertarians about this mode of punishment! According to law, students can only be kept in for some of recess, not the entire playtime. And anyway, why should the teacher be punished? Teachers rely on their lunch breaks to recharge and re-energize. Monitoring detention just isn’t fair.

What about ringing the parents?

Parents used to be on the side of the teacher. When a teacher called a parent, that parent would take stock of what the teacher was saying and become partners in helping manage the problem. Nowadays, parents are likely to become defensive, make excuses and become unwitting enablers for their children’s poor behaviour.

Please note, that I am not tainting all parents. On the contrary, the parents I work with have been incredibly open and supportive. I am merely pointing out that trends are changing and punishments that used to make students squirm and think twice before acting, are now no longer a deterrent.

It is also important to note that most teachers are not trigger happy when it comes to punishments. We don’t like punishing students. We try to command respect rather than demand it. But there are times when all semblance of control is lost and students are purposely trying to sabotage the class and undermine their teacher.

In those cases, the teacher is often left to raise their arms skyward and ponder what it is they can do to remedy the situation.

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Classroom Management, Teacher Welfare | 4 Comments »

Addressing Teacher Burnout

November 4, 2011

Teacher burnout is a significant problem that strike even the very best of teachers.  Even the most passionate and dedicated of teachers struggle to see out a term out without getting sick or feeling extremely fatigued.

The question is, how do we address this problem?

Research shows the teaching profession has the highest burnout rate of any public service job. What can we do to keep the best and the brightest teachers in the classroom?

In April, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the American Institutes for Research (AIR) released the report, “Workplaces That Support High-Performing Teaching and Learning: Insights From Generation Y Teachers.”Gen Y teachers—that is, those under 30 years of age—account for at least one in five teachers in US classrooms today. They start out intending to make teaching a lifelong profession. However, according to the report, young teachers leave the profession at a rate 51 percent higher than older teachers and transfer to a different school at a rate 91 percent higher than their older colleagues. Studies also show that the national teacher-turnover rate costs school districts approximately $7 billion annually.

In the AFT/AIR report, young teachers say they want:

  • Feedback on their performance and to be evaluated in a fair way
  • Time to collaborate with their colleagues
  • Differentiated pay for high performance
  • Technology to provide engaging and effective lessons, as well as to support collaboration with other teachers through, for instance, videos and conferencing technology.

I agree with every point, but have a problem with the third one.  Whilst I believe Governments should look into a differentiated model of pay for high performers, I don’t believe such an initiative would have any bearing on cases of teacher burnout.

The list of proposed changes by young teachers above is most fair and reasonable.  If responded to, the outcomes could be quite positive all around.  It’s certainly time to better address teacher burnout.  It’s an issue that cannot be dismissed and will not go away.

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Teacher Welfare | 1 Comment »

The Teacher Blame Game Isn’t Fair

October 28, 2011

It seems to be more fashionable than ever to knock teachers.  Teachers are being dubbed as lazy and inept.

In truth it is easy to criticise teachers but very hard to be one.

We need more articles like this one by Patricia McGuire to defend teachers and set the record straight.

Yes, teachers should certainly be held accountable for excellence in teaching and for measurable results in the progress their students make each day. Teachers are on the front line of student learning assessment, since they really do know better than anyone else what makes a child successful or lackadaisical, engaged or detached in class. Standardized tests rarely measure the real progress that teachers make with some of the most challenging pupils whose learning styles are far off the normed curves.

The current fashion in education reform treats teachers as lazy slugs who care little about whether their students are learning anything. The assumption behind using standardized testing for teacher evaluation is that the only way to make teachers care about learning is to embarrass them publicly when their students do not perform according to someone else’s idea of norms. This assumption is what is truly preposterous!

For teachers who choose to devote their life’s work to some of the most difficult classrooms in America, such as here in the District of Columbia, the testing imperative becomes a monumental disincentive to stay in the classroom for any length of time, since the opportunities for sustained superior results on standardized tests are rare, while the risks of frequent subpar results are very high. It’s no secret that the widely-hailed Teach for America program has ingrained two-year turnover in its teaching corps. TFA teachers rarely stay to wrestle through the down years, which are frequent among students in marginalized communities.

Governments are so busy trying to find a negatively geared incentive for teachers and a scale that compares their effectiveness that they have lost sight of the most important pieces of the Education reform puzzle:

1.  Revolutionise teacher training programs to focus on the practical instead of the theoretical.

2. Have measures in place that allow all teachers (especially new teachers) the support they need.

3.  Spend more time critiquing schools with questionable cultures of bullying and harrasment.  Give these school’s the support they need to better handle their affairs.

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Teacher Training, Teacher Welfare | 2 Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »