Teacher Leadership Today

Will Retiring Teachers Take All They Know with Them?

Here's one of a dozen comments posted on a recent Teacher Magazine article contributed by the Teacher Leaders Network. "The Experience Factor" features several older teachers talking about why they continue to work in the classroom. The comment below was contributed by Anne Jolly, a former science teacher and Alabama teacher of the year. Read other TLN essays at Teacher here.

Do you know what I think the biggest problem is with the Baby Boomers retiring? I think it's the Mrs. Kellys of the teaching world.

Mrs. Kelly was a wonderful language arts teacher. Kids flocked to her like iron to a magnet. In her classroom, ordinary students morphed into creative geniuses who wrote amazing short stories and became eager readers. But Mrs. Kelly turned 65 and retired . . . and when she retired she took all of the knowledge, skill, and insight she'd developed over her 40-year teaching career with her.

During her long teaching career there was no regular time for her to share and work with other teachers. No regular time for teachers to meet, problem-solve, and learn with one another in teams. No opportunity for Mrs. Kelly to pass her wisdom to the current and new generation of teachers. How did Mrs. Kelly make such a difference for so many students? I taught three doors down from her, and I have no idea.

The problem with the retiring of the boomers is that such a considerable body of knowledge and skill retires with them. And that could be avoided if teachers worked together and grew together in teams throughout their careers. Looking at (a map of teachers over age 50), it's inevitable that lots of teachers will be retiring. What will they pass on to the generation who replaces them?

I remember cleaning out my room and meticulously organizing activities and lesson plans for the unknown teacher who would take my place. As I closed my classroom door for the last time, the knowledge and wisdom I'd gained during my teaching career rested in a dented metal file cabinet. It should have rested instead with caring colleagues, and incorporated into a collective body of knowledge about teaching and learning that we developed together as teachers.

Just think of the collective knowledge retiring in the next few years that we'll never know about.

Public School Insights: Uncommon Education Sense

Ever hunger for an education blog that puts reasonableness ahead of shock value? A blogger who's willing to examine all sides of an issue and present a nuanced view of education policy and school reform? If so, the Public School Insights blog, supported by the Learning First Alliance, will satisfy your appetite.

PSI offers a mix of podcasts and interviews with visionary educators, newsy feature stories, and opinion pieces written by blogkeeper Claus von Zastrow, LFA's executive director, that manage to be both balanced and fiercely pro- public education. PSI also features guest opinion pieces by teachers, including nearly a dozen written by members of the Teacher Leaders Network.

In addition, the Public School Insights website has built an ever-growing collection of articles under the banner School Success Stories. Some are original products; others are based on previously published stories that have been condensed and vetted by PSI staff. Here's a recent sample, describing the successful literacy program at a high-poverty elementary school serving a small fishing community on Alabama's Gulf Coast.

The Learning First Alliance, by the way, is a coalition of 20 or so major education associations—from NEA and AFT to the National School Boards Association and the PTA. This helps explain, perhaps, the extra effort to make all opinion pieces as fair and balanced as possible. But this balancing act has not kept von Zastrow from writing timely observations that are not only lively and thought-provoking but frequently produce stimulating follow-up comments from the blog's many followers.

If Public School Insights isn't in your sights on a daily basis, it should be.

Teaching in the 21st Century: EL continues to lead the pack

With its September issue focused on 21^st century learning, ASCD’s Educational Leadership has reaffirmed its status as the nation’s premiere professional magazine for educators and others interested in issues of teaching and learning.

The issue is chockful of articles presenting a variety of viewpoints about the “21^st Century Skills” debate and its implications for both students and teachers. The EL editors, as usual, also provide more practitioner-oriented pieces, like Marilee Sprenger’s “Focusing on the Digital Brain” and Susan Graseck’s “Teaching with Controversy.” Then there’s “21^st Century Scholars,” “The Students Have the Answers” and “Why Educators Should Care about Teaching with Games.” And many more.

This fall, ASCD is also offering a digital version of the magazine to members — it's a flip-thru interactive package with the graphics intact, complemented by active hyperlinks. Alone, it’s worth the price of admission, which can be as little as $29 a year for web-only membership.

Here’s the September Table of Contents. As always, a generous handful of articles are made available to the general public (something you won’t find at the sites of most other major education magazines) while others can only be accessed online by members.

This month’s public articles include:

What Would Socrates Say?

Peter W. Cookson Jr.

Do we need to craft a new model of education for the 21st century? It's a question worthy of Socrates.

The 21st Century Skills Movement

Paige Johnson

The chair of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills spells out goals.

21st Century Skills: The Challenges Ahead

Andrew J. Rotherham and Daniel Willingham

Why the 21st century skills movement could falter and key considerations that might strengthen it.

Why Creativity Now? A Conversation with Sir Ken Robinson

Amy M. Azzam

Creativity is a crucial skill, Sir Ken tells us.

21st Century Scholars

Terrence Clark

A district extends its school day, and the students applaud.

The Art and Science of Teaching / Six Steps to Better Vocabulary Instruction

Robert J. Marzano

Advice from the best practices guru.

Digitally Speaking / Taking the Digital Plunge

Bill Ferriter

New column by award-winning middle grades teacher

What Research Says About. . . / Encouraging Girls to Pursue Math and Science

Tracy A. Huebner

Use high-mastery teaching strategies.

These free articles are not included in the print issue but available on the Web:

Navigating the Cs of Change

J. Gregory McVerry, Lisa Zawilinski and W. Ian O'Byrne

Do your digital natives need instruction in reading online? Here's how to help. Includes a video of sample lessons.

How to Learn in the 21st Century

Rita Haugh Oates

Research tools have changed, necessitating new research skills.

Managing Messy Learning

Suzie Boss

To deliver on the promise of project-based learning, educators need project management strategies.

Leading for Global Competency

Fernando M. Reimers

How can we prepare the next generation for international understanding?

___________

ALSO: keep an eye on the ASCD Inservice blog during the month. Sometimes they feature an article and provide free access via the blog.)

Thanks, ASCD, for balancing membership needs and the organization’s public service mission and giving us all some thoughtful material to contemplate as the new school year begins.

The Times Are Always Changing

The issue: How has teaching changed in the last 25 years?

The date: On or about April 15, 2009

The setting: Three sagacious teaching veterans, representing nearly 80 years of teaching experience, are poised at their keyboards for a real-time interview orchestrated by some cutting-edge Web 2.0 software. No problem. Defying the digital immigrant stereotype, each weathered professional is an experienced blogger and cyber-networking enthusiast.

The interviewer: Teacher Magazine editor Anthony Rebora.

The participants: Anthony Cody (Oakland CA), Nancy Flanagan (Hartland MI) and Susan Graham (Winchester VA) -- all National Board Certified Teachers and members of the Teacher Leaders Network.

The first question: The recent MetLife Survey of the American Teacher, based on a comparison to past surveys, found that teacher satisfaction has increased markedly over the past 25 years. Has this been your impression? What do you think accounts for the change?

Here’s a snippet from each teacher’s response:

Flanagan: Teachers have more and better guidelines for teaching now—the standards movement and the spotlight on state curriculum benchmarks have made what to teach clearer… In a small town…(w)e had a stable teaching force, good materials, and were able to hire selectively… Most teachers I know are happier—the job feels more structured, but in a good way.

Cody: I honestly found myself a bit mystified by that result. Perhaps that is because I am working in an urban district, where the survey found consistently less satisfaction and optimism. In my district we have a pretty high turnover rate, about 20 percent a year, and No Child Left Behind has made a lot of teachers feel huge pressure to do test prep.

Graham: In my own situation I sometimes hear veteran teachers longing for "the good old days" when they felt they had stronger connections to the community (before we) moved from a small rural/suburban to a metroplex suburban system over the last 15 years... (I)t does surprise me that teachers feel better. Could it be that while we are expected to have high expectations for student performance, we might have lower expectations for our own work place satisfaction?

Read their complete answers and their responses to other key questions inspired by the recently released 25th anniversary Survey of the American Teacher, at this Teacher Magazine webpage. You can join the conversation by contributing to the Comments section, which already features some meaty replies by other teaching veterans.

Image: cover of Time Magazine, October 10, 1983

Still Ready to Rock and Roll

In a fresh post at her A Place at the Table blog (Teacher Magazine), TLN Forum member Susan Graham highlights a new report urging America not to waste the advanced skills and knowledge of veteran teachers. Her post is appropriately titled “Not Ready for the Rocking Chair” and it perfectly captures the feelings of so many 50- and 60-something teachers whose spirit is strong even if their stamina is faltering a bit. Sample this excerpt:

Here's a finding [from the report] worth mulling over:

At the end of their careers, accomplished veterans who still have much to contribute are being separated from their schools by obsolete retirement systems.

I’m one of those highly accomplished Baby Boomer teachers. I love working with my students. I love working with new teachers. I love working with colleagues in staff development. I love writing and researching. I love being a keeper of institutional knowledge for my school and my school system. I love developing my professional skills with experiences such as the Santa Cruz mentor training. My own children are grown, my personal life is in order, my professional network is strong, my knowledge is current, and my skills are refined by practice. I’m not ready to quit. I’m ready to do more.

I'm ready to take on new challenges, but I find that there are few options at this point in my career. Those of us who chose to stay in the classroom in our 30s are now expected to stay in our classrooms in our 50s. But by limiting how we are used, school systems fail to realize the full return on their investment in skilled classroom practitioners….

In the meantime I dream of being a teacher coach. I fantasize about using those mentoring skills to support new teachers in their classroom as they find their teaching stride and teacher voice. I dream about working with practicing teachers as they move from competent to accomplished. I imagine being there on the sidelines as other teachers discover the excitement and satisfaction of professional leadership.

Be sure to read it all. With nearly a third of American teachers expected to retire in the next four years, we should be asking ourselves how we might convince the best and brightest Baby Boomers to stick around and support the best and brightest New Century teachers.

Teaching Then and Now

To celebrate the 25th anniversary publication of its widely followed annual teacher poll, the MetLife Foundation compared responses from its most recent survey (2008) with teacher views offered in the survey’s early years.

As Teacher Magazine reports, “For the most part…the trend lines are encouraging, even surprising in some cases. The percentage of teachers saying that they are very satisfied with their careers has increased from 40 in 1984 to 62 in 2008, while more teachers today (66 percent) feel respected by society than did their counterparts in 1984 (47 percent).” [Download a PDF of The MetLife Survey of the American Teacher: Past, Present, and Future]

Other survey findings reported by Teacher's Anthony Rebora:

Perhaps even more provocatively, the percentage of teachers agreeing that they can earn a “decent salary” has nearly doubled since 1984, to 66 percent, and far more teachers today (75 percent, compared to 45 percent in 1984) say they would recommend a career in teaching to a young person.

In addition, two thirds of today’s teachers affirm that they were well-prepared for the profession, compared to 46 percent in 1984. Teachers also feel better equipped today than in past years when it comes to addressing student-learning challenges such as poverty, limited English language proficiency, and lack of parental support, according to the report.

The number of teachers who rate the academic standards in their school as excellent, meanwhile, has doubled from 26 percent in 1984 to 53 percent today, and 89 percent of teachers say their school’s curriculum is excellent or good, compared to 81 percent in 1984.

Not all the news was good. Some longstanding challenges have increased. Today, half (49%) of teachers say that poverty hinders learning for at least a quarter of their students, compared to 41% in 1992. More teachers (43%) agree that their classes have become so mixed in terms of students’ learning abilities that they can’t teach effectively, compared to 39% in 1988. The survey also found that few teachers (perhaps 25%) are making regular use of the Internet’s interactive potential in their teaching or their own professional development, a finding explored by TLN blogger Bill Ferriter in a February 25 post.

So what do you think? Do these results match your own reality?

Building with Straw

Wikipedia has a succinct definition of "straw man" --

A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "set up a straw man," one describes a position that superficially resembles an opponent's actual view, yet is easier to refute. Then, one attributes that position to the opponent. For example, someone might deliberately overstate the opponent's position. While a straw man argument may work as a rhetorical technique—and succeed in persuading people—it carries little or no real evidential weight, since the opponent's actual argument has not been refuted.

In my view, this describes to a "T" the recent attacks on Stanford professor Linda Darling-Hammond by Kathleen Madigan of the Pioneer Institute and her allies, over many months now, to the detriment of any united action among education reform-minded Democrats who need to find more common ground around their shared commitment to assure quality schools for high-needs students. Darling-Hammond, who led President Obama's transition team for education prior to the Inauguration, has (probably wisely) decided to withdraw from the fray and return to her work at Stanford.

In a effort not to add to the heap of straw bales already crowding the reform field , I'll leave it to readers to peruse the following selection of posts and decide for themselves whether Darling-Hammond has been used to divide Democrats and isolate those who disagree with the political positions represented by Madigan and others. A useful guiding question: Whose best interests are in whose hearts?

Kathleen Madigan: A Repackaged Education Proposal (Boston Globe Op-ed, 2/14)
L. Darling-Hammond: Knowledge, Skills Are Not Mutually Exclusive Goals (Boston Globe letter, 2/20)
A Convenient Bogeyman (Public School Insights, 2/20)
Linda Darling-Hammond Gives Props to Core Knowledge (Core Knowledge Blog, 2/20)
Diane Ravitch: In Education, The New Administration Is As Ruinous As The Old (Arena/Politico, 2/21)
The Future of Education Policy, If Darling-Hammond Has Her Way (Gotham Schools, 1/22)
Tom Toch: Darling-Hammond Unbound (The Quick and the Ed, 12/4)

-- john norton

A Day of Reflection

To celebrate the inauguration of President Barack Obama, our friends at the Public School Insights blog are featuring comments by Congressman John Lewis, a Freedom Rider during the early days of America's Civil Rights Movement and a close colleague of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

(photo: Lewis to right of King at the 1964 New York Summit of civil rights leaders.)

"Schools at all levels should let this be a day of reflection, a day of learning, and a day of service," Lewis told PSI's Claus Von Zastrow. "Dr. King said we all can be great because we all can serve."

Public School Insights and the Learning First Alliance have put together a rich collection of resources and activities in connection with Inauguration Week and the upsurge of interest in civic involvement by K-12 students. See, for example, this interview with middle school teacher Sally Broughton, winner of the American Civic Education Award and Montana's current state Teacher of the Year.

Media Literacy: The Beer Bowl

Marin Institute, the self-described "alcohol industry watchdog," is sponsoring a Free the Bowl contest which invites students aged 13-20 to submit their own anti-beer TV ads to bring attention to the overwhelming presence of alcohol advertising during the annual Super Bowl.

"Sound research and common sense tell us that the more often youth are exposed to alcohol advertising, the more likely they are to drink and drink to excess, says Marin executive director Bruce Livingston. According to Livingston, researchers estimate that 10.7 million underage youth drink alcohol and 7.2 million of them binge drink, at a cost of $60 billion annually. More than 30 million underaged youth will view the Super Bowl, says a Marin press release.

The Free the Bowl contest (rules here) offers prizes, including a 13" MacBook with Final Cut editing software.It also offers opportunities to raise student awareness of media messages aimed at shaping their behavior. Frank Baker, a media literacy educator and consultant, has a page of ideas about Using Super Bowl Ads in the Classroom that will be updated throughout the Super Bowl season. Media literacy is also a 21st century skill and a curriculum standard in many states, and Baker's Media Literacy Clearinghouse is an excellent resource.

The deadline for entries in the Free the Bowl contest is January 25, with winners announced on Super Bowl Sunday. Here's a sample ad done by students, to help get your students' ideas flowing.

Launchpad to College

Amid a growing discussion about whether America is too focused on college-going at a time of rising tuition and a foggy white-collar job market, the College Summit organization is tacking in the opposite direction. A new report argues that “America must redefine the purpose of high school to create schools that students experience not as destinations, but as launch pads for college and career success.”

The report -- given support at a recent Aspen Institute panel discussion by education notables like Linda Darling-Hammond, co-director of the Stanford University School Redesign Network; Jon Schnur, Founder and CEO of New Leaders for New Schools; Matt Gandal, Executive Vice President of Achieve; and Susan Traiman, Director of Education and Workforce Policy at the Business Roundtable – proposes that the development of a college-going culture in low-income high schools is the surest way to solve the dropout rate.

“The strongest motivator for students to work hard in high school is their future,” say the report’s authors. “In order to raise graduation rates, we must ensure that all students experience high school not as a final destination, but as a launch pad to their college and career success.”

Darling-Hammond has identified one policy recommendation from the report -- training in college planning – as the most critical. "You need to teach students and parents how to engage this pathway and pursue it; it doesn't just happen," she told Education Daily. "It has to be explicit."

Darling-Hammond, who is leading President-elect Obama’s education transition team, suggested providing more federal support for schools to include structures to build college-going culture.

"Part of the mind-shift for teachers is to say, 'You are responsible for students, not subjects' . . . but also to put the support structures in place to make that possible," she said.

You can download the report (or a summary) and hear a podcast of the panel discussion at the College Summit website. For a very lively discussion of whether college-going should be the ultimate goal of all high school graduates, see this recent blog post by TLN Forum member Anthony Cody at the Teacher Magazine website. Don't miss the many comments, including some back and forth between Cody and Kilian Betlach, of Teaching in the 408 blog fame, now working as a policy associate for Education Trust West.