gets worthwhile consideration:
FIRST YEAR TEACHERS ABOVE ALL MUST KNOW TO AVOID 2ND FLOOR BATHROOM
On her first day as a high school English teacher in a large urban public school, a new teacher expected to be greeted by the principal or chairperson, guided to her classrooms and provided with what she considered to be the essentials (schedule, curriculum, rosters and keys), writes an anonymous second-year teacher for American Educator.
Instead, she was provided with only a piece of paper with two numerical codes and a warning not to use the women's bathroom on the second floor. After frantic inquiries, she learned that the codes signified that she would be teaching 9th and 10th grade English. She then asked a question that, two years later, has yet to be answered: "what is taught in 9th and 10th grade English?"
In response, all she received was a list containing more than 20 books per grade and was told to select six books from the appropriate list and teach one book every six weeks. As her colleagues scrambled to inspect their classrooms, one experienced teacher kindly informed the neophyte that they wouldn't receive books for the first month, so she should try to do poetry. This led to the inevitable and also unanswered question: "what does 'do' poetry mean?"
Before she had a chance to find out, her students arrived eager to know what was expected. So she reproduced the same vague responses that she was given. She felt sorry for her students that day and each day after because this was not the education they were intended to receive.
When she hears the commonly cited statistic, that roughly 40 to 50 percent of new teachers leave the profession within five years, she wonders how many of those departures could be avoided if teachers were provided with clear and achievable expectations.
http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/issues/spring2008/newteacher.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment