Mari_Country Comparisons, Changing things One WF at a Time

Country Comparisons Blog

So far in Flat World, Linda Darling-Hammond has painted a picture of national despair.  The U.S. is failing because of our culturally diverse nation, desire for a more relaxes teaching atmosphere, too many standardized tests and our lacking teaching professionalism.  Is this “fair”?  As an American teacher and product of the American educational system, I would say no.  I take pride in being a teacher who was taught by and teaches in the system.  This does not mean that there is not room for improvement. 

The suggestions hinted at by Hammond are to:

1) Give more “Professionalism” to American Teachers

2) Understand that high stakes testing that is tied to performance and pay is not highly motivating, instead is distressing

3) Help teachers to become better before they graduate from college and then continue their education post graduation

What can I do with this information?  I cannot change an entire institution or educational system.  Instead I have to find the little thing that can be influenced by a rural Idaho teacher. There are suggestions that a teacher can make 1) relevant opportunities for professional development 2) strong curriculum and course suggestions that are not teaching to a test but increasing the critical thinking and higher order questioning skills of our students.  Teachers can talk to their department chairs (if in a school that large), principals, and district curriculum directors about quality professional development.  Hammond says on page 226:

Unlike the typically ineffective one-shot workshops that proliferate, effective professional development is sustained, ongoing, content-focused, and embedded in professional learning communities where teachers work over time on problems of practice with other teachers in their subject area or school. 

What does this look like? It means not having veteran teachers take Harry Wong’s First Day of School or Marzano Strategies that work (for the 5^th time).  It could also mean not having Social Studies and Foreign Language teachers taking MTI courses or Scientific Reasoning.  Instead, give teachers opportunities to learn about quality teaching practices: Socratic Seminar, Interactive Notebooks, Inquiry based lessons, etc that will not just benefit their teaching content but their general teaching practices.  This is the key difference between the US and other nations, we teach our content first and skills second.  The rest of the world finds more value in skills and content second. 

            Teachers can also work on increasing their professionalism within communities by dressing professionally at work, representing their schools and communities with pride and not talking down upon them within the community.  Speaking within our teacher groups about situations okay as long as we are practicing restraint, speaking poorly about the district we work in while in the same town is not okay because this is showing that as professionals we are not content and are lacking in school pride. 

            What can we learn from the rest of the world? As a teacher in Idaho, I feel that I can learn how important it is to advocate for myself in my schools.  I need to advocate for quality professional development for not just myself, but my department and my colleagues district wide.  I need to take the research from these top performing districts to department collaborations and say what are we already doing that is similar and what can we realistically start to do within our department.  It is not about making huge changes overnight.  It is about making small meaningful changes that will aid our diverse struggling school. 

I am optimistic that we can compete in this global educational world, we can start the change from “natural resources centered” to communities that are seeing the need for “educationally centered” ways of thought.  We don’t need to start on a national level, but instead start locally and see meaningful changes there.  We can start changing education, one Wright Fellow at a time!