In response to the post about the “irreplaceables,” in which the New Teacher Project claims that an average first-year teacher is more effective than 40 percent of teachers with seven or more years of experience, teachers are asking the inevitable questions.
Why is education the only field in which experience is undesirable? In what other line of work would a first-year practitioner be considered better than those with years of experience? When you go to a hospital, do you want to see a doctor or a first-year intern or, for that matter, a new college graduate with no medical training at all?
And this:
| If a first year teacher is more effective than one with seven years, what happens when that first year teacher has seven years? Does she too become ineffectual? I have been teaching for 16 years and know I am definitely better now than I was then. I also believe I will continue to get better with each passing year. This is nonsense. |
Diane Ravitch's blog 
When my daughter was very young she had appendicitis. A new doctor told her she could eat, but was then overruled by a nurse. She was twice diagnosed incorrectly and overruled by senior doctors, who removed her appendix that very night. Had that not happened, her appendix could have burst and there could have been far more serious consequences.
The notion that teachers, unlike absolutely everyone else, do not continually learn from experience and one another is absurd on its face. Depriving students and new teachers of voices of experience is certainly not the work of anyone who values children first, let alone at all.
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This is so laughable if it weren’t being taken seriously. The first year is always the hardest for teachers, and they more often than not don’t really know what they are doing. They are just trying to survive that first year.
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I am in such AWE that Rhee and her cohorts can come up with such researched, statistical data. To make it even more awesome, is the notion that the current education reformers are really listening to and even believing every word Rhee and cohorts have to say.
Anyone in research knows statistics don’t lie but statisticians have the innate ability to “make statistics” say what they want them say.
Are we “playing with numbers” and doing to Education what the owners of Enron did?
How soon until it catches up with these reformers?
How many more veteran teachers will depart or be run out of the profession due to these atrocious, statistical, nightmarish numbers?
How many children must undergo these statistical nightmares before the Nation wakes up?
And, how many of our children will be affected and effected by these not-so-laughable, statistically generated falsehoods?
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“I am in such AWE that Rhee and her cohorts can come up with such researched, statistical data.”
They are all well schooled in the arts of deception (cue “Sympathy for the Devil” by the Rolling Stones: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLddJ1WceHQ ). Lies, falsehoods, deceptions and prevarications are their tools of trade.
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This post hit home for me.
I actually think I did my best teaching my first (2) years as a teacher. However, part of the reason behind that is the fact that due to budget cuts I lost that first job and had to go to a continuation high school where I was teaching 4 preps in one class period and changing my curriculum every quarter for the two years I was there to try and get meaningful work out of the kids. Then, I transferred to the comprehensive high school I’m at now and have had to change preps each year.
I find, that for me, it’s hard to feel like there is measurable growth (I know I have gotten better as a teacher, but it doesn’t feel like it) when you aren’t allowed to improve upon what you did the year before.
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This is so true! Education is the only field in which people (i.e., teachers) are moved around like chess pawns, often at the whim of
administrators. Would a law firm tell a lawyer who specialized in real estate law to switch to labor law? Would a hospital or medical group tell a gastroenterologist to become an ob/gyne? And yet, we have teachers (like me–duly certified, in numerous areas–because I taught special ed. and I continued to take classes so that I could better help my students in the evolving world of disabilities, inclusion,
RTI, etc.) who are moved from early childhood classes to middle
school, because, “Oh, you are such a wonderful teacher–you could teach anyone!” And, then, when you are not quite the teacher they cracked you up to be, they criticize you, make your life miserable (and this from other teachers!), and–instead of placing you back in the job for which you trained and were extremely successful in–they
transfer you somewhere else because NO ONE “wanted” to teach
that class in that school! (This was successfully fought–and won!–
thanks to the union contract!) Further, in the last job (which lasted
twenty years), it took at least three years to gain the expertise.
Lucky for all concerned that it stretched to seventeen more. What a
gain for the students and parents!
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Anndee,
“I find, that for me, it’s hard to feel like there is measurable growth”
I hope that you are beginning to realize that the teaching and learning process is not “measurable”. And your professional growth cannot be logically “measured”. Please, quit beating yourself over the head with the false paradigm that is the “measuring teaching and learning” meme. The sooner you realize that and focus exclusively on a constant self reflection (daily, hourly, minute by minute, second by second) on your own practices without the need to be “authenticated” by others, the sooner you will get to becoming a true master teacher. Now if you need help or have questions go to the most experienced teachers and ask for help. You may be lucky to have an administrator to talk to but more likely than not they’re as inexperienced as you and will have the wrong answers.
Just my two cents worth!
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Duane,
Thank you for your words, but I’m not often frustrated with my growth as a teacher because outside sources have put in their two cents; that is not why it hit home. I usually get very good evaluations and such. I’m not worried about how I appear as a teacher, so much as often feeling like I never get a chance to learn and grow from what I did with students one year, to the next.
While my growth can not be logically measured. It can be emotionally and abstractly measured with how I feel. In the last few years, I find it hard to see where I have grown. As I said before, I think part of that problem is the willy nilly shuffling of preps from year-to-year with a handful of us in the department. You’ll teach 11th this year, and then we’re switching you to 10th, and then to 10th honors and 11th, and then, and then, and then…I don’t think teachers should always have the same prep their entire career (in fact I think switching it up on occasion is a good thing), but I think teachers should be able to at least have a few years at a prep master it.
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This is their way of silencing experienced teachers who know better than to believe the junk they are selling. I’m only a fourth year teacher and know that I’m 100% better than I was my first year. Your first year is a whirlwind and you just try to keep your head above water so you don’t drown.
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Is it possible to tell the difference between a first year teacher and a more experienced one at the end of the day? You betcha! Does that first year teacher have a smile on their face at the end of the year? You betcha! They survived. Does the experienced teacher have a smile at the end of the year? You betcha! They helped each other!
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I think the question we need to ask is- What was your sample set? As a teacher from a small city in Ohio, I resent Michelle Rhee making statements about my teaching based on a small sample set from inner city schools hundreds of miles away. The next question is- What sort of administrative support did these “poor experienced teachers” receive?
Dear Michelle- You came from northwest Ohio. Why don’t you come back and talk to some of us? Talk to the many outstanding public school teachers who do great things every day. The one thing we have here is support. We support each other as fellow teachers where there is no or little administrative support. We can identify strengths in each other when YOU and so many others try to beat us down. When, due to your example, administrators tell teachers that, as a building, they are broken, we are able to look at each other and lift each other up again. That is what makes great teachers. We also have parents who support us, in spite of our administrators. Did your sample set have this?
It is disheartening to speak with younger teachers this summer. They are away from each other, and many are not looking forward to the new school year. Why should they? When they come together for convocation day, they will be put down by their administrators, told they are broken, and need to change or get out. Who, in any job, would want to work under those conditions? But they will. And when the administrators are gone, the teachers will again lift each other up, and remember why they are there- for the children. They will squeeze in ‘real teaching’ in between testing teaching, when the administrators aren’t looking. What part of this looks like freedom, or the United States I grew up in?
How different would our country be if all of us and our children saw our leaders complimenting each other rather than bullying each other. What if they could model working together for all of us? And isn’t it sad that this will never be anything but a dream?
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