Veenema: Unbound: Lost in Old Lyme: Malloy's Misunderstandings: "Malloy also demonstrates a misunderstanding that teachers, if they just have the right training, can manage all of the complex variables that create a successful student. At one point during the meeting there seemed to be a chance that Malloy was going to admit that there are variables for student success beyond an educator's control. He quieted the crowd by saying that he granted teachers the fact that there aren't good parents out there, but then quickly followed up this statement by saying that "these bad parents went through our education system too," putting the blame back on the education system—teachers—for perpetuating a culture of failure."
'via Blog this'
What might be deemed as "the breaking point" for most educators in the meeting, and perhaps demonstrates most clearly a misunderstanding of what teachers currently do, was in response to Malloy speaking about his efforts to create a system of evaluation that helps teachers improve. He spoke of a current system where we reach June and "we bemoan some of our" failures from the year, and "then we don't change our behaviors." Whatever he might have said after that was immediately droned out by outcry from the public school teachers in the crowd including a woman who repeatedly yelled, "shame on you!" Personally, I laughed in amazement. To me, this statement is perhaps the clearest indicator that this current political effort to reform education is not being created from a party that understands the nature of an overwhelming number of teachers in the profession. I haven't met one teacher yet that has not engaged in reflection over the summer months. Most teachers I know reflect on a daily basis about the effectiveness of their lessons. In fact, it is sometimes difficult to make it through one friendly outing with a group of teachers without someone talking about something they are thinking about for their classes. Claiming otherwise demonstrates a misunderstanding of the nature of the profession and the current quality and potential of the people who have already elected to enter it.
ReplyDelete