Confessions of a Bad Teacher(nytimes.com)

14 pointsby jhullvor 14 Jahren2 comments

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/opinion/sunday/confessions-of-a-bad-teacher.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

2 comments

A key problem of many of the school-reform/accountability/etc. initiatives lately seems to be that they're cumulative: a new way of assessing teachers or schools or curricula is added in addition to existing methods, with no real effort to make sure that they're consistent with each other or mutually satisfiable. Hence you can get someone who's simultaneously too assertive in the classroom, not assertive enough, a bad teacher, and a teaching-award nominee.

Special-ed classes often seem to fit awkwardly into the schemes as well.

timwojvor 14 Jahren

My wife just went through a lot of this. She's been teaching for 8 years, the first 7 of those at one school. A few years ago that school got a new principal. She went from being one of the top performing teachers based on evaluations to the bottom of the list. This isn't because she's a bad teacher, but because she and the principal didn't get along. At the end of last year, she quit that job and got a new position in a new district. First evaluation this year? Right back to the top again.

On top of that, the new district has a completely different outlook on how to deal with parents amongst other things. The old school and district would bend over backward for parents even if they were completely in the wrong. The new district will at least try to take an objective view of any issues, including input from the teacher.

What does that do for a teacher's morale? I know a number of teachers from that old school who were great teachers, but quit to do other things because they didn't want to deal with the BS anymore. My wife was nearly one of those, but she knew that it wasn't her that was the problem.