X-Envelope-to: POLITICS@OHSTVMA.BITNET
X-VMS-To: WVNET::IN%"POLITICS@OHSTVMA.BITNET"
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Sat, 12 Sep 1992 11:04:58 -0400
From:         KILBURN@WVSVAX.WVNET.EDU
Subject:      Re: read my lips: I have family values

Hi, again :)

>Teacher input is a nice idea, but part of the problem is that the
>majority of a teacher's efforts these days is wrapped up in paperwork.
>Teacher's *don't* have autonomy in the classroom because the
>administrators and the teachers' unions keep telling them how to
>teach, regardless of what works.

See?  That's the kind of input I mean -- real teachers talking about what
they need to do the job they're supposed to do.  I'm also thinking of a PBS
special I watched, in which one teacher complained of being treated by her
administration as though she were a child:  she had to ask permission to
take chalk out of the storage cabinet, for crying out loud!  Another thing
I've heard is that teachers in some areas are spending increasing amounts
of time and energy acting as surrogate parents and psychologists -- trying
to put enough bandaids on their students' emotional and mental injuries to
begin to make learning a possibility.  One of my friends has been known to
pack lunches for her students, to buy them combs and toothbrushes, to make
sure they had shoes . . .

Surely this kind of information is *at least* as useful to us as theories
and models developed by folks who've never spent significant time in real
classrooms.

>Teachers who go beyond the call of duty and spend extra time with
>students, *teaching* them should be rewarded and appreciated.  Right
>now, they are just given more administrative and committee work, which
>reduces the amount of time they can actually spend *teaching.*

Ain't it the truth!  But there's an element of value in faculty
participation in administration.  After all, one of the problems we seem to
recognize is that school administrations are not always responsive to the
needs of the teachers.  And I'm pretty sure my child's teacher knows more
about what my child needs than does her principal.  So here's another area
for improvement:  we need to figure out ways for faculty to have some
responsibility for establishing policy, but to do so without adding to
their workload in ways that detract from actual teaching.

I wish my college's president could figure that one out :)

Kerry
p.s.: just an example of the importance of faculty participation -- and
also of what can happen when folks really work together. . . My aunt is
director of special programs in Fairfax County schools (hi, Tim :)).  When
the "assessment" and "performance evaluation" bugs bit, teachers and
administrators from across the county got together to work out ways by
which teaching could *really* be evaluated effectively.  It took them a
year or two (I don't remember which), but they developed a really good
system of annual review against concrete performance standards -- standards
that actually reflect the educational goals of the system.  Because the
whole thing was worked out with lots of participation, consensus was the
name of the game, and the program itself is widely supported.
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU