We should open the schools, but with younger teachers.

[ZNP]

My students are 98% Hispanic from a very low income community. Many are struggling with the virtual classroom.

I teach inner city Brooklyn. We have a very high poverty index for our school, and a very high English as a second language. Being computer savvy is going to be a requirement for anyone in HS today. There are many advantages for students whose language skills are poor. First, with a computer lesson you can stop it and replay as often as you need. Second, I make the words visible, which makes it easier for someone learning the language. Third, you can have a rollover image that will translate the text, and fourth, since the kids are on the computer they can have google translate opened on another tab.

 

[Caliban]

I teach inner city Brooklyn. We have a very high poverty index for our school, and a very high English as a second language. Being computer savvy is going to be a requirement for anyone in HS today. There are many advantages for students whose language skills are poor. First, with a computer lesson you can stop it and replay as often as you need. Second, I make the words visible, which makes it easier for someone learning the language. Third, you can have a rollover image that will translate the text, and fourth, since the kids are on the computer they can have google translate opened on another tab.

Our students were 1-1 with a Chromebook long before the COVID situation, they are good with the tech. I'm good with it too, but some of our older teachers are having to spend a great deal of time learning these new skills. I have head a few talk about retirement. Maybe that is just the frustration speaking, but then maybe not. This could make the existing teacher shortage worse. I am afraid of an influx of unprepared teachers who may not be a good fit for already struggling students. Attracting new, highly effective, teachers after this may be rough.

 

[mama2one]

redundant

 

[ZNP]

Our students were 1-1 with a Chromebook long before the COVID situation, they are good with the tech. I'm good with it too, but some of our older teachers are having to spend a great deal of time learning these new skills. I have head a few talk about retirement. Maybe that is just the frustration speaking, but then maybe not. This could make the existing teacher shortage worse. I am afraid of an influx of unprepared teachers who may not be a good fit for already struggling students. Attracting new, highly effective, teachers after this may be rough.

The material I have created can be shared with every other science teacher in NY state that teaches Earth Science or Chemistry. For example, we have another science teacher who teaches Living Environment and they had him teach 1 class of Earth Science. This is out of his license and he admittedly knew very little about Earth Science. I shared my lessons with him online, and even though his LE classes score lower than the state average, his ES class scored around the top 20% of the State. I handled the Lab Practical for both of our classes and was very impressed with how well they were prepared for it, so I asked the students what they had done and they all said they had just done my assignments with their teacher.

Everyone knows that the two biggest factors for a new teacher is developing your curriculum and learning classroom management. With a blended class classroom management is much easier (I am anticipating class sizes of 10 students or less this fall) and if you were given a complete curriculum then that problem is also solved.

 

[mama2one]

redundant

 

[ZNP]

The thing I really like about online learning is that it levels the playing field. You need access to the internet, but if you have it then you can get essentially the same lessons as anyone else.

 

[mama2one]

.

 

[grasping the after wind]

Accountability is part of the equation, the most significant change should be recruiting brilliant college students from universities. However, the most brilliant want to make more money. How do we attract the best teachers on a current teacher's salary?

By looking for people that have the ability and desire to teach, not looking for the brilliant. Being brilliant is a nice thing and makes it easier to become wealthy or do well whatever one finds interesting but does not necessarily make one a good teacher. Just as the most talented athletes often make the worst coaches, people that find reasoning and questioning to come naturally to them are not equipped or patient enough to understand what it takes to motivate and help an average student to gain the abilities needed to think critically. The brilliant are more likely to not understand the average person's difficulties and believe that a student should just be able to do what they do. I think that, under the current system of education in the US only some people have the ability to function at a high level. That is due to the way the classroom is structured while others , through no fault of their own, are hampered because of the structure and unable to perform at as high a level as they would if the structure were different. It is impossible for students to get an optimum education as the classroom in every case is too tied to the style and philosophy of the individual teacher in that classroom which may resonate with a percentage of the students but also be a hindrance to another percentage.

 

[mama2one]

teachers with Master's degrees do make more

 

[grasping the after wind]

the teachers with Master's degrees do make more

one relative of ours interviewed several places & went with highest pay since she has Master's and one of few in state who has some special designation

I don't know how it works elsewhere but in NY State the more higher education the more one is paid. Begins with BA as low end entry level salary. One is required to get to a certain level before one gets full tenure but going above that level will bring a higher salary. Way back when, I was told by my adviser not to pursue anything above a BA until after being hired because some administrators would discriminate against candidates with an MA or MS not wanting to pay that higher amount to an untested teacher. Do not know if that was the case or if it is now but when one is young and gullible one believes what one is told by authority figures.

 

[Caliban]

By looking for people that have the ability and desire to teach, not looking for the brilliant. Being brilliant is a nice thing and makes it easier to become wealthy or do well whatever one finds interesting but does not necessarily make one a good teacher. Just as the most talented athletes often make the worst coaches, people that find reasoning and questioning to come naturally to them are not equipped or patient enough to understand what it takes to motivate and help an average student to gain the abilities needed to think critically. The brilliant are more likely to not understand the average person's difficulties and believe that a student should just be able to do what they do. I think that, under the current system of education in the US only some people have the ability to function at a high level. That is due to the way the classroom is structured while others , through no fault of their own, are hampered because of the structure and unable to perform at as high a level as they would if the structure were different. It is impossible for students to get an optimum education as the classroom in every case is too tied to the style and philosophy of the individual teacher in that classroom which may resonate with a percentage of the students but also be a hindrance to another percentage.

That isn't what I meant by brilliant. I did not suggest schools should hire people who were simply brilliant in their field of study, but of a high intellectual ability overall. Do you want a brilliant attorney? How about a doctor? We should be recruiting highly intelligent and effective people. We should be pulling from of pool of brilliant people who might otherwise become lawyers and doctors. That will take more money and a change in the public perception of educators. Is it any wonder why people don't want to be a teacher today?

 

[mama2one]

people don't want to be teachers today because it's not JUST teaching anymore

it's being a social worker, also

 

[Caliban]

people don't want to be teachers today because it's not JUST teaching anymore

it's being a social worker, also

I am a person who is a bit left of center politically. I was a conservative for most of my adult life. I have anecdotally observed (in California) that the people who leave teaching or voice their opinion about not wanting to teach, are usually more conservative. Teaching is now often framed as social justice work. This is a turn-on for the more liberally minded and often a turn-off for the dispositionally conservative. I think we need a healthy blend of both.