Are we irrelevant teachers? Read my first blog!

“Are we doing what is best for our students, or are we doing what is most convenient for us?”

I feel like many of us have been getting to comfortable in the way we teach. There are many teachers that are "old school" and feel that all these changes required by our lawmakers and administrators are pure nonsense. I was overhearing a conversation between a first year teacher and a seasoned teacher and as the seasoned teacher complained about all the new things we had to do she asked the new teacher what was her take on all this. The new teacher replied, "Well, this is all I know, so for me it is what I have to do and probably I don't see it as any different than how you saw what you were required to do when you first started." Great answer!

I have only been teaching for 7 years, but when I finally was starting to get comfortable in what I was doing, our lawmakers decided that it was time for change. Wow! It has been very overwhelming for a lot of us! We are required to do so much more than what we used to. Not that we weren't working hard aready! A lot of teachers are wondering how all these new teacher evaluations required by Florida schools are really helping our students.

I always felt that I was going above and beyond with my students by trying to do activities that challenged them and made them think critically. Recently, Orange County Public Schools have added STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) projects to our curriculum. These are great for students and they help them become better problem solvers and critical thinkers. I feel like these projects are only a small step in the right direction, because overall we have a long way to go. As far as technology goes, the teachers at my school feel that we are blessed compared to other schools. However, after looking at some of the examples in the videos and on the websites provided by our professor I feel like we are far behind! Just check out this video:  Summit on 21st Century Skills: Kansas Technology Rich Classroom Project and you will see what I am talking about!

I really liked the example I read in one of the comments to the same question stated above...it talked about teachers being in four quadrants: highly effective, very convenient; highly effective, not convenient; convenient, but not effective; and not convenient, not effective. I think most of us fall under the "highly effective, not convenient" category. We want our students to succeed, we do whatever we can to achieve this, we overwork ourselves, but we get the job done. Our students are making adequate progress and our school has an "A" grade. At least that is true for the majority of the teachers at my school. However, we are tired, feel underappreciated, and underpaid for all we do.

Hopefully, in the near future we can find a balance where everyone is happy, lawmakers, administrators, teachers, parents, and students. After all, I think our goal is the same for all of us!