This weekend, I am traveling to New York City for an occasion I’ve been looking forward to for a long time – NBC’s Teacher Town Hall. It is always a thrill for me to spend time talking to teachers, hearing about their lives, and bringing those stories back to the foundation so that we incorporate their insights into our work.
It’s why I’ll be participating in a discussion with NBC’s Brian Williams on Sunday, September 25th from 12-2 pm ET on MSNBC. Everyone is welcome to watch - and if you are a teacher, we’d love to hear from you. Log on to Education Nation’s web site, register as an educator so you can participate, and chat with other teachers from around the country. You can also join the conversation on Twitter, using the hashtag #teachersednat. I’ll be there, @melindagates, if you’d like to ask me a question during or after the Town Hall.
Almost everyone has a warm memory of an instructor who inspired us, challenged us and believed in our potential. We‘re indebted to these amazing teachers; teachers whose creativity and dedication helped shape our futures.
I still think about my favorite teacher, Mrs. Bauer, who changed my life. She taught us math, but she also taught me so much more, including the idea that if you give all your energy to everything you do, you will have a huge impact on the lives you touch.
In 1980, Mrs. Bauer tried out a new gadget called a personal computer. Her first thought was, “These are going to be big. We have to get them for the girls.” My school’s administrators agreed, but no one in the school knew how to use them, let alone teach students about them. Mrs. Bauer quickly decided that she would learn so she could teach us.
While raising three sons and teaching full days, she enrolled in a Master’s Degree program in computer science, paid the tuition herself, and drove more than a half hour to class every night.
Because of Mrs. Bauer’s sacrifices to help others, my classmates and I overcame the stereotype that girls couldn’t excel at science and math. When I got to college, I had the confidence to enroll as the only girl in most of my computer science classes. And that self-assurance stuck with me when I started at Microsoft as one of few women among my technology peers.
There are thousands of teachers like Mrs. Bauer across the country. We’re so excited for them to tell their stories. This is our opportunity to learn from America’s teachers by providing opportunities for them to give voice to - and share - their experiences. We hope you’ll watch my Twitter feed, as we’ll have more to announce on that front soon.
In the end, ensuring that every school supports teacher and student success is the best way to show our appreciation for the amazing work teachers do every day. All students deserve a teacher like Mrs. Bauer who gives them the opportunity to show what they are capable of doing.
When you have a mentor who puts no limits on your potential, the future starts to look a lot more exciting.
Now it's time for real teachers to refuse to succumb to high-stakeÂs testing, scripted teaching, standardizÂation, "merit" pay schemes, and privatization.
Suddenly we hear the reformers glowing about wonderful teachers, while they are simultaneously engineering ways to fire scores of teachers who are not "effective" according to THEIR fatally flawed standard of measure.
From NCLB to Race to the Top, you folks do not present an education plan but a business plan to corrupt a public good whose most treasured purpose is civic.
Here is irony. It is not poverty alone that has such devastatinÂg consequencÂes on academic achievemenÂt but the conditions that so often accompany poverty. The most profound need our huge population of disadvantaÂged children have is the deep need for meaningfulÂ, lasting relationshÂips with trusted adults who care about them in a personal way. And how can teachers give their students the time and attention they need when they are so damn busy being accountable to those of you who impose your will upon them in profoundly undemocratic ways without their consent?
You, the ed deformers and our gutless politicianÂs would give our children a laptop, lots of tests, exploding class sizes, and revolving door teachers.
Want to help our public schools Mr. and Mrs. Gates? Drop out.
First, parents frequently gather along the sidelines of his practices. Next, a third or more of the community turns out each week to watch the local high school sports performance. Yes, the players work very hard; they know their sport is valued by the community. Parent boosters raise money to provide special furnishings, and weekly meals for team members.
The school district budgets money for uniforms, equipment, sports facility maintenance, heating and electrical services above and beyond the school day. Additionally the district budgets money for each sports team to take 10-15 field trips each year.
Core subjects are not allowed funding for any field trips. Parents almost never gather to talk about how well a student performed on a science lab, a history project, or an essay assignment. Students look to their community to guide their values. They know that core subject performance is not a concern of the people they meet on a daily basis.
So yes, taking "bad" teachers out of the system is a great idea. However, getting more positive involvement from all members of the community would be a much better idea. Attaching a universal "bad" label to all teachers is only injects a confrontational outlook for all participants.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=2001692&mesg_id=2001692
If you really want to be a part of this, you need to follow something from Stanford's "d-School" format -empathy. You need to understand what it is like to be a teacher in a school from every part of the spectrum. One from a successful school that is labeled as failing because their test scores simply hover around 95% every year, one from a school that is making great strides but is not quite "there" yet, one from a school where there is still a great struggle for success. My point is, walk a mile in our moccasins. Go BE A TEACHER, and allot yourself only around $45,000 a year to live on.
Go and do this, and then maybe you can be a productive member of the conversation. Until then, keep your influence out of our schools. The test-score basis of teacher evaluation you promote kills real education.
1. there are plenty of bad apples among teachers.
2. Union are the fundamental hurdle in getting rid of these bad apples and paying the best teachers salaries equal to doctors and engineers .
1) There are indeed a few bad apples among teachers. A few. Most of them weed themselves out within the first 5 years. Those that make it through are very few and far between.
2) The fundamental hurdle in attracting the best people in the first place is our country's vehement resolve not to fund education adequately. One has to attract good people first before you can weed out the bad. Otherwise, all you will attract are mediocre people in the first place.
Sounds really dedicated and virtuous. I also raised 2 sons alone and taught in a private school that offered no tuition assistance for me. I did not get the advanced degree that I would have loved to get because teaching in a private school and making a little more than half of a public school teacher's salary left me living paycheck to paycheck for many years. When my children were not in daycare anymore, and I saved on that expense, my now slightly bigger salary was "too much" to get any kind of helpful financial assistance.If anyone really wants to help teachers, make it possible for them to further their own education.
If you are truly dedicated to a better education for all of our children, then why aren't any of your children attending public schools? And I can't help think that you'd reflect more deeply on who and what you're funding if your children were also part of our public schools.
Do your kids have 30 or 35 children in their classes? If not, why not, particularly when you've given such strong support to those individuals who insist that smaller class sizes offer no benefit to students nor teachers?
It's ironic; the elite, private schools of America are almost 180 degrees different from what "educational reformers" are advocating for the children of average, middle class families. If large classes, inexperienced teachers, lower pay and longer hours were so beneficial, why are none of the schools serving the very rich structured this way?
Again, please do not interpret any of this as any sort of personal attack. It's not. I'm just trying, sincerely, to understand what you're advocating and why.
I studied 45 in a class room of 45 kids.
Go to Singapore[ore and see how many kids are there in a class room.
I have absolutely no reason to doubt that you "studied" in a classroom of 45 kids. That fact, and everything else you've written tends to verify my arguments about education.