A few questions to ask yourself before you talk to me about bad teachers.
What is a bad teacher? Out of the dozens of teachers you’ve had, how many of them would you actually call “bad”? Are you successful because or despite those teachers? Did your school environment exacerbate or blunt the effect of the bad teacher? Would you have “made it” if the bad teacher was a good teacher? What do you think the percentage of bad teachers is right now? Where are they? What do they look like? What’s the difference between what you think is a bad teacher and what the school system says is a bad teacher? Do the characteristics of a bad teacher make them bad employees in other organizations? Why or why not? Are good teachers made or born?
Once you’re absolutely sure about those questions, let me ask a few more:
Should education be an immediate reflection of a democratic society or one formed based on markets? Should we inherit ideas from other industries like medicine, law, or technology? If not, why not? If so, why and which? Which non-educators would you trust with making educational decisions? Why? Are any of the systems from any other industry we look at more or less transparent than our current education system in America? How much influence should powerful leaders from other industries have on our education system? To you, and only you, are the leaders of other industries perfect leaders for education because of their affluence, intellect, or bold ideas that might give every child in America a true chance to succeed here?
If you’re a teacher, here’s a few more:
Can you point to a few teachers who you think are good in your school, including yourself? Would you be OK with these teachers teaching your child or other people’s children? How often do you speak to your colleagues about the few (if applicable) teachers who you consider to be bad teachers? What is your consensus on that? Has there been disagreement? Why or why not? Have you looked at the new teacher evaluation systems and tried to figure out the flaws in those systems based on the teachers you considered bad? Do you get mad that administrators don’t just do their job, file all the paperwork necessary, and hire someone better in place of those bad teachers? If you’re in a union, do you blame your union for the “bad” teachers staying around?
Are you a bad teacher?
Leo Casey made it a point a few months ago at the Albert Shanker Institute to mention that I ask harder questions of myself than I ask of others. Suffice it to say, that’s why I looked at the TIME cover on Thursday with a bit of disdain. For once, I’d love for the “pay the good teachers more, fire the bad ones” meme to go away as if both were equal. I’d love for some of the slander and misinformation about our profession put out by major news outlets to not coincide with the dissolution and consolidation of the fourth estate, because teachers deserve better journalism than “Sal Khan can do better than you.” I’d love for the term “college and career-ready” to come with a disclaimer about the expense of trying to go to college and the vice grip of rising inequity in job salaries once our children get into the workforce. I’d also love a full stop on Bill Gates having an idea and having an outsized influence on everything and everyone before we even ask a few of us as educators.
Once that conversation’s done, I’d love to see another conversation about teachers doing the best job possible given circumstances and perhaps still not being good enough for every single child in the classroom, how vexed we get feeling like they have to answer to 21st century masters (technology, for example) via 20th century rules (rote memorization, exorbitant testing), how perhaps some of our colleagues don’t actually care about the students in front of them, how so many of us come from different schools of thought on how to educate kids so the idea of “bad teacher” might also depend on personal annoyances with others, how we might not even be able to trust each other until we come together around the idea of pedagogy, and how much more complicated it is to try and judge than trying to slam an apple with a gavel.
Enter nuance. But it’s hard to differentiate between those who want solutions and those who want to be left alone. It looks like outrage all the same, even when it’s not.