I don't understand the adversarial role that too many of the administrators in our district seem to have embraced over the past few years.
As I showed in my last post, evaluations are becoming highly contentious in my district. A big part of this is because administrators (I believe) are being directed to use it as a weapon to "get teachers" as opposed to its intent, which is a tool to help teachers improve their practice.
The former is going to be met with great resistance. Many of our older teachers believe they are being targeted & I believe that this may very well be the case. Most teachers, regardless of age, want to embrace practical guidance that will help them become better in order to best meet the needs of their students. I've yet met a teacher in my district or any other district who went into teaching to damage kids.
Part of the reason teachers get burnt out is because of this constant beating down on them by those above. I don't understand the mentality. School site leaders roles should be one of helping their staff improve as individuals. They should be the ones setting the tone and providing examples of good instructional practice & support. If it were done in this manner, then perhaps our teachers wouldn't fear evaluations & would embrace the concept of using evaluations to help them become better in the classroom.
Instead, we have a battle of wills and the only ones I see losing in this kerfuffle are teachers many of whom are teaching in incredibly tough situations with very little support.
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Oh, yes! Adversarial definitely describes it. The opposite of collaborative or supportive!
I don't feel I can comment on the process as I haven't been in the field long enough.
I can say that in my experience subbing, often as a co-teacher, there are MANY terrible teachers in classrooms in my district (though I think many of them genuinely want to be teachers).
I've said it before--there is plenty of blame to go around in the system we have going today.
Our teachers at my school feel it, too, especially the older ones who have been teaching a while. The young teachers who are more readily versed in current best practices are the principal's pets, while the "old dogs" feel like they're being watched constantly. We just went to a Marzano conference and he said that the walk throughs done by administrators SHOULD NOT be "gotcha's", instead, they should do what you described--help the teachers better their craft.
It is in my district as well. It has become the I am going to blame someone, it might as well be the teachers. The stress level felt by all is almost unbearable. The more experience, the more you get dumped on to put it bluntly.
It is also obvious that the big losers could be the students. If teachers cannot put their energy and attention into their teaching, and are being constantly beaten down, then they cannot serve their clients. From what you are saying, it sounds like it has gotten worse in the past few years. Do you have any way to explain the recent change? One thought I had can be explained by analogy. When a room gets too crowded, and everyone is on top of everyone else, then the territorial instincts take over and people get feisty. I am wondering if the economic downturn, making the teaching profession more “crowded” (less openings for more applicants) is making people nervous and territorial. In particular, teachers who may not have been evaluated by the new administration, such as the older teachers, are nervous about their jobs. There is no longer the job security there was a decade or more ago – the kind of “cradle to grave” corporations such as IBM have laid off hundreds of thousands of workers, many is white collar, high profile position, with a lot of seniority. It is good to write about these issues. But at the end of the day, even in these “new hard times”, focusing on the beauty of teaching middle school kids, once child at a time, one moment at a time, is the gift and the pleasure that will override the pain!
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