Identify, Model and Reward High Quality Educators

     Cars, telephones, computers, airplanes, medical practice and many other human activities are increasing in quality on a continuing basis.  Why not education?  Because, too often, educators must produce a better quality student using raw material that resist being improved.  But the fact is the materials scientists and engineers manipulate to produce better quality products, when they are not dealt with properly, also resist being transformed.   The problem, then, is that many educators have not learned how to deal properly with their resources: students and other educators. Effective teaching is the hardest job; that is, (1) if educators are expected to be successful in the education of children, and (2) if school districts fail to have proper perspectives about what kinds and levels of expectations constitute success.

     Quality education is a product of quality teaching.  But exactly what is meant by quality education?  And how can it be accomplished?  In most schools there are quality teachers who could be model teachers.  Some learned what it means to be model teacher--and how to become model teachers--in teaching-training classes devoted to instilling such knowledge.  Some taught themselves over years of thoughtful trial and error.  Some quality teachers learned through thoughtful consideration of factors which cause students to gain, retain or lose interest in learning the courses these teachers teach.  

     Why are students more successful under certain teachers?  What is happening at all professional levels of education within states and school districts that create better and more creative educators?

     One of the first things I heard, during those trying years of getting my feet wet in the teaching profession, was that a "good" principal must first have been a "good" teacher.  One must conclude that a "good" superintendent--who hopefully also was once a good principal--must also have been a good teacher and therefore knows what kinds of things should be going on down the chain of command that leads to successful students.  If principals were not good teachers, are they able to communicate appropriate expectations to their teachers?  What expectations would superintendents communicate to their assistant superintendents, principals and other instructional leaders?  Unless principals had once been "good" teachers--and superintendents, good principals--how can they know (or recognize) when expectations are reasonable, when they are being achieved by subordinates,  and what to suggest to assist subordinates who really want to become "good" at what they do?

   Teachers will differ in their abilities to be creative in developing effective teaching strategies they toward fulfilling their responsibility and desires to be quality teachers.  But even those who are not so creative in developing effective strategies can implement effective strategies if they know what they are, what the performance expectations are, and are helped--or taught how--to Implement the strategies.  Teachers who know what things to do and why they are done will better understand and identify with the teaching and learning processes they are expected to use.  What is true of teachers also applies to every other educator within the district.  

     How, then, can model educators be produced and made available at all administrative and instructional levels?

     Enabling educators to become "good" at all levels requires that school boards become knowledgeable about expectations at all levels within the chain of command, recognizing and communicating expectations, and monitoring executions at all levels.  This means school board must be educated, not only by their interactions teachers and administrators, but also with community leaders, parents and even students: We can seek the benefits of student ingenuity while students are in public schools--before they go off to make "big bucks," pursuing various wealth-building opportunities in the business world, not in education.

     But something can be done about that.

     Education will never keep up with the progress and demands of technology and medicine--nor with the needs of a society because of that progress and those demands--without the kinds of education that born of the same levels of intelligence and financial rewards.  Levels of economic and political empowerment are related to levels of educational knowledge and achievement.  Average people cannot become outstanding educators without being self-motivated to pursue a path of (or at least toward) excellence or unless they, themselves, have high quality teachers either as models or as teacher-training instructors, at all levels of education: in colleges and universities whose professors teach and train public school educators. 

     Does genius that solves problems on a technological nature lend itself to creative pursuits in education?  In other words, can talent only pursue innovations consistent with some innate qualities when money activates initiatives or can talent be directed in directions of need, where needs motivates rather than predisposition.

     Well, all of this prelude is intended the set the framework for raising the quality of teaching in all schools to the same high levels of quality.  If students are required to master the same curriculum, students should have the same levels and qualities of instruction by teachers who use methods that are equally effective.  How do we do that?  One way may be by using the ideas suggested in this column as a basis for beginning in-school, in-school district and in-community discussions and problem-solving initiatives related to educating children.  Using the best educators as role models and making video tapes of their use of effective strategies should be available to teachers and administrators according to their need for assistance.  These model ducators should be paid consistent with the success they have displayed in their own teaching and in improving the skills of less proficient  teachers and administrators, consistent with district definition of what it means to be a high-quality educator.

     If we assume that more intelligent people make better problem solvers, then education must attract a larger percentage of our most intelligent students into the teaching profession, and we must enable them to earn what they could earn in other professions.  What can cause these to happen?  parents and patrons who are committed to making sure (1) that those who are elected to school boards are the most competent and caring members available, and (2) that those who are qualified are not hindered in their efforts to improve the quality of education the district's expectations.  

     The consequence of not choosing quality leadership for school boards is that qualified people stop seeking school board positions.  Voters don't know for whom they should be voting--and why--because community leaders, including many church leaders, don't cooperate and keep their memberships sufficiently informed and involved about elections that effect the futures of their children and grandchildren.  Too often, even essential community leaders and their organizations for various reasons remain silent, uninvolved and, foo often, uninvited. 

     How can processes that provide quality education for all children be started?  Only if the community of parents, businesses, and organizations are disturbed enough about inferior education to say on behalf of the district's children,  "(We're) mad as hell, and (we're) not going to take it anymore."   But a community must care enough about its children before it can become mad enough.  For the African American community, such failure to care enough reflects a degree of self-rejection.  But these are recipes for familial, educational, financial failure and communal extinction.

Email: rcspoon@earthlink.net

Blog:  ronaldcspooner.blotspot.com

     

Redefining What It Means to "March"

     On March 18, 2013, the nation observed and commemorated the 50th anniversary of the March, 1963 march on Washington.  The rhythm of Dr. king's speech still causes

 chills to run up my spine.  The changes about which Dr. King dreamed were shown to be well on the road to reality with the 2008 election of Barack Obama to the American presidency.   Unfortunately, that event, which was the crowning achievement of the nation's march toward equality--though still short on justice and jobs for thousands of Americans who needed and wanted work--became rallying points for those determined to turned back the clock on change and assure that the dream remained only a wish.  "Yes, we can" has given way to a "No, you can't" response by many conservative Republicans, unmoved by change, and yearning for the good ole' days. Nevertheless, the march on Washington had coalesced visions of equality and justice.  It gave rise to new levels of hope, dignity and possibilities.  

     But it was much like the earlier million-men march led by Minister Louis Farrakhan,  where black men, too, were inspired by the importance, even the serenity, of a momentous moment,  but were also sent home without a strategy for using the emotion of the moment as a stimulus for moving forward, and, hence, without the ability to build on what was a momentous gathering of men.

     Every year, marches are conducted across the nation, commemorating past marches, extolling the achievements of Dr. KIng, and, on the 19th of June, celebration of the emancipation of black people from slavery.  But there seems to never be community-wide themes that reminded the black community that the "dream" has not yet been realized, that the quality of education in predominately black schools is still inferior and, partly as a consequence, opportunities for meaningful employment is far from being equal.  One might conclude that black people had overcome these realities, with nothing left to do but march for fun, recall precious memories and act as if there were not many black people who still had not overcome.  

     This is not to belittle the efforts of those who lead these efforts each year.  They serve purposes that have places worthy of recognition in the quest of black people to overcome the educational and economic gaps that are pervasive in Black America.  They just don't help black people overcome those conditions which can only be overcome by activities that directly impact the problems, activities that no one who is not black should be expected to provide. 

     In his speech during the commemoration of the King marches, President Obama talked about another kind of "march," marches not limited to walking the streets and waving signs.  He talked about businesses that are creating jobs that hire unemployed but qualified black people also march.  That new kind of "marching" means that parents who are seeing to it that their children spend adequate time at home reading, studying, solving problems and otherwise doing homework are also marching.  Children who welcome and heed their parent attempts to help them prepare for a better futures "march," not only in the streets, but in the classrooms.  Black educators also "march" who go back to college, when necessary, to broaden their knowledge of the courses they teach, to sharpen their teaching strategies and to broaden their instructional options so they can enable their students to maximize learning.  He was talking about marches and marchers who don't expect other people to do for black people what only black people can do for ourselves.

     One black leader said during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, "No one can save us for us but us."  For the past fifty years that statement, which should have been the rallying cry for a greater effort toward self-determination and self-actualization by black people, instead has become more of a forecast of doom, as we have not pursued an agenda of black pride, black-motivation, black encouragement, and development of positive self-images deserving of self-love, commitments to valuing oneself, striving for self-improvement and learning to love ourselves because we have reason to do so.  

     Another black man, the late William Raspberry, had said it another way when he wrote in a column that black people who choice to place their futures in the hands of people, many of whom they fear don't like them, is like placing their "salvation in the hands of the devil."  

     The Congress that President Obama has had to deal with is not the same kind of Congress that President Lyndon Johnson had.  But what black people need is a whole lot more than what is being provided by our black institutions and organizations.  'Marching" has to be more than what is happening within our black churches, more than is happening in many, if not most, of our public schools, especially those predominately African American schools where expectations for student performance are low.  And it is happening because in too many homes of black families, many just don't know what to do, and don't know how to find out.  Too often black leaders are "marching" either to the beat of strange drummers or simply "marching" to the wrong beat.

     It will be interesting to see what those who attended this 50th anniversary of the Dr. king's "I have a dream" speech--or followed it on television--did after they got back home in terms of pursuing the dream, about how each black community will begin proceedings to do its part toward making the Dr. King's dream for us come true.  We can't continue to expect other people to do more for us and care more about us than we do for ourselves.  People who don't place much value on their own lives can't be expected to place much value of the lives of other people who look like themselves.  Liking ourselves require not only a different kind of "march" but a different kind of walk and a different kind of talk.

     Affirmation Action, for example, was not just for those individuals who benefitted directly at the time:  It was also for the generations of offsprings that would follow the initial beneficiaries:  Children who are reluctant about studying would be cautioned about that time in the future when affirmation might no longer be the law, when people would be hired to high-paying jobs or be admitted to high-demand Universities based on qualities other than past denials of equal opportunities because of racial discrimination.    Affirmative action not only gave black men and women opportunities to better prepare themselves: It put them in positions to be better family providers, better role models and mentors for their children, as their children and future generations were enabled to have more productive and satisfying futures.

       So marches, be they the new kinds of "marches" or like those effective marches of the mid sixties, they must keep black people mindful that  "the dream" is not dead, that it's just not yet fully realized, and that its full realization will depend more on what black people do for ourselves than what other people can be do for us.  Our only hope is that other people--if they aren't going to help--

 will not deliberately set up road and stumbling blocks that hinder the dreamers' journey.

     A new year presents opportunities for new resolutions by black people to redefine what it means to march.   But one crucial question continues to linger about this new "march" toward realizing "The "Dream":  To what drummers and drumbeats will black leaders and  black organizations "march"?

          

EMail:  rcspoon@earthlink.net

Blog:    ronaldcspooner.blogspot.com