Today’s Students, Tomorrow’s Teachers?
Last week, Time Magazine featured the article How to Make Great Teachers. Yesterday, the St. Louis Post Dispatch ran the brief story Blunt, Sebelius discuss need for more teachers of math and science. While the solutions offered by Time and the Governor are debatable, the gravity of the situation is irrefutable.
As noted in Time, “About 3.2 million people teach in U.S. public schools, but, according to projections by economist William Hussar at the National Center for Education Statistics, the nation will need to recruit an additional 2.8 million over the next eight years owing to baby-boomer retirement, growing student enrollment and staff turnover—which is especially rapid among new teachers. Finding and keeping high-quality teachers are key to America’s competitiveness as a nation.”
Closer to home, the Post reported that “Missouri higher education turned out only five high school physics teachers and only 145 math teachers in the 2006-07 school year.” As Governor Blunt observed, “Clearly we’re not keeping up with the demand that’s going to exist for teachers in these very important fields of math and science. We all have to redouble our efforts.”
While the Governor did not specify the efforts that would have to be increased, the Time article suggested that merit pay might be an effective tool for attracting and retaining teachers. Neither approach, unfortunately, takes into account the fundamental key to the issue; students need to be encouraged to grow up to be teachers. Government intervention and increased finances will never be as effective in making that happen as we can be through our words and deeds in the classroom.
Kids may not always pay attention in school, but they are always listening and watching. They hear our conversations between classes and in the lunch line. They notice how we respond to our peers and supervisors. They watch how we approach our teaching and extra-curricular responsibilities. While we all have difficult days, do we generally project the image of fulfilled professionals or disgruntled employees? Do we model a career choice they would aspire to make? Would they want to grow up to be like us? Something to think about the next time you feel the need to vent about the “joys” of teaching….
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February 19th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Pat–I loved your comments on these two recent articles. You are definitely on to a key factor–encouraging children that teaching is a great profession. Do we demonstrate that in our interactions with our students? I decided to become a teacher because of my high school physics teacher–he seemed so excited about his subject and he always had fun with us while also helping us learn about physics.
February 19th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
I think that at the moment New Zealand is having trouble keeping teachers in the profession. There is a strong union fighting for professional recognition for teachers, whether they be High School or Primary/Intermediate teachers. Professional recognition being pay renumeration by a variety of means such as general pay increases, paid sabitical leave, units to recognise extra-curricula responsibilities etc. Our Government is often “recruiting” teachers towards the fields of Science and Maths so I guess we are the same as US in that sense.
February 20th, 2008 at 12:42 am
We teachers, in Victoria,Australia, also feel that we are often overworked, being expected to fill in ever increasing paperwork all the time, expected to fill more extra curricula roles and on the lowest paid scale compared to teachers in other states. Two strike day actions have been called within 3 months and more is expected. The increasing workload does not give a happy scenario to students. Brighter students will follow better paid career paths and yes, there will be a huge shortage in various subject areas in the next decade of teaching staff.
February 21st, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Thanks for the comments. Seems teachers feel the same stresses all over and shortages aren’t unique to the US. I’m not sure how big an impact we can make on a daily basis (i.e. it is going to take systemic change to reverse the trend), but maybe this will get teachers to think about the image they project about their profession to their students.
March 2nd, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Pat -
Great post and I like your opinion on portraying a positive view of teaching to our students - if we aren’t positive, why would they want to follow in our footsteps? I also posted about this here: I Should Teach in Finland or Singapore and followed up on it with some great input from a teacher who travels to Singapore here: Singapore Revisted
Your newest post on this topic at Good Teaching + Low Tech = High Achievement is excellent and I plan to link to it in an update in my earlier mentioned post. Thanks again for providing such great resources!