Op-Ed Contributor: Teach Your Teachers Well

[Nellie Newsworthy]

To fix our schools, the teaching programs need to be as dynamic as the young people we want to attract to the profession.

More...

[Melissa]

Who wrote this article?

Student-teachers are usually observed only twice during a semester and then given a written evaluation. But young teachers, like young doctors, should work side by side with skilled mentors, getting plenty of feedback, having plenty of opportunities to observe and taking on greater and greater responsibility as they improve.

Total BS. Student teachers are teaching along side a teacher. Student teachers are not just thrown into the classroom by themselves.

Plenty of states have mentor requirements (Connecticut for example). A teacher and mentor must get together often. The new teacher can take time off to observe excellent teachers.

Teacher training can also learn from family therapy programs. Therapists spend a great deal of time watching videotapes of themselves in action, reflecting on their sessions and discussing the most difficult moments with senior therapists to explore other ways they might have responded. In much the same way, young teachers need to record their daily encounters with their classrooms and then, with mentors and peers, have serious, open-minded conversations about what’s working and what isn’t.

uhhhh... as an education student this was stressed ALL THE TIME! We were required to keep a teaching diary and it was highly recommended when we entered the profession. IN fact, in Connecticut, I was required to keep one as a part of the BEST program.

These new teacher programs should be selective, requiring a 3.5 undergraduate grade point average and an intensive application process. But they should also be free of charge, and admission should include a stipend for the first three years of teaching in a public school.

My college required a 3.2 or higher. I would have loved if it was free!

First, future teachers should continue studying the subject they hope to teach, with outstanding professors. It makes no sense at all to stop studying the thing you want to teach at the very moment you begin to learn how.

My school required me to continue learning about music as I was in the education school.

[Joan]

Ditto what Melissa said, except the 3.2 average.