The majority of my teaching experience has
unfortunately taken place in a school where the administration was not very
supportive of its teachers and only interested or supportive of certain
teachers in roles that they found beneficial.
In fact it was a rare occurrence that teacher thoughts, opinions, or
concerns were welcomed even during faculty meetings. It has not been until
recently that I have witnessed a more positive environment where the
administrators seem more willing to share leadership with the faculty. I am not
employed as a teacher in this new school so I have had limited experience
observing the principals and how they interact and share leadership with their
faculty but it seems to be a much more positive environment, Teachers are
encouraged to participate in meetings and to serve on different committees to improve
the school. I am even invited to participate in a small weekly meeting with the
elective teachers on my hallway.
After reading the interview with Moller I agree with
the three statements that she makes in regards to what she hopes will emerge in
the teaching profession. The first statement she talks about teaching needs to
give way to meaningful career ladders and teachers need to be able to select the
challenges that they would like to take on or to remain competent in their own
classrooms. I believe that for the most
part teachers have to find or create their own ways towards more leadership
opportunities especially in some school environments. This needs to change and
all teachers need to know the clear pathway to gaining more leadership if they
so choose. More teachers would probably step up if there was a clear pathway
for them to take to become teacher leaders.
In Moller’s second statement she hopes pay will
emerge for taking on additional responsibilities. I have firsthand experience
with this. We had a large number of advanced art students who enjoyed staying
after school to work on their projects on their own time and receiving help
outside of class. The school that I taught at had an after school tutoring
program but even though we had the largest amount of students staying after
school to work, they did not want to offer us the tutoring pay to stay to
supervise the students. We stayed after 2 days a week for a year before they
granted any additional compensation for us. After a year of documenting how
many students we had staying after, they finally agreed that there was a need
for our art students. I have also seen
teachers shy away from taking on other responsibilities because of the lack of pay.
Why take on additional tasks, when there is no compensation? I believe that this
is a commonly held attitude of many teachers who are already dealing with
growing class sizes, additional paperwork, standards, and evaluation processes.
The third statement that Moller discusses is
providing attention to the working conditions in our schools. This is probably
one of the hardest things to tackle in school buildings, due to the fact that
in many schools the working conditions are not supportive of teaching and also
do not create an environment that can sustain leadership. I have worked at a
school very much like this and it is not a very positive place to work and
unfortunately the attitudes and negativity pour over to everyone in the
building and even out into the surrounding community. Therefore I think it is
imperative that we work very hard to create a supportive environment not just
for our students but also for the teachers and administrators.
Overall I agree with all three statements that
Moller hopes will emerge in the teaching profession and I do think that if all
of these things were to occur it would cause great changes in our schools and the
entire teaching profession. All three changes will bring about a more positive
learning environment for everyone involved.
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