What should schools teach? How should they be held accountable?

          Statistics show that about 50% percent of new teachers quit the profession within the first three years. I thought I would be one of those statistics. My student teaching experience was in a setting far different than my first “real job” as a teacher. I student taught in an elementary classroom in an academically successful rural district, yet my first job was in a seventh grade classroom in a struggling urban charter school. During my first year of teaching, I was battling issues, problems, and making decisions that I was not prepared for. I questioned my four years of undergraduate work and its purpose. How could I spend four years at a University Institution studying education, and yet still feel like a failure and inadequately prepared to do my job.

As part of the teacher preparation program requirements, I had to earn many “pre-service” teaching hours, but those hours were inconsistent and structured differently than the dynamic of being the sole teacher in a classroom. My educational classes in the program were, however, diverse. I had many philosophical education classes, and other courses with more practical applications like lesson planning, strategies and techniques for teaching certain contents. But none of my courses required much real-world practice with those concepts or discussed (with any depth) classroom management or discussed and practiced (with any depth) parent-teacher conferences and other correspondence with student families. If teacher-preparation programs were held accountable solely to teacher success rates for staying in their field, then they would be failing.

So there I stood, standing in front of a room full of students, a moment I had always dreamt of yet so different than my dreams. The students I faced were high need, below grade level academically, and notoriously difficult behaviorally. I had little to none in terms of teaching materials such as textbooks for students, paper, pencils, calculators, etc. How do I apply what I had learned about proper lesson planning, differentiated instruction, and/or how to use the latest and greatest teaching strategies and technology into a classroom where I feel like I am drowning with challenges, in both student need and my school’s expectations?

Since that first experience, I had an opportunity for a fresh start at a new school in a new district. Although equally challenging in terms of student need and expectations of teachers, I was more prepared going into the experience. However, I still wish I had been as prepared for my first teaching experience, I wish I was able to give those students the same experience I am now able to give my students. I wish I would have had more time in my student teaching experience, and even more time with real and practical application during my undergraduate courses. Perhaps then, I would have not considered being one of the fifty percent. Perhaps I could have entered on my first day of teaching with a realistic expectation of how to address the needs of those students and thrive as a teacher in such a challenging environment.

The Studio schools featured in the TED video, proposed by Geoff Mulgan (2011), focus on learning through real-world applications that are directly connected to the work place. This nontraditional approach to learning prepares students to be successful professionally, while they instill many similar academic standards that traditional schools offer. Quest for Learning, as featured in Sara Corbett’s (2010) “Learning by Playing: Video Games in the Classroom

” made learning relevant for students by presenting it in game format. Even though both schools, Studio and Quest for Learning, are different in how they teach their students, they also share some similarities in philosophy. Both schools place high value on making learning relevant and interactive.

E.D. Hirsch Jr.(1988) suggested in contrast to the progressive nature of Studio schools and Quest for Learning, that “The American school curriculum is fragmented both horizontally across subjects and vertically within subjects,” (p.116). Furthermore, the idea of transferability as mentioned in research from James Baker and Edward Thorndike according to Hirsch Jr. (1988) is inconsistent in how effective one can be in applying knowledge gained specific to one content into other disciplines or facets (pg. 122). Hirsch addresses these concerns regarding both of the traditional educational system and the idealistic proposition from John Dewey by suggesting a blend of the two. Where the focus is intensive in which students spend more time understanding content through more relevant and specific studies that apply to the same traditional learning standards, but with more depth (p. 128, 1988).

Had my own educational experience been as relevant as Studio school’s curriculum, or as interactive as Quest for Learning, or even as intensive and inquiry-based as suggested by Hirsch, then perhaps my real-world experience in teaching would not have felt as challenging and disconnected from my education. 
        In addition, accountability is not as intimidating and perhaps less demanding, when there are natural consequences to a successful curriculum, as discussed in The New Accountability: High Schools and High-Stakes testing by Martin Carnoy, Richard Elmore, and Leslie Siskin. Carnoy et. al explain the natural accountability with performing arts, specifically music. Traditionally music has not been a standardized discipline in which the students demonstrate what they learned on standardized assessments. Instead, the accountability of the music teacher is based upon their effectiveness to lead a good performance, in which an audience is there to witness and judge their ability (pg. 92). There accountability is relevant and applicable to the discipline. Yet when the discipline was charged with the same type of standards and assessments as other contents, its focus became less relevant to the discipline, the focus changed to how to pass the test. Instead of a school's success solely measured on a standardized test score, perhaps we need to also consider more relevant measurements to partner with the more relevant instruction. How many students graduate and go to college? How many students are employed in a desired career? Or in my personal scenario, did my teacher preparation program adequately prepare me for the classroom?

Resources

1. Check out this article by Greg Toppo featured in USA today about the ever-changing demographic of teachers. While the content is mainly about the culture of education as there are more new teachers in the field than ever, it also discusses the challenges new teachers face.
2. Some math game websites are far-reaching to math concepts, this website however seems relevant, interactive and fun.