The first day of school is approaching, and teachers are busy getting their rooms ready, creating their class pages, lesson plans, and flip charts, and trying to anticipate what their year will be like.  We recently received our schedules in the mail with our welcome back letter.  Teacher schedules have changed dramatically since my first year of teaching.

In 1990, our school followed a “Middle School Concept.”  This involved having teachers work in teams – all with the same students.  The idea was that teachers could help each other do their best for each student, and work together to resolve academic or behavior problems.   Our daily schedule included a 40 minute prep period, during which we completed lesson plans and paperwork, made copies, contacted parents, graded papers, and handled endless other details necessary to the job. 

Our schedule also included, however, a 40 minute common planning period.  During this time each day, all five academic teachers would meet to plan together, discuss individual students, come up with ideas for interdisciplinary activities, brainstorm ideas for motivating students and dealing with those academic and behavioral problems, mentor new teachers, conduct student/teacher conferences, and meet with administration.  We kept notes of each meeting, and discussed our biggest concerns with our principal or assistant principal at least once a week.  This allowed teachers to have a voice, and communicate concerns to an administrator. 

Unfortunately, common planning periods and our adherence to a “middle school concept” have been eliminated.

You may say, “Haven’t common planning periods recently been replaced by PLC’s?”  Yes, except that teachers must squeeze in a PLC during their own “free” time, of which there really is none, and teachers within a PLC often have different schedules.  Teacher teams for PLC’s are sometimes rather random, and there are no administrators at PLC meetings, except on rare occasions.

I must admit that with recent changes in the responsibilities of administrators, their ability to take the time to communicate with teachers is limited. 

Suggestion #1:   Unless teachers are provided with meaningful time to work together, PLC’s will be of little benefit, and until administrators provide a means for upward communication, they will be unaware of the actual issues teachers face within their classrooms every day.  Every school should provide time for collaboration with colleagues and communication with administration.

No one really asked, but….

One teacher’s final farewell.

The beginning of the end – I can’t believe it’s here.  I, along with two close friends who were hired the same year, are about to enter our 25^th year, our last year of teaching middle school.  It’s hard not to reflect on how things have changed in these 25 years.  First of all, I can’t believe I had the guts, or maybe foolishness, to quit my job in Human Resources to finish school and join the job search for a teaching position.  Thank God it worked out, and thank you to my parents for their financial support and encouragement, and to my brother, Donnie, whose last gift to me was the opportunity to fulfill a dream.

I am grateful to my first principal for hiring me.  At the time, I didn’t even realize how lucky I was to get the job.  Now I do.  Those of us who worked for Peggy know how she made us want to work hard to live up to her expectations.  She had a way of making teachers feel good about what we were doing.  We found ourselves saying yes to almost anything she asked of us because we all respected her so much.  That respect was reciprocated.

In 25 years, a few things have changed, to say the least.  Sadly, in my view, teachers have less of a voice each year, and are more and more reluctant to express it.  

I sometimes ask my fellow teachers whether anyone has ever asked for their opinions, such as what obstacles we face within the classroom, how administrators could help make our job easier, or what we do in our classrooms that seems to work.  The answer is almost always no.

So, although no one has really asked me in quite some time, I will use my voice during  this last year of teaching to give my professional opinions on these topics as well as others, including how to improve education.