By Rena
If our State would win the BIG lottery and limitless money was available to public education here is what I would suggest. Instructional Leaders, Para Educator Training, Field Trips, Technology and Financial Support for Board Certification.
A full time instructional leader in each building. This person would know the curriculum, various ways to assess students, multiple strategies to improve learning and could help diagnose individual students to assist teachers with the task of being sure each child is learning to their potential. This individual would also model lessons and have a budget large enough to ensure adequate materials for the students, so teachers would not have to spend their own money to meet the needs of the students.
Class sizes would be capped at 15. This way teachers would have enough opportunity to get to know each child, their learning styles, the depth of knowledge they possess leading to quality instruction and motivation by the students.
Unlimited field trip opportunities. There is so much outside the classroom that students could learn from. Not only would this give them first hand experience it would bring to light the importance of the classroom learning(s). This would be especially helpful for our small rural school districts that need to travel miles to see a library or museum.
There would be funding provided for teachers to train para educators assigned to their classrooms. This training would help the para educator learn instructional strategies used by the teacher. Thus allowing the para educators to work seamlessly with students that need accelerated activities allowing the highly qualified teacher to work with the students that need additional intervention and strategies to grasp concepts.
Classrooms would be equipped with enough technology to allow each student to have the tools that would enhance their education. Not just technology because it is "cool", rather technology as a tool to expedite their learning and giving students the opportunity to use materials that adults in the working world use.
Yes to all of these! Implementing unlimited fieldtrips, technology, and class size limits would help us meet more of our students’ needs!
I like what you brought up Brian. Agreed. The principal should be, needs to be, the leader of the school. The one with the vision and the leadership to pull it off. Far too often, administration and staff are divided by roles, unions, evaluations. How can a team work as a team if they are not a team?
I really like the idea of a full time instructional leader. The word principal was originally an adjective describing the leader of a building: the principal teacher. But now’s it’s a noun, and too often the principal is not a teacher in any sense.
It would be so great to have time to plan with a para educator. I’ve found that it’s time, not money, that I wish I had more of as a teacher. Being given even a few hours to sit down and get to know the professional who comes and helps in my room would be amazing! It’s always rush, rush rush.
One year I was given a class to teach during my prep period and had my contract increased to a 1.2 because we had so many students. I had 9 students in that class and it was my hardest class. As well, I discovered that I knew less about each child than I did the students in my bigger class. Because of the kinds of kids they were, they found it very hard to share in such a glaring spotlight. By the end of the year I found the most effective teaching style to be sitting around a big table and having a university-style forum class instead of the cooperative, sometimes-boistrous activities I’m used to using.
Somehow, in the bigger classes, each child finds a comfortable audience, but for those students in that class, 9 made them shy. It was not the ideal “I will tutor them each one-on-one and they will improve 5 grade levels” that I always thought it would be. It was a lot of wait time.
The thing that WAS a billion times easier in that tiny class was grading, so at least I got some of that golden time I mentioned. Maybe 15 is the magic number. The most effective way to get to know students that I’ve experienced is to have them for more than one year. I am a huge fan of looping, and I am a huge fan of your 5 ideas.
I’d be thrilled with any kind of instructional leadership at all. It seems too often that the job of administration is to give those snapshot reviews a few times a year (maybe) but not really offer help in the practice of teaching.
I agree with Kim regarding field trips. As a teacher in the suburbs of Seattle, I take it for granted that we can hop on a bus and within minute be at a museum, the beach, the forest or the wastewater treatment center. (best field trip ever!)I had never considered the fact that rural children don’t have that luxury.
I LOVE your idea of unlimited field trips! There are so many wonderful places for us to take our kids for supplemental learning – Pacific Science Center, EMP, Olympic National Park, plays, symphonies, theaters… Wow, the things that pop into mind are so numerous – imagine what we could do with some thought. So much of the difficulties kids experience now stem from a disconnect – how does our “traditional” education relate to their lives? What a marvelous way to help them draw those connections with the everyday world!