what do school teachers need to be able to teach the kids effectively?

Question

Is it more funding? is it more support from the school board? is it more involved parents? smaller class sizes? less standardized testing? more school days? etc.. i was thinking that maybe we should ask them what they need rather than simply critize them for under performing students. so go for it teachers. let us know whats really going on.

Answer 1

Thanks for not critizing -- I think. Wow, when we resolve this, let's move on to world peace/ anti-poverty/ ...

I would venture to say (without proper statistics) that today's first graders for example know more and perform ahead of first graders even ten years ago instead of under performing ( as you, without supporting facts, suggest).

Nevertheless, effective teaching comes down to the individual teacher's choice and ability at any given moment. People can not be fine tuned like a machine to perform more effectively. One teacher in the same environment as another may be more effective and one teacher on one day may be more effective than on another day. Yet, in fact, there are crappy - I mean ineffective- teachers

Oh, sure, there are teaching strategies, cost per pupil, community support (not interferrance), parent who motivate and teach there children how to properly behave in a public setting, materials, time on task, assessment and feedback, and a myriad of other factors that prove effective and must be included.

If teachers could only Teach and not be expected to entertain, discipline, complete so much paper work, put in extra hours for extra duties, ad ifinitum, then perhaps they would be more effctive at Teaching.

What's really going on with such posts as yours, in my opinion, is in part the lack of respect, support, and recognition for effective teachers who serve as professionals and do make a positive impact. There. I went for it. And I give you a star for asking.

Answer 2

Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. Actually teachers need to quit being legislated and start being respected as professionals. Politicians feel that they know better what students need and legislate teachers into a corner. They tell teachers how to teach and create an environment where it is incredibly tempting to teach to a test rather than teaching children how to learn. You have heard the old saying "Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for life." The same goes for education. If you teach children how to learn you will give them a gift that last a lifetime. In our current environment (No Child Left Behind (or Untested)) teachers are unable to give children that gift.
People apparently have gotten the idea that all teachers are slackers, and left to their own devices would just put on movies all day until summer break. So people (politicians, board of directors, etc) feel they need to keep teachers under their thumb. I mean do you really think it would create better surgeons if the politicians read a book and decided that only one particular surgery would work for all patients, whether they have brain tumors or appendicitis. And then pass legislation saying that this is the way it has to be done while only giving the surgeons a small stipend to buy all the tools necessary for the surgery (which would only cover about half of the tools they need). Then, when the mortality rates increase, blaming the physicians and saying "See, this is why we have to tell them how to do their jobs. If we don't they will just kill everybody." Then passing even tighter legislation requiring that the surgeons only use certain tools during this one surgery. Then when the mortality rate increases again, blaming the physicians saying "Well I guess they aren't getting it. I guess what we should do is allow people to do their own surgeries since anyone can read a book and do this, I mean it is only surgery. But we will have to take money away from the professionals so that they average joe can pay for the tools they need to do the surgery. I mean the surgeons obviously don't care enough to do it right..." and so on and so on. A bit of an extreme example but I hope it effectively, if not sardonically, illustrates the point.
Teachers are in this profession to help students learn. The lack of respect for the profession is what gets to most of us. If you treat teachers like they are children that need to be kept under a watchful eye or they will do something wrong you will soon only have people in the profession who are in it to get the summers off and play movies all day. And that will be a sad day.

Answer 3

Honey I have been a teacher's assistant for 22 years and you have a very good question. School has changed so much over the years. The children are more disrespectful than I have ever seen in all of my years. In my humble opinion there is three things that have left or almost left the classroom that has hurt learning in general. They are Jesus , the paddle and the American Flag. We're afraid to say anything about God all at. When I was growing up in Tennessee we had a Bible verse to learn each week along with our lessons in our public school. Second I don't think any child should get a beating, but an old fashioned swat on the behind at home and if necessary at school works wonders. The children know that there is nothing a teacher can do to them so where there is no discipline, there is also no learning. Third on my list is the taking away of patiotism. We still say the pledge each day in our schools, but it means nothing to the children.
Yes teachers could use smaller class sizes, less testing, but parent involvement is the key to a lot of help for a child. If a teacher knows a parent has their back it means a lot to them. I know teachers everywhere will appreciate you caring enough to ask what they want. We need more people like you in the world that cares. Most people think that teachers are over paid and they get paid all summer when they don't work. The sad truth is they stretch your pay into 24 equal payments so you bring home so much less so you will have a pay check in the summer months.

Answer 4

Teachers need less criticism and more autonomy, more support, more recognition for a job well done. And to make that work effectively, teachers need a enhanced system of teacher education.

I believe currently, teachers are missing some key structures that could make them more effective in the classroom, and which are not currently addressed by the education they receive, and which could make every classroom great.

Teachers need structures that support their own self-development in the field. Not just subject matter training, but sensitivity training, education about how to be human, about the nature of joy, love, integrity, responsibility, humanity and how to pass those lessons on to our children. A teacher cannot teach a student to be happy unless they know how from deep personal experience. While I haven't done a survey on this, I assert that happy students learn more effectively, experience less fear, have more harmonious relationships with their peers, as well as teachers (and parents).

One might say this type of training is not possible because it takes too long or is too costly. I can say from personal experience that there are now organizations that can provide this training in just a few weeks, while training in conventional subject matter requires years.

It's easy to say these things should be the province of the parents or the church or some "faith based" organization. However, the clear fact is that our society doesn't function to train parents well. So we're turning out more kids who will be parents who do not have the parenting skills to adequately cover the ground that teachers currently cannot or do not. Why not give our energies to creating a new type of parent, by creating a new type of student?

Answer 5

Anybody want a teacher's opinion?

More Funding? - yes. (especially for the arts - science gets all the money and thats not turning out very balanced people - the whole concept of 'education' versus job training is that people learn more than just how to make money)

More support from the school boards? - maybe, but in some cases they are more a part of the problem than a part of the solution.

More involved parents? - Absolutely. This is a very important step in improving education. Its not because teachers don't want to do the work, we do (at least I do) but the parents most definitely have a role to play and that role is being diminished all the time. Teachers end up being expensive babysitters and we need to change the idea that school is just goverment funded day-care. If parents could simply spend more time teaching their children manners, then teachers could spend more time teaching them the curriculum.

Smaller class sizes? - maybe. In many cases smaller class sizes help but not always, a good teacher is more important. By that I mean that a good teacher can teach a class of 30 students way better than an average teacher can teach 20 students. I think that class size generally gets too much attention (though as a teacher myself I know that its easier teaching to a smaller class)

Less standardized testing? Its not so much less as how we approach it. Evaluation is an important part of the educational process and introducing some standardization is a good idea. However, far too much importance is given to the marks themselves. Tests are learning tools. The actual scores are not as important as the learning - its sad that people can't understand that.

More School Days - NO! Schools have become glorified daycare centers so of course parents want the school year to match their work hours as closely as possible. While this may be good for business it is not at all good for education. People can only learn so much at a time. We can actually learn more with less class time if we go about it more intelligently.

If we had less school hours and less homework (thats right I'm a teacher and I want less homework) then we could make learning fun again.

Have you ever noticed that most six year olds can't wait to go to school and have a great deal of energy and excitement about learning? By the time that those same students reach grade 10, learning has lost all its joy and now its simply a game of numbers. I need this grade point to get into this school to get this job so I can earn this amount of money. Thats not what education is about - or at least thats not supposed to be what education is about.

Its all about motivation. If we can make learning more fun, then people will want to learn more. If we can somehow preserve that six year old state of mind, that excitement for learning then the rest will take care of itself.

Better education for teachers would be good too. Its all part of the same cycle however. People teach what they learn. We need to break the habit of treating schools like factories and engage minds like they were human beings not machines.

Answer 6

In my classroom, the majority of the students are ESL and 2 simply don't speak any English at all. The tests...they don't care that those children do not speak English and yet they are tested and of course they fail and I am hounded by the administration to bring up those scores....but remember they don't speak English and therefore can not read etc... I would like more parent involvement in the home. To encourage my students to do their homework and read. More funding would be nice---however I am in a school that is considered a "title 1" and we receive $100 per year to spend in the classroom. The curriculum is sometimes not appropriate for all the students. In my school, we have a strict curriculum. The entire school must be doing certain subjects at the set times. It would be nice to have aides in the classrooms and even maybe more hours to the school day. Now school is ending on Friday (for me) and my little guys (first grade) are going to have the summer off and I KNOW 90% of them will not pick up one book this summer to read even though I've written letters home to parents about the importance of reading. So parent involvement is very important too. I think I could go on and on.....

Answer 7

I think it is a mixture of all the things you named. Teachers can be effective with out them, but to make sure that each child is reached a teacher needs smaller classrooms so there can be more one on one with each student. As far as more school days that should be less. Students after the first of May, or after testing, are gone for the summer. As in nothing they are taught is recorded to last. More money is always a big help to buy materials your school system can't afford to buy for each and every teacher. All teachers can not use one program. Some teachers may use them, but never all and most school systems will only buy one program and therefore some teachers are left with adapting the program to their students, or doing without. Sorry I will get off my soapbox now, but education is such an important thing to triffle with. I am a retired teacher with a BS, 2 MB, and a Rank I, 30 hours above my master toward an EED. Education is very important to each child and each child should be given the opportunity to have that education.

Answer 8

This is the best question that i had already read. I am a retired teacher in India at Tamilnadu.The techers work for the kids, or students. They are not working with papers or money or any other thing. The questioner asks teachers what they need.to be able to teach the kids effectively. Now we should understand that the teachers should teach more effectively and the need of the teachers will improve the teaching. Teachers salary, accamodation of the class room,other facilities, more fund, more school days are not the matters.But one thing we should understand.If a prayer meeting conducted, firstly a speach will be given,and at last the prayer will be conducted.Because the prayer will lead to God. So people's mind to be concentrated the speach is given.As it is, the chilren should be lead to be concentrated to their studies.

Answer 9

It is a combination of all the things you mentioned. And instead of having people who are not in the classroom nor never been in the classroom as a educator make up legislation that teachers have to follow - ask teachers what should be done to teach children more effectively. At this point, teachers are being made scapegoats for issues that aren't always their fault. We can't force parents to get involved with their child's education. There is only so much money we can raise to buy books and other resources students need. We can't control how many kids live in the neighborhood and whether they will choose to attend our school. We are underpressure to get all students to be proficient in reading and math despite the fact that many are ESL or have learning disabilities by 2014. It's crazy and a bit unrealistic.

Answer 10

Its patience and the ability and desire to change the class to match the students...how many times have we seen movies like The freedom writers and Dangerous minds? These teachers made a difference by making the learning interesting for the children...this can happen in the county too, when children have more hands on activities and work together its amazing what they can accomplish because they WANT to. We need to recognize that schools are a VERY social place and that that effects the willingness of the children to learn. Getting their attention is the first step...allowing them some freedoms is another. Encourage them to use their imaginations and talents. Smaller class sizes allow for a teacher to work more one on one, but that is only if the teacher is willing to, and alot of times a distric just has too many children.

Answer 11

LOVE teaching. Any teacher who is truly passionate about the subject matter and the students will draw in the majority of kids. Kids have become apathetic because they see the same attitudes in their teachers.

Think back to your favorite teachers when you were in school...the ones that said things to you that you still remember now, the ones that really made an impact on your life. In my case, each one of those teachers had a love of teaching, and a love of the students, that was undeniable.