http://teacherleaders.typepad.com/the_tempered_radical/2012/07/what-economists-dont-understand-about-educators.html#comments
That's the blog I commented on.
I think it is awesome that there is a way for teachers around the country to communicate with each other about their careers and classroom activities. I feel like this is a tool that I actually will use in my future. There should always be a space where we can get our thoughts and opinions out.
The blog I read was about teachers getting bonuses at the beginning of the year, with the purpose of making them more motivated to make sure their students did well on standardized tests. If the teacher's students did not perform better than in the past year, the teacher was forced to give the money back. I think this is a terrible idea. It implies that teachers aren't already trying as hard as they can to educate their students. That's insulting. Plus! Why should we be focussed on simply making sure our students do well on standardized tests? That's not the point of teaching. The point of teaching is to accomplish our classroom goals and make sure the students are fully educated on the topic. I disagree with standardized tests. We should not be educating students about how to test. We should be educating them on our subject matter.
Many teachers will concur with you, and research shows that merit pay does not improve student achievement (go figure, eh?). As you polish this post, it would be great to hear more about your response to Ferriter as well as to the article Ferriter is responding to.
ReplyDeleteUgh! I could go on for awhile about merit pay. I totally agree with everything you said here. I hate that teachers are pressured to teach to tests. I want my students to learn the subject matter and hopefully feel inspired to continue to learn more. Teaching only to a test leaves little room for the students delve into aspects of the subject that are personally interesting to them. Things get pretty dry if they are just learning what I want them to learn or what the state wants them to learn. Anyway, I'll stop there. Like I said, i could go on and on...
ReplyDeleteHey Dylan, I agree with your thoughts about teachers having a place where they can share their ideas/thoughts about education and pedagogy. I also think that its a resource I will for sure use in my future teaching career as I try to expand my lesson plans and make my classroom activities more diverse.
ReplyDeleteWhile I think you make some great points about merit pay, I think that the idea itself has some...merit? (can't think of another word). While I don't think teachers should be encouraged to teach standardized tests, I think that merit pay will motivate teachers to be more involved in their classrooms, I know that some teachers I had in my past did not really care much for my achievement and simply wanted to get tenure and then coast. So while merit pay in terms of achievement on standardized tests isn't the right idea, I think that with the right foundation, merit pay does have a positive side.
Hey Dylan, I agree with your posting! Merit pay seems to be a quick-fix idea for the teachers who aren't involved in the learning that is supposed to be going on in their classrooms in the first place. But for the teachers who actually care and spend more time and energy on their students than their own family, this is not conducive to teacher morale. I also agree with you on the point that students' standardized test results should not be used in evaluating teacher effectiveness. (Have you seen Bad Teacher?? Diaz's character stole the standardized test and then just coached her students to regurgitate the facts that they would be asked!)
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about edubloggers and having an open space to write down your thoughts and ideas. There is one disadvantage to putting everything "out there" for everyone to see. Your employers, for example, may not agree with your pedagogy or ideology and then fire you or neglect to renew your contract the next year. In one of the posts by the edublogger I chose to read, he stated various times throughout his posting that he couldn't say more about that topic, or he mentioned that so-and-so knew what he was talking about but that he refused to mention anything controversial associated with his opinion. I guess I just wanted to point out how an online blog is another outlet for our opinions but it is also another projection of ourselves as professionals, similar to Weebly, and that we should be cautious about anything we put out into the vast world of the Internet.