Should We Pay Teachers More?

Recently, Time Magazine ran a cover story that illustrated the financial struggles that American teachers face. Some of the quotes from that story have gone viral on social media. 

"I have a masters degree, 16 years experience, work two extra jobs, and donate plasma to pay the bills."

"I have 20 years experience, but I can't afford to fix my car, see a doctor for headaches, or save for my child's future."

"My child and I share a bed in a small apartment, I spend $1000 on supplies, and I've been laid off three times due to budget cuts."

Perhaps in reaction to that story, I was recently asked the question, "If we make teaching a more financially attractive career will it improve education?"

The simple answer is, "Yes."

But, when we hear this question, I don't think it's really asking what we think it's asking.

Of course, making teaching more attractive will lead to more qualified people choosing to teach. It will lead to greater respect for the profession. If teachers don't have to take on second and third jobs to pay off their student loans, they'll be able to focus more energy on their students.

I believe the real, unspoken question that is being asked is, "Is it worth investing in our teachers?"

Those who ask this question really want to know, "Is it worth taking money away from all the other places we spend it in order to pay teachers more?"

The only way to answer those questions is to examine what the trade-offs would be.

In the United States, the amount of money spent by states on standardized testing each year has been estimated to be $1.7 Billion. It is also estimated that American parents spend about $13.1 Billion on test prep, tutoring, and test fees each year.

Standardized tests are a great way for companies to make profits off education. They are also wonderful for generating data that can be analyzed in order to figure out how to make even more profit off education.

They are not much use for those of us who are trying to help children actually learn.

The United States has about 3.8 million teachers.

Reallocating money being spent on standardized testing toward teacher salaries would lead to an average increase of about $3900 per year, approximately a 7% raise.

US schools also spend about $7 Billion each year on textbooks, many of which are out of date before they are even published due to the exponential growth of human knowledge.

In addition to their lack of relevance, textbooks often come with scripted lesson plans and standard assessments which prevent both teachers and students from being successful. The importance of creative thinking, collaboration, and personalized learning in our future society are well documented. These textbook programs often create environments void of those skills. A teacher reading from a teachers' manual is not modeling the creativity we need in students and has no need to collaborate in designing better lessons. Standard assessments prevent us from ensuring every student is getting his/her needs met. In fact, many schools tell teachers to stick to the textbook programs "with fidelity" in order to make the data from standardized tests just a little less meaningless.

This is not to say that schools should not purchase books. They should. Books will always be an important aspect of education.

Expensive textbook programs that undermine teacher autonomy are not.

When schools are spending billions on textbooks that prevent teachers from growing and students from learning, while at the same time teachers are forced to work second and third jobs in order to pay their bills, we have a problem.

We could look at how schools purchase technology that is not used effectively, spend millions of dollars on athletic fields, and dozens of other ways that we spend money in education on things that are not nearly as important to our student's future success as their teachers.

Our priorities are clearly askew.

If a society values having an educated populace, a strong democracy, a thriving economy, and healthy citizens, it must put adequate resources into it's public education system.

And, if that society wants that system to be successful, it needs to demand those resources are being used to recruit, retain, train, and support the most important in-school factor in determining the success of our children: their teachers.

Michael Soskil is a dynamic speaker, professional learning facilitator, author, & one of the most highly recognized teachers in the world. The book he co-authored, Teaching in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, has been called "an authoritative guide to teaching practice over the next three decades" and has been endorsed by world leaders in government, education, & business. To learn more about Michael's work or to book him as a speaker for your next teacher workshop or event, please visit his website at MichaelSoskil.com.

Want Great Schools? Start Simple.

No teacher ever became great by being the best at following the textbook, being the best at reading from a script, or being the best at passing out multiple choice tests from the back of an assessment guide.

No school ever became great by having the best textbook programs from which their teachers read, the best benchmark tests, or the best canned lesson scripts for their teachers.

No country ever became great by having schools that were the best at selecting textbook programs for their teachers to use and the best test-prep programs.

A great national education system starts by having excellent public schools.  Public schools are excellent when they have excellent teachers facilitating learning.  Teachers can only be excellent when they have the autonomy to be.

If we want excellence, we need to start by thinking more simply. We need to start by allowing teachers to be great.  Then encourage them to share what they are doing to inspire others.

Because the current direction of demoralizing them and having them compete against each other simply isn't going to get us there.

Friday's Five - Five Great Education Quotes

Today was my first day of break, and I found it hard to think of good ideas for today's post.  When I'd think of a good idea, the motivation to write about it wasn't there.  I also came up with some pretty lame ideas that would have been fun to write about.  I didn't think anyone would have wanted to read "Five Things I'd Rather Be Doing than Blogging Right Now" or "Five Ways the New York Yankees Are More Evil than Textbook Companies."  Instead of stressing about it, I took a nap.  It's amazing how wonderful a well placed break in the school calendar can be.

Finally, I settled on sharing a few of my favorite quotes related to education.  I've already done a Friday's Five where I shared my favorite Walt Disney quotes on education, so I'm leaving Walt off the list today, even though some of his quotes are fantastic.  It's worth clicking the link above and checking them out.

1. "Knowledge without character is a power for evil only, as seen in the instances of so many 'talented thieves' and 'gentleman rascals' in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi
2. "Real education consists of drawing the best out of yourself.  What better book can there be than the book of humanity?" - Mahatma Gandhi
3. "Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to; convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty." - Thomas Jefferson
4. "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it" - Aristotle
5. "The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically... Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education." - Martin Luther King Jr.

There are so many great education quotes out there; it was difficult to narrow the list down to five.  What  are some of your favorites?  Please share with us in the comment section below, or on the Facebook page!

Image Credit: dimland

Friday's Five - Teaching Reading without Putting Students in a Coma

Every teacher has had moments when they realize that their students have a glazed look in their eyes, are drooling on their textbooks and are on the verge of slipping into a boredom coma.  We strive to make our lessons interesting, fun, and engaging, but sometimes we fail.  Sometimes our hands are tied because we have been told by our superiors that we need to use scripted lessons from XYZ Textbook company because such lessons are backed by research, aligned to our state's standards, and helped a neighboring district increase state test scores by 3% last year.

I seem to get that glazed, drooling, semi-comatose look from my students at times when I am teaching reading.  I love teaching math, history, and civics.  I've gotten quite good at ditching the textbook in those subjects, letting students have more autonomy over their own learning, and creating lessons that are engaging.  Reading is another story.  I'm the rare elementary teacher who dislikes teaching reading.  Because of that, I've lacked the confidence to totally ditch the textbook like I do in other subjects.


Photo Credit:  David Castillo Dominici


It's not that I don't believe reading is important, or that I don't like to read.  I do.  My problem is that I've found it difficult over the years to find ways to make the required reading series interesting in any way, and I've had difficulty identifying ways to ensure my students will pass state tests without it.  Lately I've made a great effort to devise ways to both become more textbook free, and make our reading series/textbook tolerable.  I've still got a lot to learn, but here are five ideas that I've used with some success:

1. Teach non-fiction reading skills in other content areas.  Educational research has shown for decades that students learn best when reading is taught within content areas.  Why school districts are ignoring this research and cutting social studies and science classes in the hope of increasing reading test scores is perplexing to me.  A much better strategy would be to provide professional development to science and social studies teachers so that they can teach reading skills.  I've found that once I get my students engaged with topics in those subject areas, reading information about those topics becomes more relevant to them.  
2. Let students choose the subject matter of their reading choices.  A few weeks ago I told my students to read the next story in our textbook, which was a narrative about a paleontologist.  Three students looked interested.  Seventeen moaned.  I moaned.  I don't really care if my students know about paleontology, dinosaurs, or anything else in that story.  What I need them to know is how to identify setting, conflict, etc.  Why should I force them to read something that they hate?  I changed the assignment on the spot.  Each student was allowed to pick one of six topics, and I handed them short books on those topics.  They still learned what they needed to and were much more interested.
3. Don't make students take a test on everything they read.  I read a lot.  If someone forced me to take a test on each article, blog post, book, and magazine I read, I'd probably read a lot less.  I'd imagine our students feel the same way.  It's hard to build a love of reading in our students if we don't allow them to love reading.  Isn't that the reading skill that's more important than all the others?
4. Use technology to give students purpose for reading.  Writing the main idea of the passage they read in their notebook is not purposeful.  Just typing that sentence makes me one step closer to the semi-comatose state I described earlier.  Let them publish a book review on your class website or wiki.  Let them create a study guide.  Let them share their opinions about what they read in a blog post.  It is impossible to create such things without comprehending what you read.  If students have a purpose they care about for reading, they are much more likely to practice good reading skills like re-reading, deciphering the meaning of words, etc.
5. Allow students to get creative by incorporating the arts into reading class.  Forced to read a boring textbook narrative?  Ask students to create a comic book representation of the story that includes the rising action, conflict, climax and conclusion.  Have students turn the narrative into a screenplay and then videotape themselves acting it out.  See if students can create and record a ballad that tells the story in song.  Better yet, give them the option to choose any of those three, or another creative way to retell the story.  For informational/persuasive writing, product advertisements, commercials, and pamphlets can be great opportunities for students to get creative. 

The biggest issue I run into when trying to implement some of the above ideas is time.  We are supposed to read one textbook story per week.  Sometimes I feel like I'm not doing my job if we spend three weeks exploring one topic.  I have to remind myself that students are learning more when they are emotionally connected to the material they are studying, and that quality always trumps quantity when it comes to learning.  It would be a lie to say that I don't fall into the trap of "covering" material and topics at times.  Perhaps that's why I find teaching reading more difficult than math and social studies.  I don't find myself falling into that trap as often in those subjects.

What are some ways that you keep students engaged when learning to read?  Have you done any of the above activities?  Do you have suggestions to improve them?  What have you tried that didn't work?  What are some stumbling blocks you face when trying to make reading fun and interesting for your students?  I'd love to hear your ideas.  Please share with us in the comment section below, and pass this post along to others in your networks so that we can get their ideas as well.

Friday's Five - What to Do With Your Textbooks (Now That They're Obsolete)

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Friday's Five is a feature every week where I pick a new topic and list five items that I think fit best.  Then I ask you to share your thoughts in the comment section.  For an archive of past topics, check the Friday's Five Page. 


Let me just get this out of the way upfront.  I despise textbooks.

I also have a big problem with anyone involved in education who cares more about political agendas and profit than what's best for my students.  For that reason I despise textbook companies.

Photo Credit: Michael Essany

That may sound harsh, but I'm not using hyperbole. Tamim Ansary, a former textbook editor, does a great job of summarizing the problem with our textbooks in his article A Textbook Example of What's Wrong With Education.  James Loewen, a former textbook author, describes many of the same problems in more depth in his book Lies My Teacher Told Me.  Both are worth reading.

The good news, though, is that textbooks are becoming obsolete by the minute.  The ubiquity of computers, iPads, smartphones, and other portable devices makes accessing information instantaneous and easy.  I've yet to come across any information in the 5th grade textbooks that are provided to my students that couldn't be found on-line for free.  As an added advantage, differing viewpoints and opinions are offered on that information allowing my students the opportunity to analyze and evaluate that information.  You'd be hard pressed to find a textbook that made kids use those higher-order thinking skills.  At a time when school districts are facing debilitating budget cuts, textbooks are decreasingly being viewed as necessities.

When I've had discussions with others before and suggested that we should get rid of textbooks, I often get asked, "How will teachers know what to teach, then?"  My usual response is that they should try teaching their students.  Teachers need to stop using textbooks as a crutch that allows them to simply deliver instruction instead of teaching.

So, in the age of free and easily obtainable information, iPads, and Google, I asked my PLN on Plurk, Twitter, and the Teacher's Life for Me Facebook Page to suggest ideas for using the textbooks in your room now that they are obsolete.  I'm appreciative to everyone who chimed in with great ideas, both practical and satirical.  Here are five ideas for your textbooks:

1.  This idea came from @emprimrose on Plurk.  She suggested turning the textbooks into storage boxes for students.  In addition to being incredibly practical, it looks like a fun activity.

2.  In my classroom, I use textbooks to support our technology use.  Literally.  My classroom projector is propped up on old textbooks so that the image fits nicely on our classroom whiteboard.  One leg of the table in the front of my room is shorter than the others.  I've got an old book leveling that out as well.




3.  @SStephensC200 on Plurk suggested packaging up the books and shipping them to classrooms in countries that are less affluent like the Philippines and those in Africa.  She mentions that shipping costs are one drawback.  I can see a great opportunity for a service learning project here.  How great would it be for our students to help others in another country by raising the funds to send them books?



4.  Textbooks (and outdated encyclopedias) stack very nicely.  Allow your students to get creative by using books to build something.  @cmay inspired this idea by sharing the picture on the right.



5.  Lately, everyone from the CDC to Chinese police forces seem worried about the impending Zombie Apocalypse.  @nkrahn suggests saving the textbooks for just such an occasion, claiming that nothing kills a brain better than a college textbook - both when read and when used as a projectile.


Now it's your turn.  What do you think we can do with our obsolete textbooks?  Share your best ideas in the comment section below and pass the post along to friends and colleagues via Twitter, Plurk, Google+ and Facebook so that we can hear their ideas as well.  If you'd like to suggest and vote for future Friday's Five topics, or join in the discussion on ways to improve education, please stop by A Teacher's Life for Me on Facebook and click on the "like" button.

Friday's Five - What Every Social Studies Student Should Be Learning

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Friday's Five is a feature every week where I pick a new topic and list five items that I think fit best.  Then I ask you to share your thoughts in the comment section.  For an archive of past topics, check the Friday's Five Page. 

Flickr/Topeka and Shawnee Public Library

This week I switched things up by placing a poll on the A Teacher's Life for Me Facebook Page to ask you what you'd like to see me write about.  The four choices were:

• "Great Ways to Use Voicethread in Your Classroom" 
• "Hidden Educational Gems in Walt Disney World"
• "Important Things Every Social Studies Student Should be Learning"
• "Why the 'Traditional Way' is Holding Our Math Students Back"

While every one of the topics were chosen by some, the majority of those chiming in wanted to discuss important skills our social studies students need to learn.  With federal and state focus on standardized testing our students are getting less opportunity to learn vital lessons that are best taught in our social studies classes.  Here are five vital skills and ideas that our social studies students should be learning from early elementary school straight through high school.

1. Identifying Bias - Now that we are in the internet age, we are constantly barraged with information.  Students need to understand that all of that information is being given to them with an agenda.  The same news story on Fox News is being presented differently than it is on MSNBC, and kids (and their parents) need to know how to sift through the opinions to get to the fact.  We often teach Social Studies out of a textbook, but the process in which textbooks are developed leads to books that are so biased that they often do more harm than good for our students.  To combat this, schools are increasingly looking to use on-line content.  Obviously, with the number of people putting information on the internet, identifying the agenda within content is vital in order for our students to understand history.  
2. There are very few absolutes.  The United States (or any other place) is not a perfect country.  We've done a lot of great things, and quite a few things that aren't so great.  Eliminating the controversy and blemishes makes history dreadfully boring, and robs students the opportunity to learn from past mistakes.  Who would watch a movie where the main character went through life without problems or mistakes?  There's no plot.  At the same time, teaching kids that some countries, or groups of people are all bad is harmful.  There are very few absolutes in life.  Teaching kids to look at all sides of an issue is much more important than any nugget of information we could give them.
3. "Why" and "How" are much more important than "Where, When, and Who." - Often social studies class consists of a bunch of dates, people, and places that kids have to know about and spit back on a test.  The real lessons in social studies are within the "Why" and "How."  Instead of teaching students only that the Bill of Rights was added to the U.S. Constitution in 1791 and what each bill says, ask them to find out why some colonists thought those protections were needed, how some colonists fought against them, and why two of the proposed amendments weren't ratified. (Although one of them did eventually pass and become an amendment in 1992.)  Facts are great for winning Jeopardy, but the real thinking comes from debating the reasons those facts came to be.
4. Identifying Sources and their Validity - Our students should be taught to question everything that is told to them.  This is something that is greatly lacking in today's society.  How many times have you received forwarded e-mails, seen Facebook posts, or heard someone talking about something as fact that is clearly fabricated?  Students should be encouraged to ask teachers "Why?" and "How do you know?"  They should learn to find who is responsible for the website they are reading, the source of the information in the Wikipedia article to which they are directed, and the motivations of the cleverly named organization behind the political campaign ad they just watched.
5. It's OK to disagree, but you better bring strong facts to the debate.  Students are usually taken aback when I ask them their opinions for the first time.  When they do answer, it's usually by parroting what their parents have told them, or what they think I want to hear.  They need to start thinking for themselves.  We should be asking them whether they agree or disagree all the time in our social studies classes.  We also should be demanding that they back their opinion with fact.  Students need to understand that to truly debate a position, they should be able to argue the opposite side of the argument as well.  Only then can they be sure that it is not their emotional bias that is blinding them.  The more we demand that students take a position and back it up, the better they will be able to cope with the bombardment of opinions they face outside our classrooms.  

Flickr/Sprengben

Now it's your turn.  What skills do you think we should be teaching our students in our social studies classes?  How do you teach the skills and ideas listed above?  Are there any that you disagree with?  Please share your ideas in the comment section, and pass the post along on Twitter, Google+, Plurk, and Facebook so that we can hear their opinions as well.  Also, if you aren't a fan on Facebook yet, stop by the Facebook page and click the "like" button so that you can chime in on future Friday's Five topics, discuss ways to improve education, and receive new posts in your news feed.

Friday's Five - Make Schools Better without Spending Money

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Friday's Five is a feature every week where I pick a new topic and list five items that I think fit best.  Then I ask you, my readers, to share your thoughts in the comment section.  For an archive of past topics, check the Friday's Five Page.  If you'd like to make suggestions about future topics or discuss topics I bring up on the blog with others, make sure you click the "like" button on the right hand side of the page to join A Teacher's Life for Me on Facebook.  Don't be shy about sharing the blog and Facebook Page with others.  Each post has a "Tweet" button on top and buttons on the bottom that allow you to share in several ways, including e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter.

Flickr/planspark

As educators, we should always be looking for ways to make our schools better learning environments.  Every day, new stories are surfacing about how school funding is getting cut.  In this post, I'd like to examine five ways that we can improve the educational experience for our students without spending a lot of money. 

1. Start school later in the day.  This change would cost nothing, and undoubtedly lead to increased learning for our students.  According to the American Psychological Association, adolescents need 9 hours and 15 minutes of sleep per night.  With travel times in some rural areas of over an hour to arrive at school in the morning, sports and activities that often last late into the evening, and school start times before 8AM, most students do not get the required amount of sleep.  Pushing back the school day by an hour would leave less students in a constant state of exhaustion, and more learning would occur.
2. Allow teachers control over their own professional development through PLNs.  Instead of paying for expensive "experts" to come into schools to deliver professional development to teachers, allow teachers to model life-long learning to their students through the development of Professional Learning Networks (PLNs).  In this way, teachers can learn about the topics they feel are most important from others in the field through professional blogs, social networking sites like Plurk, Twitter, and Google+, and other resources.  The reality is that most school/district sponsored professional development does not trickle down to changes in classroom pedagogy.  Networking with other professionals is something that is critical to growth in any profession, and something that has been lacking in the field of education.  
3. Buy fewer textbooks.  Textbooks are so 20th Century.  The textbook selection process in larger states all but guarantees that any controversial, thought provoking, or polically charged topics are left out.  There are problems waiting to be solved all around us that require research, writing skills, and mathematics.  We live in a time when information is ubiquitous and free.  Textbooks hold back students from having to think and teachers from having to be creative.  
4. Eliminate Standardized Test Prep.  Despite what the companies that sell test prep materials tell you, there are many studies that show that special test preparation classes and lessons lead to no additional learning.  We know from countless brain researchers that learning can only happen when students have an emotional connection to the material they are learning.  I've seen fewer things in my teaching career that are less emotionally engaging than test prep materials.  Requiring students to take time away from engaging, authentic learning to drill and practice using test prep materials is not only boring for the students and teachers, but it's ineffective and expensive. 
5. Involve students in the community.  In these rough economic times it is vital that we maintain a good relationship with the community, since a large part of public school funding comes from local taxes.  In addition, there are increasingly more community members that need help.  Students need to learn the value of helping others and the rewards that come with service.  Helping others in the local area is an opportunity for our students to solve real world problems with the skills they've learned in school, while also building a stronger bond between school and community. 

Now it's your turn.  Has your school adopted any of these changes?  Are there other ways we could increase learning without increasing the budget?  What obstacles would we face in implementing the above suggestions?  Leave your thoughts in the comment section below, and pass the blog on to others via Twitter, Plurk, Facebook, and Google+ so that we can hear as many points of view as possible.