Friday, March 09, 2007
Teach For America
This week, the Duval County School Board approved a commitment to Teach for America (TFA), a nationally-renowned and highly competitive teacher recruitment program, which demonstrates its support for Jacksonville becoming a TFA-affiliate city in 2008/2009. This is HUGE for us in efforts to build on our professional learning communities and engage our business and philanthropic leaders in our work. If Jacksonville is selected, what support and advice would you give to the corps of recent outstanding college graduates who would be assigned to serve and inspire our most challenged students?
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8 comments:
BE FLEXIBLE!!!! That is what they would need to know because there have been many recent changes and I am sure that more are coming. Sometimes just when you think you have it all down pat, there are those 'surprises' that put you back at square one. It is great to know that we are implementing new ways to obtain outstanding teachers from colleges but I must ask, what is being done to retain the outstanding teachers that are already here? Also, can you explain a little more about the recruitment process of these outstanding students? What are the guidelines to meet this 'outstanding' status?
I think one of the most important things for the “Teach for America” individuals and for all teachers in Duval County is training in positive behavior management. In my position as an ESE/SS Intervention Specialist in Cluster I K-8 North, I am called out to schools by teachers, administrators, guidance counselors, and others to assist them with students who are having behavior difficulties. In my experience, some teachers have a difficult time dealing with classroom behavior. Teachers have expectations of how students ought to behave, but some of their students do not have the skills necessary to meet their teachers’ expectations. In many cases students need to be taught to behave just as they need to be taught subject matter.
Helping a student behave better sometimes means that a change needs to be made in the educational setting. In many cases, individual students would benefit from implementing a behavior management plan to help them to behave in the classroom. This could mean that a particular student would receive some different treatment than the other students. A former coworker always said that fair treatment of a student is not the same thing as equal treatment of a student. What is fair is giving each student what he/she needs to be successful. For teachers to be able to teach effectively they must be trained in positive behavior management and then get ongoing support in this area.
Although in Duval County we have Champs and Foundations, and I see signs of this in some of our schools, there are no checks and balances to make sure it is being implemented consistently and appropriately. I believe we could benefit from inviting in the USF Positive Behavioral Support Team (PBS) http://flpbs.fmhi.usf.edu/index.asp to this county.
Using standard coaches and reading coaches has benefited our schools, and I think we need to use the same concept when it comes to implementing behavior expectations.
In the PBS model when a student is having difficulties either behaviorally or academically, a team of all people who work with that student come together to brainstorm and come up with interventions that will help the student experience more success. Team members look for reasons the student is displaying inappropriate behavior and look for function (purpose) of the behavior to understand what the student is obtaining or escaping from. The best possible assistance is to come up with and teach the student a new behavior that replaces the inappropriate one. The best replacement behavior would actually serve the same function as the inappropriate behavior for the student. PBS supports the idea that it takes an entire team to assist the teacher to implement positive interventions.
Since we are going to begin inclusion of many of our ESE population in the general classroom I think we will need to place more emphasis on training our teachers to meet all of our students’ needs. I think it will be important for us to prepare and then support the “Teach for America” teachers as well our own teachers in the area of positive behavior management.
The previous commenters have made some good points. Kudos to those who sign up for "Teach for America"! My advice would be for them to try to get into a co-teach situation to get the best from a veteran teacher, while getting some much-needed help as our county undergoes some drastic changes. And, speaking as an ESE teacher, I think that neither the county nor the general education teachers are prepared for what we will experience next year.
"Teach for America" - that's a great idea. There are many things to help prepare a new teacher but none as important as patience and support from administration as well as 'seasoned' peers. Hosting UNF students allows me the opportunity to solicit suggestions and ideas from potential teachers. Many of them make comments concerning the behavior of students and how unprepared they (the UNF pre-intern) were for the apathy and disrespect they receive. Allowing the pre-intern to see and experience the "raw" behavior of students gives them a perspective they did not expect. They seem to think that learning appropriate ways of dealing with the social and behavior issues is actually more beneficial than "teaching a lesson".
That being said, and the previous comments taken into consideration, I think we can AND SHOULD do more in equipping teachers to deal with student behaviors. Part of this training, in my opinion, should include professionals from the outside support services. It is true that guidance probably knows all of the family and social support avenues available to students and their families - but, the fact is that teachers are our first line of defense in intercepting and preventing potential behavioral outbursts - which in the end result in the student not being as successful as possible. Teachers can know the best strategies and deliver the most incredible lessons - but you know as well as I that THAT doesn't always equal success. We must focus on the "Relationship" part of the "4-R's".
If we can master professional relationships with students, learning will come easy. This is an important lesson for ALL teachers (new and seasoned). Mastering this professional relationship will require thinking outside the box and providing professional development in understanding and identifying critical areas of need within the child/young adult's life... most of which doesn't involve academics. In addition to recognizing potential issues with the social-emotional development - I feel that it is also important to provide professional development from law enforcement personnel so the teacher can truly understand the dynamics of the environment in which their students live, thereby better enabling them to meet the student's needs.
How is it possible that we are recruiting these fine new teachers when the District is telling us that ALL SCHOOLS are losing teaching postions? Another example of the disconnect between the various levels at the District. When are we going to deal in reality?
Sounds like a great idea. However, how are we taking in new teachers when some of the "old" teachers are being surplused? This does not make sense.
Perhaps a warning to the newbies that Duval County is more impressed with learning the FCAT then teaching the necessary academic material. The children get saturated with FCAT material and the teacher's are overloaded with ridiculous goals and paperwork that the children are the one losing. Let us teach...let these new teachers teach. Get back to the basics and the children will surprise you. Knowledge is key...
We are very honored that our city has been chosen as a TFA city. These TFA corp teachers begin working with us in the 08-09 school year. We plan to group 2 or 3 into a school where possible. I believe the Teach for America website (Google it) has the information ref. selection criteria, etc. Due to growth of our district in teacher positions (mostly due to class size amendment legislation) I anticipate no negative impact on our veteran teachers.
Stay tuned.
Joseph Wise
Superintendent of Schools
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