Conversations with Educators

A+ is pleased to present a conversation with Jane Mobley. (view biographical sketch)

How do we prepare students for survival and competition in a digital economy?

Today's students will live in a world where almost every facet of their lives will be mediated through the computer. In order to survive in such a world, students must become not only computer literate, but also they must interact with all forms of computer technology comfortably. The only way that this situation can come to fruition is that the students must have constant and personal exposure to the use of technology in many different settings. Computer use must be fully integrated into the whole curriculum, and students must be challenged to use computers not only to do research, but also to create, report, and demonstrate.

In order to meet these goals, computers must be available to every child. Students must be able to access technology both inside and outside of class. Not only will this require more investment in hardware and software, but also there must be more investment in the training of teachers and in the hiring of technology support personnel.

Another consideration is that of addressing the student's natural instinct to believe anything that is in print. The acquiring of enough information on a subject was a problem for students in the past. Today, the problem is that there may be too much information available via the Internet, much of which is of poor quality or absolutely invalid. A challenge that must now be addressed in the classroom is teaching students how to determine the difference in valid and worthless information. Given the ease of digital buying, selling, and trading, we must teach our students caution and help them develop skills in making good judgments.

How do we get parents involved in our schools?

Parental influence may be the most important factor in the success or failure of our students and our schools, yet, all too often, parents do not feel important in their children's educational experiences. It is up to those of us in education to do everything that we can to connect the parents to the school. Parents can be our greatest allies or our worst foes, and we have much to do with which they will chose to be. We must make parents feel not only welcome in the classroom, but also needed. Schools that can accomplish this may find that they have tapped into a much underutilized resource.

One way to ensure that parents feel welcome is by providing a space for them at the school. A parent center can include a bulletin board for notices and concerns, a computer for parent use, and a copy machine for running off materials. The parent center also can provide a special place for parents to meet. Another thing that the school can do is ask for volunteers for things like developing a parent newsletter highlighting parent organization events, special awards to students, interesting classes that parents might want to visit, and giving a calendar of events at the school.

Parents have a wealth of knowledge, experience, and connections that can be drawn upon by teachers if only those teachers know what is available. The school can develop a list of parents and what those parents are willing to share and to give to all teachers in the school. Teachers can write letters to parents at the beginning of a term explaining what will be taught and asking for any help or suggestions in meeting the objectives of the course. Many parents, especially those in underprivileged areas, are intimidated by the educational establishment. Their personal experiences with schools may not be positive. These parents will not respond to calls about their children that are negative in tone. These parents do, however, know our students better than we do and have more influence with them. As educators we need to ask those parents to work with us and to ask for their advice, rather than making them more hesitant to be involved. We can also help these parents to help their children by providing classes for them on subjects like parenting and understanding the Internet.

What kind of professional development should schools provide for their teachers?

Given the upcoming teacher shortage about to be faced in this country and the public clamor for ever more accountability, it is increasingly more important to fill our teacher slots with more than just warm bodies whose major job is to baby sit. In order to teach our students to be active learners, it is necessary that we be active learners. In order to prepare our students to face the ever changing job market in which new skills must be learned constantly, we must be willing to change and to stay current with our profession and our subjects. In order to do these things, we must have up to date, relevant professional development available to us with the support and encouragement of our administrators, superintendents, and boards.

Professional development should begin with the interning teachers. One of the most important determining factors in whether or not a new teacher will be successful is the kind of experience a student teacher is given during interning. Much more care should be given in placement of interns. Many interning teachers have horror stories to tell of their internships. Classroom teachers who are assigned interns should be those truly interested in sharing proven successful practices with others and not those just interested in getting out of class for a while. Classroom teachers who are assigned interns should be screened first and should have some training in what is expected of them. Accomplishing this goal might require the output of more money or release time whose cost would have to be borne by either the school system or the university. A teacher's first year is a stressful time at best. Going into that situation without an arsenal of tried strategies and after having had poor modeling of teaching can lead to disaster for both the new teacher and the students. Systems that are really interested in having a teaching pool from which to draw that can meet accountability demands must put forth more effort in this area.

The second concern that should be addressed in professional development is what happens during a teacher's first year of teaching. New teachers must be mentored. Many schools offer mentors to their new teachers. Once again, however, not much thought or preparation is given to this step. Mentoring teachers should be those who are really interested in mentoring and who have proven successful classroom practices to share. Mentoring teachers also should be given time to do their mentoring. Shared planning periods should be given to the pair of teachers. Also, the mentoring teacher should be given time to visit the new teacher's classes to give aid when needed. Doing so might require having a substitute cover the mentors' class for some periods of time. Finally, new teachers should have a reasonable set of supplies furnished to them the first day they come to the classroom and not walk into classrooms that have been stripped of anything useful by the departing teacher or others. Administrators should see to it that this situation is under control.

Professional development offered for the sake of saying that professional development has been done is meaningless. Professional development must be relevant to the individual teacher and must give that teacher something that can be implemented in that teacher's classroom and that will help the teacher meet objectives for his or her students. If a deficiency is recognized by the teacher or is determined during the evaluation process, there must be some timely professional development plan to rectify the situation. Just having the teacher be aware of the weakness is not enough. There must be somewhere to turn for help. Schools, systems, and the state must provide professional development resources that are ones developed based on input from teachers and the administrators who evaluate teachers.

Teaching can be an isolated experience. A really good teacher can stagnate without outside input. One person can have only so many good ideas and can have only so much access or time to wade through professional journals. A teacher cannot excite students about a subject unless he or she is personally excited. There is nothing that increases a teacher's excitement like learning new information or ways of presenting information to share with students. That excitement is necessary for keeping good teachers in the classroom. That excitement can only be built by offering quality professional development and providing the time for teachers to work together. Schools and school systems must encourage teachers to take part in these activities instead of making teachers jump through hoops in order to take advantage of what is available. Encouragement could come in the form of providing release days and in helping teachers find funding for attending conferences in which valuable lessons could be learned. Perhaps businesses could be contacted for help in funding, providing substitutes, or in developing opportunities for professional development pertaining to areas in which they operate. If teachers are to be held accountable for their students being able to perform at a high level in a rigorous curriculum, those teachers must be given the tools with which to do the job.

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