Today I am inspired by the political actions happening in states around the U.S. as it relates to state budgets and teachers unions. They are embattled, but they don't realize they actually agree. The problem is, the root of their energy is misplaced due to misdiagnosing the cause of inadequate growth within student achievement.
The states are seeing that they are spending tons of money, money they don't have, so they must cut budgets. They think they are spending money improperly because they feel that bad teachers can't be fired and the unions have negotiated attrociously high retirement funds, benefits packages, and salaries.
The teachers are defensive as they feel like they are working very hard, and despite lack of results by some students, they deserve to be paid for their hard work. I heard once that teaching is the lowest paying career that requires a college education. Doesn't suprise me if it is true.
Are there bad teachers? Yes, but not a high percentage of teachers are bad. Can teachers be highly educated, highly trained, qualify as "highly qualified" by NCLB and yet have students that don't perform? Yes. Then why is that?
Is a doctors job to heal people or is it to diagnose them and help them live healthier lifestyles? Perhaps both. But we don't hold doctors accountable for people being overweight, getting cancer, or getting sexually transmitted diseases. We do, however, expect the doctor to use their best professional judgment to run multitudes of assessments to diagnose what is wrong then make recommendations for how to improve the patients health. But the patient must want to change their lifestyle. If a patient continues unhealthy behavior, that is their choice and their health will suffer accordingly.
Teachers are the same as doctors. We are not responsible for bad learning habits and bad learning lifestyles. We are, however, responsible for using our best professional judgment to run multitudes of assessments to diagnose areas where students need help with thinking skills, knowledge, and social behavior, then make recommendations for how to improve their mental and social health as related to these areas. But, the student must want to change their learning lifestyle. If a student continues unhealthy learning behavior, that is their choice and their learning health with suffer accordingly.
So, the question becomes, where does student learning lifestyle motivations come from? Is it from parents? Is it completely intrinsic? Is it feeling connected at school? Perhaps all of these.
So, legislators, you are focussed on the effect, time to start focussing on the cause. So teachers, you are focussed on the effect (the results), time to start focussing on the cause. How do we help families motivate their children toward education? How to we help students change their learning lifestyle intrinsically? How do we help students become connected at school?
Wheatley refers to fields, such as gravitation or electromagnetics, to help us understand fields. She has the right idea. If the student learning lifestyle is a person sitting in the middle of a large trampoline, then the fields that affect the student are any influences that are also on the trampoline, pulling that student off the center. If an influence is heavier or closer, it will pull the student off center. But the heavier the student learning lifestyle is, the harder it is for the student to be pulled off center.
Then, the trick becomes, how do we minimize influences that pull the student off center while at the same time increasing the students learning lifestyle? With this metaphor, the student become heavier, harder to move, more stable, through parents nurishing the child with intellectual vitamins, through teachers diagnosing unhealthy learning lifestyles, helping the students become intellectually healthier and thereby stronger, and by teaching students how they can be intellectually healthy if they choose a balanced healthy intellectual diet.
Rather than federal tax deductions and rather than a federal child tax credit (adding to approximately $2500 to $4000 per child), give families coupons they can spend on their child's education based on socioeconomic status, and standardized test results and improvement, weighted toward the low socioeconomic and toward steps of improvement. Included with the low socioeconomic, provide coupons that will be able to be used to increase parent's health and knowledge how they can improve their child's intellectual health.
Decrease state budgets on education? Yes, because it is federally supplemented with the federal tax money.
Increase federal spending? No, because the money is already being given to families with no strings attached to whether the parents are actually spending that money on their children's well being.
Help close the achievement gap? Yes, as it helps bring up the low end while not robbing from the top. It helps every family achieve the American dream.
Motivate students? With families being educated on how to help their child, with families being educated on how to help students feel connected to school, with students seeing real results for the hard work they put in, yes, student motivation will increase substantially.
The field of learning is the trampoline. The student is at the center. Decrease the size and proximity of pulling forces while increasing the size, health, and stability of the student in the center. When a students becomes so big, so healthy, so stable, others that come near that student will be pulled toward her/his success.
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