Cultivating Willing Teachers

In the previous article, “Compulsion cannot lead to Learning”, we saw how engaging the students’ will is the only effective path to meaningful learning.

We also saw that the dynamics of the Care & Growth framework, where the student perceives the teacher’s intent as being there to serve his needs elicits a willingness to work and therefore learn, from the student.

The next question must be; how do schools create the conditions where the majority of their teachers come to work to make a contribution to children’s lives and not just to collect a paycheck?

Unlike the corporate world, teachers are not rewarded for going the extra mile. Besides the obvious economic ramifications of performance bonuses for teachers, the dynamics of evaluating teaching and learning make it very difficult to quantify the process and thereby not politicize it. Also, there is no upward mobility in the teaching profession. Usually the only factor that is recognized in a teacher’s career is years of service, or seniority.

Not knowing how to motivate teachers, most school administrators turn to the imposition of controls to “make” the teacher work. Unfortunately the elements that can be controlled in the teaching process are not essential to excellence in teaching.

For example you can ensure that the teachers make long-term plans, and daily lesson plans. You can ensure that the teacher comes on time and doesn’t leave before the bell. However you cannot put controls on enthusiasm, commitment, and most importantly, care for the student. In fact controls usually de-motivate and discourage even those teachers who want to make a difference. Finally, the most important factor is the teacher’s intent, which cannot be controlled. Is the teacher there to get something from teaching or to contribute something?

In my experience, even classroom observations, while useful for giving teachers feedback, are not useful as an evaluative tool because the act of observation itself changes what is being observed. Both teachers and students behave differently when an administrator is in the classroom.

It is also self evident that a focus on test results makes the student a means to an end. Once children realize that they are being used for the teacher’s purpose, you have lost them. We all innately resist being used for another’s purpose. Furthermore, the focus on exam results actually detracts from the educational process as teachers zero in on “teaching for the test” and not towards mastery of skills or concepts.

As you cannot compel someone to be a good teacher, any more than you compel a student to learn, we come back to the essentials of Care & Growth and the benevolent intent of the enterprise.

If a teacher feels cared for by his immediate supervisor, he will go the extra mile for that person. For greater insights into this topic please refer to Leadership; the Care & Growth model by Etsko Schuitema.

But more importantly the teaching profession is essentially about caring for and growing the student.

When teachers operate in a climate where the aim of the institution is serving the development of the whole child they commit to profession. When they see teaching as furthering the needs of the owners of the school in the case of a private school or the needs of the educational bureaucrats in the case of public education, teachers do not commit to teaching. Test performance then becomes simply an indicator of growth and not an end in itself. When teaching is done to produce good test results to further the needs of the hierarchy teaching become loveless and deadening.

Only if they are allowed to put students back at the center of the educational process will empowered teachers once again realize the value of the contribution they can make to children’s lives. And only then will teaching once again become a profession worthy of something more then just a pay check.

photo credit: clevercupcakes and Old Shoe Woman