Welcome to Teachers At Risk
An honour
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Edublog AwardsFeb
1
Poor teachers dramatically reduce students’ life-time earnings
Filed Under "At-risk" students | 3 Comments
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I have come to a frightening conclusion.
I am the decisive element in the classroom.
It is my personal approach that creates the climate.
It is my daily mood that makes the weather.
As a teacher I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous.
I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.
I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.
In all situations it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated, and a child humanized or dehumanized.–Haim Ginott
Yes, teachers possess a tremendous power to make students’ lives miserable or joyous. Teachers are a decisive element in the classroom in many ways. Ginott focuses on the effect a teacher can have on the emotional well being of students. But, teachers can affect more than students’ emotional well being. A recent study found teachers are a decisive factor in students’ potential lifetime earnings .
Researchers Raj Chetty and John N. Friedman of Harvard University and Jonah E. Rockoff of Columbia University have concluded poor teachers significantly reduce students’ life time earnings. Replacing poor teachers with average teachers can boost a single classroom’s life time earnings by approximately $266, 000. A poor teacher teaching for ten years can reduce the life time earnings of his or her classes by approximately $2.5 million. I find that statistic remarkable.
You can access Chetty, Friedman, and Rockoff ‘s paper ” The Long-Term Impacts of Teachers : Teacher Value-Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthood” here.
Oct
2
Ontario College of Teachers and school boards need to do more to protect students from teachers’ criminal behaviour
Filed Under "At-risk" students, Behaviour Management, maintaining a safe, SOS for Teachers, The way I see it | 6 Comments
The Ontario College of Teachers and school boards are supposed to protect students from teachers who engage in criminal behaviour that does not respect teacher/student boundaries. Is OCT doing enough? Are school boards doing enough? I don’t think so and here’s why. Kevin Donovan, a Toronto Star staff reporter, reveals that a Toronto high school teacher who
- sent a message to a female student telling her how he dreamt of preforming oral sex on her;
- invited four female students to his room and they cuddled on his bed while on a field trip to England :
- invited a female student to come over to “spoon”or cuddle while his wife was away.
received a 30 day unpaid suspension from the Toronto District School Board and a transfer to Toronto’s Adult Education Centre while the Ontario College of Teachers completed its investigation. The OCT suspended the teacher for 12 months and then advised him if he took a “boundary violation” course he could go back into the classroom. Presumably, the teacher did take the “boundary violation course” because the OCT now says he is a member in “good standing” and can teach again. The Star could not determine if and where the teacher is teaching now.
I must confess, I don’t have much forgiveness in my heart when it comes to teachers who take advantage of their students in this way. Especially, when a teacher does it repeatedly. I want to ask questions like
- Where is the teacher’s common sense?
- Why was the teacher hired in the first place?
- Where is the mutual respect teachers and students ought to have for one another?
- How can we be sure the violations don’t happen?
Donovan also tells us that the criminal back ground check that all teachers have to have isn’t worth much. In fact, these criminal background checks can give a false sense of security. He notes that all but one of the teachers who sexually assaulted, abused or exploited young students over the last ten years had clean records before they were convicted. Sometimes teachers will give false information in order to hide a criminal record. Some of these teachers go on to conduct themselves inappropriately and not respect teacher/student boundaries. Even Michael Salvatori , OCT’s registrar, maintains that relying on a criminal background check of teachers isn’t enough to ensure that individuals are of good character.
What more can we do to make sure individuals are suitable to be teachers? In a report dated 2000, retired Judge Sydney L. Robins suggested that each school board needs to do a complete background check on individuals. This background check needs to include a detailed interview with a teacher before hiring. What do you think the system should do to protect students from the criminal actions of teachers?
You can read more on this topic here and here at the Toronto Star. I’d like to thank Kevin Donovan and the Toronto Star for making us aware of the deplorable situation. Things need to change.
Update:
Canadians for Accountability Blog has taken the OCT to task for it’s lack of transparency. I encourage you to read the article. I wasn’t aware of the issues involved. The grassroots needs to get involved here. I’m going to ask how I can help bring about the requisite transparency.
Photo of stop sign thanks to doublegrande
Jul
19
Don’t tell me anything more about students in Finland and how great the education system is there.
Filed Under "At-risk" students, Behaviour Management, Learning Strategies, motivating students, underachieving students | 9 Comments
I don’t want to read another thing about how successful the education system is in Finland . I congratulate Finland for their fine education system, but I don’t want my school in Mississauga to be compared to schools in Finland because doing that is like comparing apples to oranges. Mississauga is not the same as Finland. Finland has 2.5 % foreign citizens. Mississauga has many more. 46.62% of residents in Mississauga (almost 700 oo0 ) were not born in Canada. Apples to oranges. Apples to oranges for Pete’s sake.
Mississauga has one of the largest, if not the largest, cluster of ethnic groups in Canada. At my school, the student body speaks over 60 languages. All this diversity is what makes Mississauga so great. I love it. But, all this diversity brings with it challenges that a more homogeneous country like Finland doesn’t experience.
I don’t want to write a post outlining all the challenges new immigrants face that can affect the them as they enter our schools. But, some students who are immigrants come to grade 9 illiterate in their mother tongue, and we are expected to teach them so they will pass and earn 16 credits by the time they are 16 years old. Some parents are struggling to learn English themselves and can’t support their kids and help with homework or assignments. Some parents work at two jobs to put a roof over their children’s heads and food on the table and aren’t there for there for their kids after school.
O.K., O.K. I’m going to stop now because I’m starting to write a post about the challenges of being an immigrant living in Mississauga and that’s just what I didn’t want to do. I just don’t want apples to be compared to oranges.
photo thanks to Dano
Jul
8
You don’t have to be a superhero to teach kids who are academically at-risk
Filed Under "At-risk" students, Behaviour Management, Dealing With Stress, motivating students, positive climate, SOS for Teachers, Special Education, Teacher Support, underachieving students | 5 Comments
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Sometimes we can get the wrong idea about what it takes to successfully teach kids who are academically at-risk. You don’t have to be a superhero like Erin Gruwell in Freedom Writers. You just have to be “good enough”. I’ll explain what I mean by “good enough” in a minute.
For those of you who have seen the movie Freedom Writers, you’ll know what I mean when I say Erin, the teacher in the movie, is a superhero. For those of you who haven’t seen the movie, I’ve embedded a trailer here so you can have a better idea of what I’m talking about.
I mean no disrespect to Erin Gruwell, the teacher Freedom Writers is based on. What she did with her students was truly extraordinary. I’m in awe of her. But I think because she’s a superhero, teachers who watch the movie might get the mistaken notion you have to have super-teacher powers to teach students who are academically at-risk. You don’t. You don’t have to be a super-teacher. You only have to be “good enough”.
When I say teachers of students who are academically at-risk don’t have to be superheros they only have to be “good enough”, I don’t mean they can be mediocre. Far from it. Let me explain what I mean by “good enough” teachers. ”Good enough” teachers
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- have good emotional intelligence
- establish inviting student centered classrooms;
- have excellent listening skills;
- willingly treat their students with respect and demand the same from their students ;
- have expertise in the teaching subject;
- can differentiate teaching, assessment and evaluation strategies to suit students;
- help students be successful using the students’ strengths;
- are firm but fair;
- are creative;
- are life-long learners;
- are flexible;
- are skilled at teaching and assessment;
- realize and accept they’re not perfect;
- realize tomorrow is another day and another opportunity to get it right.
“Good enough” teachers realize it’s not their job to “fix” students who are academically at-risk; it’s their job to help students realize better choices will lead to better outcomes and help them develop their critical thinking skills so they can make better choices.
Erin Gruwell did all this and more. She is a superhero who teaches, but we can be just “good enough” and still be successful at teaching students who are academically at-risk. We don’t need to be superheros ; we can just be humans who teach. I want teachers to realize that.
If you’ve been teaching academically at-risk students, what do you think it takes. How would you define “good enough”?
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