The Good Teacher And The Successful Teachers

Tenure in school systems has been a highly controversial topic lately. Tenure refers to the job security of teachers after they have worked at a certain school for three years. When teachers earn tenure, it is very difficult to take away their jobs. This is especially true in higher education. According to the Washington Post, 32 states grant tenure after three years, nine states grant tenure after four or five years and four states never grant tenure at all. Granting tenure to all teachers gives everybody a job for life which should not be the case. Under-performing teachers should not have definite job security. America should remove academic tenure, replace it with a different system, and re-evaluate school teachers and professors.

Today, there seems to be a push to change the policy of teacher tenure. “Roughly 2.3 million public school teachers in the United States have tenure—a perk reserved for the noblest of professions (professors and judges also enjoy such rights).” (Stephey) Tenure refers to a policy which gives teachers a permanent contract that effectively ensuring them a guarantee of employment for life. Stephey continues to state, “Though tenure doesn’t guarantee lifetime employment, it does make firing teachers a difficult and costly process, one that involves the union, the school board, the principal, the judicial system and thousands of dollars in legal fees.”

This essay contemplates my individual development, skill acquisition and exploration of teaching approaches; throughout and beyond the International Teacher Training Organisation (ITTO) program. The problems I encountered will be discussed; and their relation to establishing where my wealth of primary teaching experience aligns with English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teaching approaches. For example; efforts to reduce my teacher talk time compared to primary school education was important, correcting pronunciation in an appropriate manner and correctly pacing both my speech and activities were areas of development that were observed, reflected on personally and subsequently acted upon.

While there are many ways to be an outstanding teacher, every high-quality teacher should, in my opinion, have these skills and dispositions:

Webster's dictionary defines tenure as, “the act, right, manner, or term, of holding something (such as a landed property, a position, or an office); especially :a status granted after a trial period to a teacher that gives protection from summary dismissal. In other words, educators receive due process protection from accusations or charges against them.Years ago, educators who acted in destructive and abusive demeanor sidestep meaningful ramifications due to tenure safeguards .However, the supreme protection granted to tenured teachers diminished greatly as of July 2011. Michigan stripped the unassailable security of tenure and the world of education in Michigan altered permanently.Forlornly, educator Kathleen Goulouze failed to adhere to modifications of the updated teacher tenure decree.

This paper will effectively detail the issues surrounding policy as it pertains to teacher reform for New Jersey Tenure Laws. I will discuss why this new reform has made it impossible to terminate non-effective teachers because of the protection that TEACHNJ provides. I will also discuss inaccuracies as it pertains to accountability and transparency under the new tenure laws. Lastly, I will discuss the teacher rating system and evaluation system that rates teachers in four categories, from highly effective to ineffective. Teacher evaluations would be based on measures of student learning, such as improvement of state test scores, student work, and other practices linked to student achievement. The New Jersey Education Association has proposed streamlining the legal process for removing teachers, but has adamantly defended the basic job protection of tenure, saying it prevents unfair dismissal, favoritism and attempts to save money by firing expensive veterans. The state’s largest teacher’s union also vehemently opposes judging teachers largely on test scores, saying that doing so penalizes teachers with the most difficult students, and that the data is unreliable. Teachers are fearful of losing their jobs if they don’t raise test scores, teachers will redouble their test-preparation efforts, and quality instruction will be sacrificed,” NJEA President Barbara Keshishian said in a statement. “Parents should be alarmed and dismayed at this proposal.” (Brody)

This semester, I was a teacher assistant for Dr. Finley’s psychology 101 course. The experience to TA has been a really valuable, and rewarding experience. I’ve definitely gotten the chance to develop skills in the professional context. The variety of tasks and the workload pace was very enjoyable for me. The opportunity of being a TA at times proved to be challenging but I find ways to successfully manage some of these adversities. Overall, there’s a plethora of things that I can take away, and I plan to utilize some of these tactics into my future goals and career aspirations.

Richard Kahlenberg, the author of the article Tenure said that tenure was to protect students’ education and those who provide it. He goes on to say that before we can start digging into tenure we should first define what it is. Tenure, for American teachers is awarded after three years, and when it is awarded they have the right to know why a discharge is being sought out by the employer. They also have the right to have the issue decided by an impartial person. Kahlenberg listed why tenure is still necessary, some of them being; it strengthens legal protections, protects a range of people who may be discriminated against that the race and gender antidiscrimination laws do not, and tenure gives teachers the confidence to stand up to outsiders

Before reading the article and attending Tuesday evenings class I did not know much about the tenure process, I knew that it was a form of job security for professors but not much more. Reading the National Education Association article gave me an understanding of what the tenure process is and what the importance is of being a tenured professor other than having a sense of job security. The area that stood out to me in the reading for this week was the fourth myth in the article, that most professors have tenure. This was surprising to me because when reading the reality section the author stated that most positions are more than often filled with part-time faculty and rarely put on the tenure track, colleges like to use students as their

Some argue that tenure allows bad teachers to stay in the classroom. Teachers that are just there to put in their time and don't really care about the students themselves. They feel that granting teachers tenure encourages them to become complacent about their jobs. “Tenures are something that can be beneficial to students, as well. By providing job security, teachers can concentrate on teaching, instead of worrying about overly obsessed parents coming after them. Take for instance, a parent getting a coach fired because they did not give their son or daughter enough play time on the court. There is the classic scenario of parents that will look for a teacher's flaws in teaching before they look for flaws in their child as a student.”(Sharifi)

This past semesters has been an eye opening experience that has changed my views on teacher. Ever since I was little, I have always wanted to be a fourth grade teacher. However after being placed in a second grade classroom my views have changed. I liked the idea of teaching fourth grade because my fourth grade teacher was my inspiration in life. When I was in Ms. Petro’s class I enjoyed being able to watch the students progress over time. Being able to see the drastic improvements in little children is very rewarding and that is why I want to continue to teach lower grades. I have learned that being a teacher requires a special someone, a person who knows that sometimes you will have to deal with tough situations leaving you exhausted and feeling like you are not able to help more. But at the same time, being a teacher allows one to be a visionary for the world and those who surround you.

One of the most essential exercises when in comes to professional development as an instructor is to continuously reflect on your perspective, methodology, instruction and behavior within your profession. Doing so ensure that you a growing and improving on teaching skills and building on old strengths to benefit you as an instructor but especially the students that you serve.

A philosophy of mathematics should be included in an excellent philosophy of education. A philosophy of mathematics should include your thoughts and ideas about what mathematics education is, what impact it has on society, the qualities that make a good teacher, a teacher’s role, research on the standards and instructional strategies, and ways to ensure student are able to learn mathematic concepts in your classroom. Each of these ideas should forever be evolving because we grow as teachers our thought and ideas will grow. I will be discussing my thoughts and ideas on what creates an excellent philosophy of mathematics.

Teaching is a difficult occupation. Teachers play an important part in training children, teenagers… So, a good teacher must have some special qualities. They are: knowledge, creation, confidence, empathy, sense of humor and passion.

Going back to the tenure and teacher union issues, I agree that everyone has the right to unionize in order to protect their self-interests, but the idea surrounding tenure is something that needs to be re-evaluated, and the teacher’s union needs to jump on board in order to get the education system moving in the right direction. The writers hint at a way in which tenure can be changed, and that is by offering rewards for high student grades instead of the current rule of once tenure is reached, a teacher can keep their position regardless of their efforts in the classroom. The way the movie presents this alternative method is by showing a challenge between the teachers of the school to earn the highest student grades on the state test; winner earning a bonus of $5,700. This type of evaluation based on student grades can also be taken to the opposite end of the spectrum, and teachers who have unacceptable student scores should be evaluated on their teaching methods, and if seen