Last week was Teacher Appreciation Week. It’s hard to think that teachers feel appreciated when their starting pay is less than $50,000 nationally, they receive unrelenting criticism for everything that is wrong inside our public school system, and their profession faces future peril since enrollments in teacher-preparation programs are quickly declining.
But maybe the condition of the teaching profession isn’t as dire as we might expect. EducationWeek online reported last week there are 4 ways to show appreciation for teachers. According to the article, these suggestions came from teachers themselves.
Here they are:
“Show respect – The best way to show appreciation is through respect. Respecting teachers as the highly qualified professionals that they are and making sure their salaries reflect that.”
“Give teachers some time for themselves – Time is the best form of appreciation. Turning a scheduled PD/meeting day into a grading day (even better if it’s from home) is like all the holidays put together.”
“Offer treats or a fortifying breakfast – My principal used to do the breakfast cart twice a year. She’d buy biscuits and donuts and coffee and juice and bring breakfast to us as we taught. Fun morale booster!”
“Give a sincere thank-you – A personal thank you and a handshake goes a long way.”
Really? This is how we show appreciation to the group responsible for teaching our kids life-long skills they will need to attend a post-secondary institution, be hired into a well-paid, reputable job, and be a solid citizen for this country and world moving forward?
Forgive me, but maybe one of the problems with the teaching profession today is that we have created pathetically embarrassing ways to show appreciation to this group that almost everyone agrees plays a critical function in our country’s future.
Well, let me give this task of identifying 4 ways to show appreciation to our adult learning leaders a try.
#1 Pay each adult learning leader a salary of $100,000 – Let’s say you have a cohort of 50 young learners with two adult learning leaders. According to today’s public schools per pupil expenditure, each of those young learners comes to the learning doorstep with around $8,000 (some states more, some states less) assigned for their annual learning. For 50 young learners, that gives you a budget of $400,000 for two learning coaches to build one-year learning plans for each of those kids. If the learning coaches are paid $100,000 each, that leaves $200,000 to spend on the development and execution of each of the youngster’s learning plans.
#2 Give each adult learning leader the power to decide how to budget available funding to create a learning plan for each young learner that will deliver desired outcomes in reading, writing, problem-solving, and character development skills.
#3 Give each adult learning leader the power to negotiate with young learners and their families about what their individual learning plan looks like and how the partnership will execute on that plan to arrive at mutually desired outcomes in reading, writing, problem-solving, and character development skills.
#4 Celebrate success and offer support with each adult learning leader whenever young learners demonstrate competency or struggle associated with the goals contained within each individual learning plan.
When we ran our personalized learning lab school in the Houston Museum District, we didn’t have a central office, nor a school board. What we had was an executive director, a project support officer, and a non-profit board that provided the money to launch and run the program for 3 years, presented desired outcomes (that each young learner would show 4 ½ years of growth in their reading, writing, and problem-solving skills over 3 years; 90% of the 50 young learners accomplished those goals), and stood ready to celebrate and support whenever results surpassed expectations or problems arose.
We also stood ready to fire any adult learning leader who did not deliver desired results after supportive intervention.
To whom much is given, much is expected.
I guess we could have offered our learning coaches “treats or a free breakfast.”
I’m sure that would have made them feel more appreciated than being compensated $100,000 a year, being able to build their own budget, negotiating learning plans with their young learners, and being celebrated for successes or supported when challenged.
Til tomorrow. SVB
A Better Path to Learning 
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