What Makes a Good Teacher?
One of the common stories in the press is of the need to pay teachers more to entice better teachers to stay in the field. Seldom addressed is the question: What is a better teacher? How do we know? And, as importantly: what are the best methods to teach children? To begin answering those questions we go to Ms. Peggy Otey, Head of Lower Schools at Charlotte Country Day. Excuse the digression, but a bit about her and Country Day is appropriate to inform the reader of her qualifications to address this question.
What makes a good teacher? Peggy Otey knew in first grade she wanted to be a teacher. Time passed, then she went to Appalachian, received her degree, married Wade, and became a teacher. They moved around a bit and at their stop in Miami, she and Wade had two children, who have now flown off, as children are supposed, to become “independent adults”.
Long before the children were grown, the four of them came back home to Charlotte where, in 1989, she started work at Charlotte Country Day, a private school where 100% of the graduates go to college. It is a school for those who are serious about education.
In order to teach 4th grade there Ms. Otey went back to school to add elementary certification to her secondary certificate. A few years later, she received her Master’s in Literacy from Queens University. In the course of her work, which included reading the most current brain research as it related to learning and researching best practices for the classroom, she found out about the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program. The upper School at Country Day was already implementing the IB Diploma Program, but at this time, no schools in Charlotte were authorized by IB to deliver the Primary Years Program. It turns out that the program embodied most of what are known as best practices for instruction. For schools who are interested, there are participation levels for elementary, middle and high school. Country Day decided to participate in the program at the elementary level. Ms. Otey remained involved in maintaining certification and compliance with the requirements of the program as she moved into her leadership role as the Lower School Director of Studies at the school. As IB requirements became more involved at the classroom level, Country Day decided to forgo the certification, but kept all of the “best practices” the program embodied. Then, when a retirement made the position of Head of Lower School, the elementary grades, available; Ms. Otey was given that opportunity, where she has been for the last ten years. With being a principal comes authority over other teachers, but more importantly, is the responsibility to help teachers be the best they can be; always remembering the purpose is the education of children.
What makes a good teacher? Ms. Otey knew early that she wanted to be a teacher. Others are not so lucky, for them it is not a calling, it is something they choose to do later in life. The point is that some are born, others must become: All must be trained. In every case there must be professional support. School leadership must recognize the value of professional development. Schools are as strong as the teachers in the classroom. Invest in teachers and you invest in the future of our children. Strong Administrations value and respect teachers! They give teachers the opportunity and the tools to do a good job in the classroom. Towards that end, Country Day puts two teachers in every classroom in JK through 4th grades, where the average size of the classroom is about 22 students. Small student/teacher ratios and professional support help the teacher do a better job. But what is a good teacher? One of the most important things is, as Ms. Otey reminds every teacher, is an ability to connect with every child: “Get to know and fall in love with every child in the room.” Her reasoning is simple: children know if they’re loved and if they are loved they will work harder, take more risks and achieve more. The other side of that coin is: If a teacher is demeaning to a child or does not demonstrate a genuine care for the child, the achievement is stifled.
Teachers don’t work in a vacuum; it is commonly known that good students need engaged families, but not all families are engaged. Teachers then need the support and respect of their community if they are to offset the lack of influence of families who are not able to provide the support to their children which makes them good students. Another issue facing today’s parents, teachers and students is technology. Today’s world offers constant sensory input where children receive immediate sensory gratification, (think video games for toddlers). This immediate gratification does not build tenacity or a need to persevere which is not good for their learning ability. Additionally, parents have a difficult time in today’s world. While the “end game is independence” a common problem with parents is a lack of knowledge of how to raise children in today’s world. We are all so new to technology being in every part of our lives that we have no idea about how this will affect children and their ability to learn and to grow into independent, responsible adults. Still, children must be raised and some things remain the same. Child rearing takes intentional focus, consistency and love. A parent must love a child enough to discipline them, to say no. It takes this type of love to raise a healthy, secure child, who is able to rise to the challenges and disciplines of school work and life. Teachers can help with this, they can do their part, but good parenting is critical. Which brings us to the interactions between parents and teachers.
A good, strong teacher will give honest and objective feedback to parents regarding their performance in school; whether that is social or academic. When a parent then comes to school to meet with the teacher to discuss the feedback, it should be a collaborative effort, the assumption being made by the parent that the teacher has the best interests of the child in mind. Too often, the parent takes exception to the teacher’s feedback and makes excuses for their child’s lacking performance. Often, it is at this point where the principal becomes involved. The principal must, as two cooperating parents do, stand together with the teacher in public, disagreeing only in private.
A teacher of first grade in a Charlotte public school, tells me this story. She disciplined a child for bad language. The parent came to a conference which the principal attended. The parent disagreed with the teacher. The principal supported the teacher in front of the parent. The teacher was appreciative but surprised. Which is the point of her telling the story. That the principal supported her was unusual. This support should be the rule, not the exception: Professional support and respect is critical in making a good teacher. Strong principals support their teachers and the work they do in the classroom; however, the best interest of the student should always be at the center of the discussion. If there are tensions between the teacher and parent, the teacher must feel the support of the administration! Teachers like all humans beings aren’t always right, but they are the ones in the trenches and a parent will never know what it takes to work with the number of students in a classroom; each with varied abilities and needs.
When asked; what should public schools do to improve? Ms. Otey immediately said: “Invest in your teachers and get rid of tenure”, no other business offers benefits of this sort. Teachers in independent schools are on one year contracts and sometimes they are not renewed. Occasionally a contract is not renewed for cause, but these are the exceptions. When teachers are evaluated on professional growth, they work hard to meet their goals. If a teacher is not willing to do the work and continue to grow as a professional, he/she will generally self-select out of an independent school. The point being, keep the quality of your work up if you want to continue teaching. After all, the children in our community should be able to count on highly motivated, exceptional teachers. Their futures depend on it and so does the future of our community. Towards this end, public schools need site based authority and good management. Every school needs a good principal. The idea of moving a good principal from one school to the next to fix problems will only wear out the principal. Hire good principals for every school. There are reasons to believe this is not the case when every year teachers, who want respect and to be allowed to do their job, call Country Day asking if there are any openings for teachers, including assistant teacher positions, available for them. They are looking for a good work environment, one which allows them to be good teachers.
There are other things which bear on the ability of a teacher to be good, which often are out of control of the teacher. A clearly articulated curriculum is one of those. Another is, autonomy to meet the individual needs of the children in your classroom. The two go together. Within the subject of curriculum is how subjects are taught. Education now, more than ever should reflect real life, not theory. Rote memorization is not valued in a world where the answers to most questions are at the tip of your fingers. Teaching needs to be about helping children learn to be problem solvers in the real world. Then there is the fact that not all students learn the same way or at the same rate. In the early years,the chronological ages of children in a classroom are within a year, but the developmental age difference could be as great as twenty four months, creating tremendous differences in individual ability. Teachers need the autonomy to adjust their classroom and schedules to those type things, yet are too often told to stay on track with the schedule, as if children are cogs in the machine. While sometimes a teacher may need help or a push, there are times when the teacher’s judgment must be respected and perhaps allowed more time allowed to cover the material.
When asked about mixed income housing and how that might impact the public school classroom, Ms. Otey’s response was: if the children play together and mingle at home, they have a better opportunity for understanding that we aren’t all the same, yet we all have value. I believe in mixed income housing within the community because I think that the authentic achievement of that could provide the opportunity to return to neighborhood schools. If you build mixed income housing and the families don’t socialize and actually live together as neighbors, you lose the benefits and you might as well bus the children from different neighborhoods. She ended our conversation by reiterating a point about parenting. People “don’t know how to be a good parent in today’s world.” Her advice is: “Set limits from day one.”
That is the professional side of Ms. Otey’s story. There is another.
It is a sad time for hundreds of children in Charlotte: Ms. Peggy Otey is leaving. In Alexandria, Va., where she is going, hundreds of children will be happy, but they just don’t know it yet. Ms. Otey is, by avocation and love, a primary school teacher, and she has loved every child she has met, even the ones that aren’t always easy to love. She is leaving Charlotte to expand her personal and professional horizons because: “You only get to do this once. So you have to do it right; you have to do everything you want to do.”
What Ms. Otey wants to do is be the Head of School that is a bit different than the one she spent the last 25 years in. Where new challenges will push her, where she will have to learn new skills and work on others she hasn’t used so much. Ms. Otey wants to be the best she can be. It is the same desire she wishes to instill in all children, indeed, in everyone she comes into contact with: to become the best, responsible, independent people you can be.
Thank you Peggy Otey, for being a teacher.
We need your help! If you like PunditHouse, please consider donating to us. Even $5 a month can make a difference!
Short URL: https://pundithouse.com/?p=15974
