The Teachers' Voice

TEACHERS WITH ~20 years IN THE CLASSROOM OR MORE SHARE THEIR THOUGHTS ON TEACHING, SCHOOL REFORM AND HOW TO IMPROVE OUR SCHOOLS. JOIN THE CONVERSATION BY COMMENTING ON THEIR POSTS.

[the-teachers-voice]

How can charter schools positively impact our schooling system?

It has long been my contention that the metaphor of American public education as balkanized is an unfair denigration of the Balkans. We are in a class by ourselves.

The addition of charter schools to the jumble of thousands of districts ( themselves divided into elementary, secondary, unified, and in California, county offices of education, then into K-3 schools, K-6 schools, middle schools, junior highs, 8-12 secondary schools, 10-12 high schools etc.) only made our already chaotic system of education less coherent and less manageable. Charters also leavened in private sector and profit motives into a system that previous only had one motive—educate children.

Originally charters were sold to us a means to develop cutting edge techniques to improve instruction. Many were started by reformers who were stymied by bureaucratic hurdles and especially by educators who wanted better for the least served children. Despite the idealism, early on it was apparent charters were a stealth attack by the private sector on the public sector, a means to glom onto billions in education monies and develop new “markets” and profit centers.

(Before we get in too deep, a caveat: Because our system is so variegated, you can find an example of almost any educational trend or viewpoint—good, bad or mediocre--realized somewhere in a school in America. This applies to charter schools as well. An inner city charter that sends children of poverty on to the Ivy League? Open classrooms? Project based learning? Individualized instruction? Art and music programs? Career Tech? Academies? They are all there, somewhere. However, I am concerned with the concept of charters and their overall impact on public education. So my remarks are directed at charters as a unified entity, not individual schools.)

All the blather about reform we have endured for the past decade tends to camouflage the day to day reality of education in America, especially at the secondary level. It is an indisputable fact that our secondary schools are not substantially different than the way they were in 1930. Charters have not changed this reality.

I selected 1930 at random, you can actually go back further, but that date illustrates the point. Did we have cell phones, tablets, personal computers, Twitter and the Web in education in 1930? No. In fact there were not a small number of schools in 1930 without electricity, especially in rural areas and segregated African American communities. They also didn’t have smart boards, wireless commuting, data bases at the teacher’s fingertips, or Facebook pages for school districts.

What they did have--a feature that has not changed materially in over 90 years--is one teacher locked in a room with 25 to 40 teenagers. All instruction was delivered through the teacher in 1930 (what we quaintly call direct instruction these days) or through a book, another delivery system that hasn’t changed substantially over the decades.

If you ignore computers, smart boards, digital projectors and the other bells and whistles you find in many secondary classrooms today, almost every new teacher in an American high school—public, private, parochial or charter—is still locked in a room with adenoidal teen agers for five to six hours a day and left to fend for themselves. This is exactly as it has been for decades.

Further, in 1930 as today, these teachers arrive at the classroom with practically no meaningful training in classroom management, the number one challenge to new teachers. They are expected to be experts in up to five different fields of knowledge, prepare lessons and tests in those areas, correct all of same, and manage the outbursts of less than perfectly home trained adolescents in a manner that reflects well on the good name of the school, on day one. And do it to teens from multiple cultures, at home in dozens of other languages, with diverse learning modes, across all social, ethnic and economic divides.

The teacher is basically on his or her own six hours or more a day, with brief breaks between classes (when to pee?) and at lunch. Exactly the same as in 1930. And it is the same in charter schools, the institutions that were supposed to lead us to new, better methods of instruction.

Further, while there is a pretense that only teachers trained rigorously in a field are assigned to teach subjects they are conversant in, the reality is different. An English teacher who has never attended a play let alone taken drama in college can, in most states, be assigned to teach drama (or speech, or debate, or journalism), all with a lack of preparation or aptitude. A social studies teacher who never took an econ course can similarly be assigned to teach economics. Districts play fast and loose with “temporary” assignments, or seek exemptions to credential rules, or rename courses to fit the credential of the instructor. (This of course does not address evading the separate but related issue of individuals who are experts in their fields but can’t teach what they love to others, another conundrum our teacher training institutions do a good job avoiding.)

Teachers assigned to teach out of their area of expertise are a systemic issue in American education. How have charters helped us address it? They haven’t; they have only exacerbated this issue.

Charters, which almost always begin small and consequently with fewer course selections, are under even more pressure to resort to such tactics in order to cover as many subject areas as possible. Most open without the full panoply of course openings—music, drama, art, journalism—that large suburban public schools usually entertain. In that regard they mimic the very schools they are supposed to fix—large urban, high poverty, high minority public high schools, and for the same reason: limited resources and a drive to meet testing targets rather than focus on breadth and quality of instruction.

Similar to inner city high schools, many charter combine more than one course in one class (for example, assigning one teacher to teach yearbook and newspaper in one class period with one class of students). Or, they seek waivers for teachers who are working on credentials but not yet earned them. Or, they push courses into after school clubs or activities rather than credit earning courses. Or, they just eliminate courses from the curriculum.

You can easily verify this in older inner city high schools. Go to the library and ask for copy of the school yearbook from the 1950’s or 60’s. Check out the number of electives, the variety of clubs and activities, students enjoyed then. Even in schools that “turned over” in the 1960s from predominately white to predominately non-white still enjoyed the same universe of learning. Charters often begin without a wide range of course offerings and frequently remain in the condition.

Working conditions for teachers have undoubtedly improved since 1930, but the teacher, especially the new teacher, is still as isolated as she was then. She is alone in the room, bereft of most resources that she could use for most of the instructional day. At faculty meetings she is exhorted to collaborate, to synthesize, and to work smart. But once the class bell rings, she is once again alone, by herself, in the room with her charges.

(Did you notice I skipped the convention of “he” and “she”? No need for us to pretend that our profession is not rigidly segregated by gender and race, that the average new high school teacher is a female white liberal arts major. Similar to 1930. In this regard too, charters are no different than public schools.)

School boards have long been the first stage for ambitious politicians up the political ladder, one of the reasons governing boards can be so political and resistant to transparency. Here is an area where charters have excelled over public schools; they are light years less transparent than public institutions. This is probably a result of the fact that so many are now cogs in a corporate entity that is used to hiding information from the public. Despite the fact they are funded with public money, the mechanics of key decisions in charters are often hidden from the public.

We are now in 2014, not 1930, so that prompts the question: There are now operating in excess of 5000 charter schools nationally (National Center for Educational Statistics). Where is the educational dividend we were supposed to garner from these cutting edge educational institutions?

A study conducted by Caroline Hoxby of Harvard and the National Bureau of Economic Research in 2004 found a minuscule improvement in proficiency between charter and public school students:

This study compares the reading and mathematics proficiency of charter school students to that of their fellow students in neighboring public schools. Unlike previous studies, which include only a tiny fraction (3 percent) of charter school students, this study covers 99 percent of such students. The charter schools are compared to the schools that their students would most likely otherwise attend: the nearest regular public school and the nearest regular public school with a similar racial composition. In most cases, the two comparison schools are one and the same. Compared to students in the nearest regular public school, charter students are 4 percent more likely to be proficient in reading and 2 percent more likely to be proficient in math, on their state's exams. Compared to students in the nearest regular public school with a similar racial composition, charter students are 5 percent more likely to be proficient in reading and 3 percent more likely to be proficient in math. In states where charter schools are well-established, charter school students' proficiency "advantage" tends to be greater.

Or as Wendy Lecker, a Connecticut public education advocated wrote in 2013, “The verdict is in, and it is the same as four years ago. In updating its 2009 national study on charter schools, Stanford's Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) reaches the same conclusion it did in its previous study: The vast majority of charter schools in the United States are no better than public schools.

This is depressing considering that many charters were founded by individuals who wanted to improve the education of traditionally underserved populations of low income students of color. Nationally charters enroll a higher percentage of such students than public schools. Most charters are in lower income urban areas or equally depressed rural areas. KIPP is a notable example of this trend. But their results are less than sterling.

Ironically, many of the reformers who said the schools were failing children of poverty helped make that situation concrete. As charters drained funds, staffs, and political clout from inner cities schools, the schools there did in fact often become failures. Part of this was the result of the drain of students, usually students who had active, caring and dedicated parents, to charters and other “choices.” The old comprehensive public high schools were left with populations of children less likely to have educational activist parents and more likely to be classified as below basic, special education or on probation from juvenile hall.

Programs like one the Holy Name nuns run in West Oakland, California to help adults earn their GED so they could improve their employment opportunities were suddenly inundated with large numbers of teenagers who had been pushed out of nearby high schools because they were bottom quartile students who were hurting test scores, the new measure of school success.

The bottom line: one of the key rationales for beginning the charter movement, to help the most educationally underserved, has not been realized after two decades of effort.

Why is this?

Perhaps the premise that charters are based on, that it is the public education system that is failing and needs “reform,” that is flawed. Perhaps it is because schools by themselves cannot reform away poverty, racism, social and economic segregation, and disparate economic opportunity. Perhaps we should be looking elsewhere for solutions that help underserved children do better in our society than scapegoating a system that built the great middle class, absorbed tens of millions of immigrants, sent man to the moon, and built the world’s greatest economic engine. 

STEVE O'DONOGHUE • 33 years teaching English & Journalism in Oakland, CA • Currently BTSA (Beginning Teachers Support and Assessment) Coach & run non-profit programs in several California counties to revive journalism programs in the schools; 1990 Dow Jones News Fund High School Journalism Teacher of the Year. 

[the-teachers-voice]

How do you wish Americans thought about teachers?

In our Western Culture teachers are not respected or revered as consistently as I wish. Certainly I have met many people in my 31 years who did respect the profession, and many who ask “How do you do that?” But more often we run into the classic error of “Well, I went to school so I understand school (and thus teachers).”  Or the famous “You know what they say, those that can do…. yuck, yuck, yuck.” In part because education is still a relatively lowly paid profession we have to overcome the idea we are “just” teachers. I have had to work to not say that myself.  We are also stigmatized for all our “vacation’ time, and for our “banker’s hours.” But the truth is the vast majority of teachers work very hard to deliver a meaningful education to their students. They work nights, weekends, holidays and summers to prepare, follow up, and model lifelong learning. But the biggest missing piece is the geometric growth of human relationships. Many people who have never attempted to lead and manage a classroom have no idea what juggling 20, 30 or more personalities for an hour or day is like. To know what matters to each, and to pay attention to how they interact with each other. They have not a clue what one additional student, isn’t fed breakfast, and hasn’t taken his ADD meds can do to a classroom. The curriculum is one challenge as a teacher, but the balancing of time and attention, of wants and needs, and of strengths and challenges is more demanding. It is not easily done, and not everyone including all classroom teachers can manage it well. No one can all the time. So I wish parents and the community understood the depth and breadth of the challenge. I wish they understood that the vast majority of teachers are doing the best they can to give all they can to the children in our schools. They are our children to, and our future. 

CASEY NICHOLS • 31 years teaching high school and middle school in CA • CJE and JEA Mentor.

[the-teachers-voice]

What is one thing you wish you had understood about teaching/the classroom/students when you were a young teacher?

There is something critically important to learning that I believe we have forgotten to fully consider in all the school improvement efforts. It is something I did not understand myself for the first ten years of so of my teaching. I was not as effective a teacher then as I grew to be, and I was not very satisfied with my chosen profession.

That missing ingredient is the concept of intention. Simple put, learners learn to master a skill when they fully intend to. That is, when they see a need in their lives for that skill. James Britton in his ground-breaking research in 1975 published Development of Writing Abilities 11-18, a work that was part of our study in the Iowa Writing Project. This program (part of the National Writing Project) consisted of teachers leading teachers in the study of writing. Half of our time was spent studying research and half was spent doing our own writing.  The project revolutionized the teaching of writing in schools, and led to mush better student writing performance.

Once I understood how powerful the concept of intention was to learning, I built motivation into every lesson. The key to learning was engagement, students willingly and even happily engaged in learning activities. Getting that engagement wasn’t always easy, but it was always the first thing I thought about.

In the mid 1980s my teaching assignment began to include more and more journalism until I became a full-time journalism teacher. It was in the journalism classroom and production that I saw the power of intention fully harnessed. In these classes, students worked to produce real products that their readers would consume. In doing so they learned more and more about their audience and more and more about their craft.  Not only did these students fully intend to play the role of journalist, they took ownership of the process and product. They worked longer and harder than I ever thought possible, and they produced work that surprised themselves and delighted their readers.

When you look at what is driving the reform movements in education today, where can you find this element of intention? How much importance is given to motivating students to learn? How are parents motivated to become part of the change? How are teachers motivated to learn new skills and change old habits? Some will argue that there is motivation built in, both incentives in offering more pay and negative incentives for failing to change. These miss the point.

No child ever learned to speak because they were offered cash or threatened with a reduction of their milk ration. They learned to speak when they had something they really wanted to say, and a receptive parent there to respond in delight when they did so. We need to remember that while talking school reform.

GARY LINDSAY •  40 years teaching Language Arts and Journalism in Iowa • JEA Mentor for Iowa Journalism Teachers. 

[the-teachers-voice]

What is one thing you wish you had understood about teaching/the classroom/students when you were a young teacher?

I wish I had realized that teaching was a craft, not just a way of doing things.  I don’t think I understood that the focus should be on the students and what they are understanding and applying as  opposed to the focus being on what I was doing and whether it was right.  Teacher prep in the 1960s seemed to be on the principles of teaching, rather than the practical aspects.  In my English Methods class now, I combine the two, with demonstrations and participation by students.  We’ve all spent so much time in the classroom as students; I think we’ve absorbed our own teachers’ methods, whether effective or not.  It takes time to develop one’s own style and persona in the classroom.

LINDA BARRINGTON • 44 years teaching English, Journalism and Speech in WI • JEA Mentor, Student Teacher Supervisor and teacher of University English Methods coursework.

[the-teachers-voice]

What do you believe is the purpose of schooling?

SANDY JACOBY • 38 years teaching High School English & Journalism • JEA Mentor WI, JEA State Director-Wisconsin, KEMPA Board of Directors-President.

[the-teachers-voice]

Is testing and accountability serving our students? Improving them? Why or why not?

My concerns here are teaching to the test, not allowing for creativity in the classroom and interactive learning experiences ; plus, we had OBE; now it's common core, which is actually very similar to OBE- it's not planned or thought out before  being implemented and if teachers don't buy into it, it won't work; No Child Left Behind set unrealistic goals as well, particularly for special needs children. In five years, it'll be something else; an inordinate amount of money is spent on writing new materials that could be spent directly in the schools.

KATHLEEN D. ZWIEBEL • 33 years teaching High School Communications and Mass Media, Advanced Desktop Publishing in PA • Advised Newspaper, Yearbook, Literary magazine, Online Newspaper & Computer Fair Team; JEA Medal of Merit Lifetime Achievement award Charles R. O’Malley Award for Excellence in Teaching;1998 Dow Jones Newspaper Fund National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year

[the-teachers-voice]

How do you wish Americans thought about teachers?

Respected them.

KATHLEEN D. ZWIEBEL • 33 years teaching High School Communications and Mass Media, Advanced Desktop Publishing in PA • Advised Newspaper, Yearbook, Literary magazine, Online Newspaper & Computer Fair Team; JEA Medal of Merit Lifetime Achievement award Charles R. O’Malley Award for Excellence in Teaching;1998 Dow Jones Newspaper Fund National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year

[the-teachers-voice]

Why did you become a teacher?

I became a teacher because it is the “family business.” I am a fourth generation teacher; my son is making it generation five!

I have been “teaching” since I was 5; my favorite Saturday and after-school activity was sitting all the neighborhood kids in rows in our garage and teaching them with chalk on blackboard anything I wanted them to learn—spelling words, sports rules and art projects. And 67 years later not much has changed.

I teach because I’m good at it. I have learned that engaging the audience with enthusiasm and knowledge of your subject matter is the key to success. That and dressing well, and in bright colors, to make sure their eyes don’t wander. Having slightly salty language doesn’t hurt either as an attention-getting device. If I could have learned to rap, I would have incorporated that modern communications medium into my lesson plans also. Sometimes I borrow things from YouTube for inspiration such as the latest song about the Oxford Comma. 

Anything to relate my life and my passion for journalism to their lives.

But like all of life, 80% of success is showing up. Being on time. Having a great idea for linking the lesson to the real world. Seeing all life as a lesson plan. Those are the keys to great teaching.

Being a rebel doesn’t hurt either. I go against the flow. I spend as little time as possible with other teachers, except when I’m mentoring new ones. I like them. The older teachers seem bitter and spend time in the teachers’ lounge complaining, whining and imagining all sorts of ills with the profession. Many of them dress like bums. Jeans have no place in the classroom. Teachers should dress like professionals, all the time. How else would they expect people to treat them professionally? Don’t tell me about cost. How poorly paid you might be. A great teaching wardrobe is an essential for success. 

I once left teaching for better pay to raise my two children as a single mother. But I found a way, even as a yearbook salesperson to stay connected to the profession I love. I taught university evening classes after work; I volunteered to do corporate training for our new sales people; I spoke at national journalism conventions. Keep in the Game is my motto. 

So now, when I’m supposed to be “retired” (I seem to be failing at that part of my life) I am back on a high school campus as a “walk-on” journalism adviser for a private school that has no formal journalism classroom program. I'm advising 33 students who produce monthly print and almost daily online news sources and a 256-page yearbook, all while meeting formally only five times a month. I mentor four new high school advisers, in addition, through the JEA Mentoring Program. Why am I a teacher? Because I’m good at it. Teenagers think I’m relevant even though I could be their great grandmother. I am a teacher because there is no greater job in the world when you do it with gusto!

KONNIE KRISLOCK • 45 years teaching High School Journalism and English, Community College Journalism and Publications Advising, University News writing, feature writing, public relations, graphic arts in CA • Masters Degree in Secondary Education from USC; Bachelors in Journalism from USC; Community College in Stockton, CA.

[the-teachers-voice]

If there was only one thing that we could concentrate on when thinking about school reform, what would that be?

Teachers and administrators should concentrate on lessons and curriculum ideas that related to the student world—the one they live in now and the one they will rely on in the future. We have not even imagined careers they will compete for in the next 50 years or the skill sets they are going to need to succeed. Because of that, the main purpose of an education/schooling and the one thing we should concentrate on for school reform is intellectual agility.

Fact: students have no context for their lives. They see every fact as an individual idea or incident. They fail to relate that information item to other pieces of knowledge that they possess or that they could learn. They read novels without knowing anything about the author, the time in which the novel was written or the historical, political or social events of that time.

Fact: students often hear lectures on concepts in math and science during class time and are then released to do “homework” without solid understanding of the information. If their understanding is flawed, valuable time is wasted doing things incorrectly and often the student is discouraged and abandons enthusiasm for the subject.  I am much in favor of the “flipped classroom” idea where the “lecture portion is online for pre class viewing and note taking and the “homework” is done during the class where the instructor can monitor student work, check for understanding and correct course if more information is needed.

Fact: students spend more time with social media than any other activity. They have ceased to be social animals in the way we understood that term. They are losing personal contact through meaningful conversation topics, eye contact with others and the ability to write cursively in correctly spelled sentences. Teachers should balance their classroom and homework activities to recognize where students spend their time but demand traditional conversation and analytical, written discourse.

Fact: students are bored by school. The system is so focused on basics and test-taking that school isn’t fun any more. If schools didn’t support athletic participation, half the students wouldn’t even show up. And I don’t blame them. What happened to exciting electives such as film as literature, journalism or aeronautics? We have abandoned exciting courses that engaged students and created a passion for learning. We have killed creative thinking. 

Let’s ask the students which courses they want to take. After we have that list, let’s build a curriculum for educating them through these classes. It’s difficult to speak with passion about English I. It isn’t tough to imagine a freshman waxing wondrously about Sports as Literature. Every teacher on a high school campus could teach a popular course in every department based on their own interests and knowledge. Why can’t we use that energy to build a curriculum. Scientific Inquiry be damned. Let’s build rockets into space. Geometry go to hell. We’ll build a staircase to a tree house. 

When we become information-relevant, then we’ll really be teachers!

KONNIE KRISLOCK • 45 years teaching High School Journalism and English, Community College Journalism and Publications Advising, University News writing, feature writing, public relations, graphic arts in CA • Masters Degree in Secondary Education from USC; Bachelors in Journalism from USC; Community College in Stockton, CA

[the-teachers-voice]

How do you wish Americans thought about teachers?

I wish that Americans had more respect for teachers—people of all ages.  Most of them have no idea of the work load an English teacher has, for example.  Even administrators don’t realize how long it takes to evaluate writing and give feedback.  I don’t know of any other profession where the general public believes it knows more than the practitioners themselves.   We respect farmers, landscapers, architects, doctors, and even sales clerks without questioning how they do their jobs or presuming to tell them how to do it. 

LINDA BARRINGTON • 44 years teaching English, Journalism and Speech in WI • JEA Mentor, Student Teacher Supervisor and teacher of University English Methods coursework.

[the-teachers-voice]

How do you wish Americans thought about teachers?

SANDY JACOBY • 38 years teaching High School English & Journalism • JEA Mentor WI, JEA State Director-Wisconsin, KEMPA Board of Directors-President.

[the-teachers-voice]

What do you believe is the purpose of schooling?

For millennia education has had two purposes: to transmit culture and inculcate behaviors and skills necessary for survival.

From the earliest time this function belonged to parents and the elders of a tribe or moiety. They mentored the young of the group until they reached an agreed upon stage of development and were ushered into adulthood by various means. It was a noncontroversial, non-political process. Success was measured in tangibles—you killed a lion, you fed your family through the winter, you defeated your foe.

Home schooling was the rule until more complex societies developed and specialization set in. Now the parents were working all day and the child was cared for by an adult whose sole responsibility was to inculcate the culture and transmit the skills.

Early on I fear that the tendency to view teachers as people who teach skills but don’t practice them lowered their status and their remuneration. And because the family didn’t control instruction anymore, disputes over what should be taught and how developed. Thus, Socrates and hemlock.

With the industrial age the factory model was adopted by most developed societies—one teacher, lots of kids, organized by age or course to narrow the subject matter appropriately, similar to an assembly line. Each teacher passed his or her charges on to the next grade or subject just like Henry Ford’s workers passed on the Model T to the next station for headlights or seats or an oil pan.

That is the system that worked for some time. But the times, and the challenges to education, are changing exponentially today. It is impossible for schools to keep up with the knowledge generated in a digital society. We are going to have to segue to a system that teaches children how to learn rather than what to learn. 

STEVE O’DONOGHUE • 33 years teaching English & Journalism in Oakland, CA • Currently BTSA (Beginning Teachers Support and Assessment) Coach & run non-profit programs in several California counties to revive journalism programs in the schools; 1990 Dow Jones News Fund High School Journalism Teacher of the Year. 

[the-teachers-voice]

Why did you become a teacher? and Describe your most inspiring teacher.

I had some extraordinary examples of teachers in the classrooms in which I learned and in my family, many of whom inspired me to become a teacher. I wanted to become a teacher, when I was 21, in order to change the world for the better! Years later, one of my students wrote on an exam, that according to her teacher--me--if only we all knew grammar, there could be world peace. My goal, when I began teaching, was nearly as lofty as that. And in some ways, some of my teachers made me feel that was possible: Several of them certainly changed my life. One of my ninth grade teachers who had talked the school board into allowing her to teach French to ninth graders when only eleventh and twelfth graders had been able to study it before, took me to a college for a Language Day, played Edith Piaf recordings for us, spoke to us only in French. She transported me beyond the walls of the school, allowing me to use my senses to immerse myself in another language so that I began to understand the cultural connections and to love the differences and similarities of communication. She later became my supervisor when I began teaching and mentored me in journalism too. My high school English teacher and yearbook adviser taught me that being a leader was more about relationships, not about hierarchy. She taught me how to live with grief and that how a person responds to adversity is sometimes more important than the hardship or trauma itself. Life lessons inside and outside the classroom.

KAY WINDSOR • 35 years experience teaching high school English, journalism, advising school newspapers, yearbooks • JEA mentor for journalism teacher.

[the-teachers-voice]

What is one thing you wish you had understood about teaching/the classroom/students when you were a young teacher?

When I began teaching high school English and journalism and advising the school newspaper and yearbook 44 years ago, I wish I had understood that focusing on students' strengths instead of weaknesses might help them to learn cooperation and collaboration more than competition as a way of living. I wish I had understood then that creativity and courage and confidence can be fostered together. I think I realized soon enough that teaching is not often effective as a "sage on the stage" production but more often as a "guide on the side" relationship--especially in journalism. I wish I had realized earlier that learning is sometimes more about the process than the product and that both process and product can have lifelong effects on students. I worked this week at a Moravian Candle Tea in historic Salem, NC and was paired with a former student with whom I worked more than 40 years ago. I asked him what he remembered from the journalism courses. He remembered that we learned to meet deadlines, to be responsible to each other and to our greater community, that he had learned that he had a voice and it was important, and that he learned ways to communicate with words and a camera and design that had helped him for all of his adult life. He also remembered the relationships, the people, the connections he made in the journalism classroom and outside of it.

KAY WINDSOR • 35 years experience teaching high school English, journalism, advising school newspapers, yearbooks • JEA mentor for journalism teachers.

[the-teachers-voice]

What do you hope for in our next generation of teachers?

The most important things to know are: only become a teacher if you really like kids, that seems like a no-brainer but it never ceases to amaze me that many teachers simply don't like kids; second, your best preparation to be a good teacher is to know your subject inside/out, keep up to date and be able to use and understand technology. You need a sense of humor and when a student asks you a question that you don't know the answer to, acknowledge that you don't know but say you will find out; never fake it, kids know when a teacher does that.

KATHLEEN D. ZWIEBEL • 33 years teaching High School Communications and Mass Media, Advanced Desktop Publishing in PA • Advised Newspaper, Yearbook, Literary magazine, Online Newspaper & Computer Fair Team; JEA Medal of Merit Lifetime Achievement award Charles R. O’Malley Award for Excellence in Teaching;1998 Dow Jones Newspaper Fund National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year

[the-teachers-voice]

How can charter schools positively impact our schooling system?

Charter schools may be needed in urban areas but they can financially hurt public education in small towns; there is a charter school in Pennsylvania that operates on the principles espoused by Charlotte Mason in the 1800s. They have approximately 175 students; their math test score in state tests last year was extremely low- what did the federal government do, they gave them a huge grant to start a fencing program. There are only a few students older than12- it's ridiculous.

Too often, the decision makers at the state and federal levels are clueless;  they need to get out into the schools to understand what is needed.

KATHLEEN D. ZWIEBEL • 33 years teaching High School Communications and Mass Media, Advanced Desktop Publishing in PA • Advised Newspaper, Yearbook, Literary magazine, Online Newspaper & Computer Fair Team; JEA Medal of Merit Lifetime Achievement award Charles R. O’Malley Award for Excellence in Teaching;1998 Dow Jones Newspaper Fund National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year

[the-teachers-voice]

What do you hope for in our next generation of teachers?

 I hope our next generation of teachers will develop 2 skills equally:  master the subject matter and learn how to joyously and effectively teach that to any student who walks in the door.   Today I seem to see 1 of the 2 in most of the teachers entering the profession.  They are either masters of curriculum and subject matter or social workers.  A good teacher today needs to be both.  One who focuses only on the subject or skill quickly loses interest because many students are not at the specific skill or grade level where they should be - the average classroom has extremes.  Those teachers become frustrated and often leave the profession early.  The social worker types become so involved in the huge personal issues they don't follow subject matter professional development or keep focused on skills and learning.  Then the actual education of the child suffers. This is a huge challenge for today's teachers- both are crucial to public education today and probably fuel the charter/private school rush we are seeing.

MARY SNYDER • 35 years teaching High School English and Debate in public schools • Current Kenosha Unified School District of WI School Board President