Blog Post #14

Teaching Can be a Profession by Joel Klein


1. Giving more school choices to families, using technology, adopting a knowledge-based curriculum, starting education before age 5. (Intro problems)
2. Professionalize teaching.
3. Seniority problems.

1. When asked, “If you could wave a wand and change one thing, what would it be?” Joel Klein answered, “This isn’t an easy question. Lots of things need changing. For example, giving far more school choices to families, using technology to improve teaching and learning, adopting a knowledge-based curriculum and starting education before a child is 5 years old.” These are things that need to be changed but aren’t his main focus nor are they the most important things that need to be changed. School choices are an important thing when starting school. Obviously parents want to put their children in the school with the best reputation and best ratings. Second, technology is an important tool when teaching and learning. As learned from taking EDM 310, technology opens more doors than imaginable. Students can reach out to others from around the world and look up anything they are curious about or need an answer to. Next, adopting a knowledge-based curriculum is very important. With a knowledge-based curriculum students will learn more and gain more experiences through their school years. Starting children in the education system before age 5 is already happening around the world. There are certain day care facilities that offer children with lessons during day care, which is very helpful. This is up to the parents to put them there, but is encouraged. All of these things are issues in the education system today.

2. Professionalize teaching is the main thing that he would change. This would make educators respected just as lawyers or doctors. One example he gave was to pick from the best. He thinks that teachers would be better for educating if the top third of the graduates were chosen to be teachers. He doesn’t agree with just letting people that graduate with a teaching degree to be teachers. He believes only the most striving and intelligent, need to be in the field. I disagree with this. I believe that students that want to be teachers and think they are good for the job deserve the job. Teaching isn’t just about knowledge. A teacher also has to be humble and outgoing to interact with the students. He also states that teacher’s rewards need to be changed.

3. Seniority in the education system is a major problem. I agree that this system needs to be changed. Just because someone has been in the school system for a long time, doesn’t mean they are supposed to be. I believe the more equipped teacher should receive the job position, not the one that has been there the longest. I don’t think the education “police” system would be a good idea that Shanker talks about. That would just give people jobs based on opinions and tests. I don’t believe in the tests he explains either. Tests aren’t good ideas. I think instead of tests, we should have in class evaluations to see how the teacher relays the lesson and treats/teaches the students.


Conclusion: I think some of the ideas that were proposed were good ideas and some of them were bad. I believe that the education system needs to be worked on. I believe that teachers are overlooked as a serious profession because of the pay. Many intelligent people don’t consider being teachers because the pay is so low. The only people that want to be teachers are people that love teaching. The seniority rule is something that absolutely needs to be changed. When competing for a position, the most qualified individual should receive the job.