3toLead: 'Growing' New Teachers, Spotlighting Math Disorders, and a Mom Struggles with a Teacher's Negativity
In this week's 3toLead, a report on efforts to bolster the ranks of teachers, a story on a largely unknown math disorder, and a mom asks for help after a decidedly negative parent-teacher conference.
Each Monday, I send out three stories intended help educational leaders start off the week on their front foot. My goal is to share a mix of updates on educational news and policy as well as inspriring stories of the impact of educators.
When I say these stories are for “leaders,” I mean that in the broadest sense: everyone from district and building leaders to instructional coaches and team leaders, to teachers who lead by example.
1. Do ‘Grow Your Own’ Teacher Programs Bear Fruit? It’s Not Yet Clear.
NPR, in collaboration with The Hechinger Report, takes a deep dive into the growing number of “Grow Your Own” teacher training programs across the US. The broad idea is to fight the teacher shortage by making it easier for local community members to get the training needed to join the teaching profession. The piece includes the story of Jenna Gros, a Louisiana elementary school custodian who is training to become a teacher with the help of her local program.
“I remember when I started teaching 20 years ago. I didn't know if I was guaranteed a job,” says Gros’ principal, Celeste Pipes. “And in just that short amount of time, we are pulling people literally off the streets to fill spots in a classroom.”
In addition to reducing the teacher shortage, proponents of such programs also hope they will make it easier to retain teachers while also making the profession more accessible and diverse. Those goals are one reason the programs have attracted federal job-training funds. However, the story also notes that the details of these programs vary significantly from place to place and there is little to no data to show if “Grow Your Own” teacher programs actually meet their goals.
Danielle Edwards, an education professor at Virginia’s Old Dominion University, said a lot of questions remain un-answered.
“We want to know whether teachers who participate in Grow Your Own programs have higher contributions to student test scores, whether they have higher contributions to the likelihood of kids graduating high school, whether [the students] graduate college and their income when they become adults,” she said.
2. Shining a Light on Dyscalculia
American schools have long used a variety of strategies to identify and aid struggling readers and those with learning disorders like dyslexia. However, Voice of America says relatively few schools do the same for students with disorders that make it difficult to do math calculations.
The case in point is dyscalculia, a disorder marked by “severe, persistent difficulty performing arithmetical calculations,” according to a 2017 study out of Germany. That report estimated that 3-7% of children, adolescents, and adults suffer from dyscalculia.
However, the VOA report, adapted from a Hechinger Report story, suggests that most of those students will remain un-diagnosed and will not get the extra support they need. Experts quoted in the story say there’s simply not enough research about dyscalculia, and most teacher-education programs do not include robust instruction on math-centric learning disorders.
3. Mom Suspects Teacher ‘Actively Hates’ Her Daughter
I hesitated to click on this link this week, but I think the topic is important, and Slate columnist Jamilah Lemieux did a nice job of offering meaningful advice. In short, a mother went to a parent-teacher conference with her daughter’s transitional kindergarten teacher, and was appalled by the teacher’s litany of complaints about her daughter. Apart from a brief aside that the daughter was “smart,” the teacher seemed to only have negative things to say. She referred to the 4-year-old as “bossy” more than 10 times, the mother said.
The mom was frustrated that the teacher couldn’t see her daughter’s positive characteristics. She came away with the distinct impression that the teacher did not like her daughter.
Lemieux advised the reader to ask for another meeting with the teacher in order to voice her concerns with the way the teacher talked about the student.
“Hopefully, she will realize that she was unnecessarily hard on your daughter in your first meeting and will change her approach in your follow-up conversation,” Lemieux writes.
She also encouraged the reader to talk to her daughter about her experience in the class, and to ask for a meeting with the principal if she still has concerns after the follow-up meeting.
I am glad Lemieux advised the reader to be up front and direct with the teacher. A former principal of mine had a rule that he would not discuss a parent’s concerns about a teacher until the parent first tried to work it out with the teacher directly. I appreciated that approach. More broadly, though, this story is a good reminder that teachers should be careful with our words. All of our students have the potential for growth, and our words should reflect that.