Comments on: How to make sure teachers can really teach

By: Teacher in Development :: To Textbook, or Not to Textbook: That’s my question :: November :: 2007

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 04:29:50 +0000

[...] materials that are easy to find" ("How to make sure teachers can really teach." Case, [...]

By: Sandy

Sandy — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 09:50:52 +0000

Quite clearly, though, the best school would provide the best resources and pay the best salaries, thus keeping the more motivated teachers and enabling them to deliver good lessons all the time. The notion of teachers being ‘mercenaries’ is a joke, usually indulged in by self-deluding school owners and teachers, as everybody wants to earn the best salary for themselves.

It doesn’t matter how intrinsically motivated you are to teach well – sooner or later, you are going to demand the financial lollipop that you feel you are worth.

By: S

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 06:50:38 +0000

Overall, I’d agree with a lot of that. A couple of points might be a little contradictory, though:

- Keeping closer records on student progress and having teacher progress meetings are excellent ideas, and something I like doing. However, they do mean more office time and paperwork.

- If you spend money on good resources, a nice learning environment, running smaller classes and providing regular in-service training… then you have less money left to pay higher salaries, sadly.

This second one can work in your benefit – a lot of our local competition pays a higher base rate than we can afford to (but with much less in the way of support and resources), so we get fewer applications from the mercenary type, and more from people who’re likely to care about their students and their learning.

Overall, though, a very comprehensive and well thought-out post of advice; if only more employers and/or academic managers would listen to them…