Doing What Matters Most

It has been a common theme throughout The Flat World and Education that teachers make the biggest difference in education outcomes. To this point in the book I have felt that teachers have been blamed a lot of not wanting to teach in certain settings but in chapter 6 I feel that Linda Darling-Hammond did a good job of pointing out that it isn't really the teachers' fault. She points out that as a nation we need to have policies that set guidelines and support for new teacher preparation, professional development, and mentoring. Changes cannot be made at the class, school, district or even state level - they must be made at a national level.

New teacher training has to be more rigorous so that new teachers are better prepared. Not only should new teachers learn their content they should be taught how to teach. In Finland there is a thesis that new teachers must write and it is often focused on problem solving and action research. Currently there are many options for students who would like to become teachers and in most states the quality of the programs offered varies greatly. The national government needs to do a better job of regulating these programs to ensure that new teachers are well prepared; similar to what happened to MD training in the early 1900s. Unlike the medical profession though teachers will not ever have big earnings which is why many people have a hard time justifying going into debt to pay for their education.

Once someone finishes their education training they are thrown into a classroom and often left to fend for themselves and figure things out on their own. Although mentoring programs are becoming more prevalent they are not supported in ways that they should be. Many times veteran teachers are asked to support teachers without the training in how to actually support them.

In many successful education systems teachers are supported and encouraged to continue to learn through professional development. Singapore and Sweden both fund and require teachers to do 100 hours of professional development every year. Teachers have fewer hours of instructional time in other countries compared to American teachers allowing for more professional development, plan time, group plan time and action research.

The moral of the story is that as a nation we must reform our teacher preparation guidelines to make our education system better!