Vital rethinking about the job of teaching
This column originally was published by a number of APG of East Central Mn newspapers during May, 2022.
Vital rethinking about the job of teaching
By Joe Nathan on Education
Whether in a St. Louis Park High School class taught by a Minnesota Teacher of the Year, a video produced by St. Paul charter public school students, or upcoming conferences, there’s vital rethinking in Minnesota about careers in teaching. New thinking and concrete action are needed to make teaching more attractive.
Minnesota’s Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board (PELSB) has stunning research online showing that changes are needed. It reports that:
- Minnesota has 56,628 active teachers, but 113,986 people hold professional teaching licenses. This means that less than half of Minnesotans qualified to teachers are actually doing so.
- “Nearly a third of new teachers leave teaching within the first five years in the profession.”
- 70% of Minnesota districts responded to a question about a shortage of substitute teachers; of those, 88% reported the shortage of subs was having a “significant” or “very significant” impact on their district.
St. Louis Park High School teacher Lee-Ann Stephens, the 2006 Minnesota Teacher of the Year, is working on all this. She offers one of a growing number of classes helping high school students explore teaching. Students stay in the high school and earn both high school and college credit.
Dr. Lee-Ann Stephens
Lili Jampsa, a senior, described Stephens’ class as “uplifting, encouraging and useful.” She likes the way Stephens departs from what she called “the deficit model,” which emphasizes students’ shortcomings. Jampsa told me, “This class helps us build on our strengths, which really helps us learn.” Junior Jayden Mitchell says the class is “different from many I’ve taken. We focus on real life problems.” Senior Symone Morrison calls the class “inspiring and empowering,” adding, “This class makes me look at things differently.”
Empowering students is part of Stephens’ plan. That’s an approach to teaching that she and I agree can make teaching much more enjoyable.
In a new video produced by High School for Recording Arts students, Stephens explains: “My job is to facilitate the learning, not to be the center of the learning. … I am not the smartest one in the room, neither do I want to be, because that puts a heavy burden on me. But collectively, we have brilliance!”
The (free) student produced video, created with assistance from the Morning Foundation, encourages middle and high school students to consider teaching as a career. You can find it here.
Key creator of You-Tube video encouraging students to consider a career in teaching
The video represents an approach to teaching that Stephens endorses: Students create materials others can learn from. HSRA has done a lot of this. Their students produced public service YouTube videos under contract with organizations such as Verizon Wireless and the Minnesota Office of Higher Education.
A student who helped produce that video will speak at a June 10 – 11 conference in St. Paul on “Deeper Learning”. Tony Simmons, HSRA’s executive director, formerly an entertainment industry attorney, told me: “The conference theme, ‘The New Power,’ recognizes that cross-sector collaborations between education, business, art and technology can lead to transformative learning for young people that fuels their passions and their purpose.”
Dr. Rose Chu
New collaborations can help make teaching less stressful and more satisfying. Making teaching more attractive and effective is Rose Chu’s life work. A former Honeywell engineer and later district public school teacher, interim dean of Metro State’s School of Urban Education and now project director for PELSB, Chu is trying to “elevate, demystify and diversify teaching.” Chu cited a PELSB report showing that the average Minnesota teacher salary for the 2021-22 school year in Minnesota is $67,600 (not including benefits). Chu responds: “Not as high as we’d like, but higher than many realize.” PELSB’s report also shows each district’s average salary. More information about Chu’s teacher recruitment and marketing project is here.
Lars Esdal leads a group that’s creating new opportunities for district and charter educators – via “teacher-led schools”. More on this in a future column.
Minnesota must do more to attract and retain educators. Fortunately, talented people like Stephens, Chu, Esdal, Simmons and HSRA students are working on this. As an educator who found challenges and immense satisfactions in teaching, I’m hopeful.
Joe Nathan, formerly a Minnesota public school educator and PTA president, directs the Center for School Change. Reactions welcome at joe@centerforschoolchange.org
Dr Gary Gruber
May 31, 2022 @ 11:09 am
Many kids want to do something that has an impact, that will make a difference and that will contribute to making things better. I can think of no profession that fulfills those criteria any better than teaching . Helping students to explore the value and meaning of teaching is d0ing great service to the future of both those students and our society as a whole.
T
May 31, 2022 @ 11:18 am
I fully intend to do substitute and ESL teaching upon retirement.
With a math related (Economics) degree and multiple post graduate certifications, the system does not make it easy to become involved. I have offered and have received bureaucratic barriers.
I sincerely question if the machine is trying to engineer solutions or facilitate continued complaints/excuses.
The root cause issue exists in the broken paradigm and lack of simple goals.
Bryan Rossi
June 1, 2022 @ 1:16 pm
Great article, Joe. It is important for the public and prospective teachers to understand that additional college work beyond the 4-year undergrad degree is required to obtain a teaching license. See the infographic, https://educationminnesota.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/2021_TieredLicensure_Infographic.pdf
This is important because:
1. New teacher salaries should not be compared to new 4-year graduates because new teachers have begun and/or completed a Masters program to become licensed.
2. The added expense of extra years after the undergrad need to be addressed because low-income background students may not be able to hang on for those extra years of study and expense to become teachers.
3. The public needs to be made more aware of the extra time, money, and dedication young people put towards becoming highly trained and effective teachers. They deserve a lot of respect.
Dr. Holly Hart
June 1, 2022 @ 1:35 pm
Great article! The teacher shortage has been building for years. As pointed out in Good to Great, it is also critical that we “get the right people on the bus.” We need teachers who care about kids first and content second, not the other way around. Minnesota has been a leader in getting quality options for students and teachers. Other states like Wisconsin had some excellent options but has pulled them back to get all kids doing the same thing at the same time to make schools and students easier to manage/control. Finally, unfortunately, often businesses who step up to partner with education are told to donate but to keep their ideas to themselves. Minnesota and the School of the Recording Arts offer great examples of what can be.