The fundamentals of education are not changed. Education is about teachers and students in classrooms. The specifics of activities have changed: Teachers have smart boards, and students have computers. The techniques that worked in the past may not work. The kids are almost certainly different. Educational objectives can and even should be different. But the fundamentals of education are the same: kids and teachers in classrooms.
A classroom is a bit of a mysterious place. How does the teacher interact with up to a hundred kids every day? I would propose that nobody really knows, including the teacher.
Education is buried in bureaucratic noise: project-based learning, “flip your classroom,” authentic education, expeditionary learning. And it seems to be about steering committees, diversity training, ownership, theory of action, racial equity and strategic planning, and it goes on and on and on.
It does not seem possible for the drivers of this astonishing dysfunction to realize that education is all about teachers and students in classrooms. All a school district can do is hire the best teachers, give them what they need and get out of their way.
The Asheville teachers union has approached the school board with requests to be more involved in decisions. The buzz is “meet, confer and collaborate.” Education is all about kids and teachers in classrooms. The teacher’s job is all about kids and teachers in classrooms. A union is about salaries, working conditions and job stability.
It is hard to see why the Asheville City Association of Educators created this and hard to see why some school board members bought into it.
It escapes me how this could impact overworked, underpaid and probably unappreciated teachers interacting with students in classrooms.
— John Brigham
Asheville
The writer of this letter seems to not know much about education. What he calls “noise “is actually different methods teachers use to engage students to bring out their best inquisitive and collaborative ways of learning. Teaching is not a mystery to teachers. We learn methods that work best for us and our students. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel every time…. We are professionals, and we learn methods to our craft.
Also, the writer of this letter is grossly misinformed about unions. One of the roles of the teachers union is to advocate for a decent salary for all people who work in the public schools so that teachers et al do not need to have a second (and 3rd) job just to get by and, thus, they can focus all their energy on their students. I write this after the GOP super majority gerrymandered legislature has come back yet again to not fully fund traditional public schools… and yet they found the nearly $500 million to fully fund taxpayer-funded vouchers to send nc students to unaccountable private schools…. and not for nothing, many of these students were never in, and never had intended to be in a traditional public school. This happens in a state that by law will not allow for strong unions. NC is one of a minority of states that operates under Jim Crow laws that don’t allow for collective bargaining, and it is fully reflected in how shamefully undervalued and underpaid are traditional public school workers are. The goal is to under fund the public schools and then to call them failing. Working conditions are completely linked to learning conditions of students.
The fact that ACS folks think that a local controlling non profit operation is needed and helpful is preposterous. It is time to get the union BS out of government schools by shutting down the federal ‘Department of Education’ , which is NOT Constitutionally required, abolish the NEA and the NCAE, and until such achievement, get YOUR children out of government screwls as fast as you can !
There was no dept of ed before 1979. Hard to argue they’ve added value since heir inception. More bureaucratic expense and meddlesome directives. No benefits for children.
The moral of the story is that unions have no place guvment workplaces. Yes to private vouchers. Mel Watts 12th district was the original gerrymandered district.