My name is Allison Glass. I graduated from Syracuse University in 2011 having majored in Sociology and Policy Studies with a specialization in education policy. I currently teach Head Start Pre-Kindergarten at Primitivo Garcia Elementary School in Kansas City. I genuinely love waking up and teaching my 19 beautiful big kids every day, and I’m enjoying my time with Teach For America. I have always wanted to work for the education system, so I consider my time working with Kansas City Public Schools to have an ellipsis rather than a period.
I was invested in these articles mainly because of my interest in the topic of motivation. How do we motivate teachers? How do we motivate students? The article How to Make Great Teachers was mostly about Merit Based Rewards used as incentives to keep teachers passionate and in the classrooms, while How They Do it Abroad demonstrates that in the highest achieving countries, teachers need to be motivated by something other than money. While the results of Fryer’s study allude to the fact that using monetary rewards as incentives would increase test scores, the academic improvement would be so temporary that it would be irrelevant.
Thus, the question remains; how are humans motivated? While countless research shows that individuals actually aren’t motivated by the carrot and stick, rewards and punishment systems, we insist that we are. In actuality, humans are motivated intrinsically. This doesn’t mean that we can make every child love learning, or that we can make every teacher love their job. It means that we need to make every child understand learning, and every teacher understand the importance of their job.
Let’s start with the kids. How do we learn? Why do we learn? For what purpose? Lots of kids don’t like bathing, or brushing their teeth. But when you tell them that their teeth are going to rot out of their mouths if they don’t do it- they start brushing. Once something becomes a habit, and one can see the purpose in fulfilling a task they become more drawn to it. Eventually, the love of learning will arise. It doesn’t need to be immediate.
I enjoyed the drama of Fryer stepping on crack vials in one of the schools, saying that it was too late for these kids to love learning. I worked hard to graduate high school mostly because I was sick of my upper middle class suburban town and I wanted to get out and go to college- it was expected. In college I worked hard so I could get a job and not have to be supported by my parents. I started to love learning my sophomore year in college, when I dove into my major and realized what I wanted to do with my life. While ideally every child would love learning from the beginning, we all know that’s just not possible. Learning is hard work and some of us are lazy. My drive and success had nothing to do with my love for learning. I worked hard and learned so I could get out of Connecticut as soon as possible. As my professor in college always used to say, “It doesn’t matter if someone is rebuilding houses in New Orleans to get a tan and go drinking on Bourbon Street. The houses are being rebuilt.”
Yet my favorite line of Is Cash the Answer may be “…most adults work primarily for money, and in a curious way, we seem to be holding kids to a higher standard than we hold ourselves” (p. 45). Adults are not motivated by money. Adults are dependent on wages to pay their bills- if adults worked primarily for money then salary would be the number one factor in choosing a career. It’s not.
Speaking of not choosing a career based on salary, we absolutely need better teachers. While How to Make Great Teachers identifies countless monetary ways to ensure teacher success, I have a better idea. In the highest achieving countries, being a teacher is regarded as a noble profession. Only the top third of college graduates are accepted into Singapore’s only teacher education program. In the United States, the bottom half of college graduates become teachers. Singapore’s government pays for 100 hours of professional development each year, and teachers get 20 hours a week to plan and collaborate with co-teachers. This is a lot of time, and a lot of work. In the United States, 60% of teachers who quit said they didn’t have enough time to prepare. Something doesn’t add up.
Becoming a teacher in the United States needs to be a challenge! It should require 100 hours of professional development each year. It should require 20 hours of planning time to collaborate and work with co-teachers. We need to raise our standards for teachers earlier than when they’re already employed. We need to begin to think about becoming a teacher the way we think about becoming doctors, dentists, and lawyers. The process for becoming a teacher should be as hard as teaching!
Of course, the increase in teacher education (2-3 year required graduate program, 2 year residency/student teaching) would require a pay increase for teachers. Nevertheless, this isn’t a process based on monetary rewards. If you are not completely prepared, ready and invested in becoming a doctor- then no salary will convince you to spend the time in medical school and residency. The same would be true for teaching. Only those who are completely devoted would take on this career move. So, how do we get people devoted to becoming a teacher? Our mindsets need to reflect the high honor and value of teachers. We need to appreciate their dedication and hard work. In this scenario, teaching is a career of distinction- it needs to be.
Hope you enjoyed my thoughts. Until next time.
Goodbye Teachers and Friends,
Miss Glass
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