The Power
of Teachers
By Jill Jenkins
Recently on
Facebook a number of teachers complained that if only the administrators did
anything, their school would run more smoothly, but as a retired teachers I
have experienced a variety of situations where teachers identified a problem in
a school, brainstormed solutions, developed a workable plan and presented it to
administrators. The administrators, in
turn, empowered the teachers to enact the idea and the school improved as a
result. Teachers have power if they choose
to use it. Here are six examples that I
have personally experienced the power of teachers enacting their own solutions
to problems.
1. Hall
Patrol
At one inner-city
high school where I taught, so many students were in the hall during class
time not only cutting class, but smoking cigarettes, and other substances and
making drug deals that one science teacher used a fire extinguisher to spray a
group of smoking students sitting on the staircase next to his room. Needless
to say, he got into a bit of hot water.
The incident led to a group of teachers developing the idea of “Hall
Patrol.” Each teacher gave up one
consultation period per week to patrol the hall encouraging students to get to
class and writing up any students in violation of the rules. The administrators were expected to follow
through on the referrals. Teachers
worked in pairs because one elderly teacher had been hospitalized after a
student assaulted him, beating him with his own cane. The results were startling. Most of the students returned to class
without incidents and faculty member who rarely interacted had an opportunity
to get to know each other making the school have a more cohesive faculty. Occasionally a student would test the
system. On one occasion, my partner, a
tall, well-respected shop teacher and I encountered two brothers selling a bag
of marijuana in the hall. Their buyer
sprinted away, but the two defiantly passed the bag over my head to the waiting
brother before laughing that we didn’t know their names and since teachers were
not allowed to touch students, there was nothing we could do. We went to the assistant principal’s office
identified the two with a yearbook and let the school police officer apprehend
the two. I guess the joke was on
them. Teachers are not powerless.
2. Art and
Trash Pickup
At another
inner-city high where I taught, the problem were two-fold, each day the school
had to be repainted to destroy the gang related graffiti sprawled across the
buildings and the administration was so busy with larger behavior problems that
taking care of small infractions like disrespecting teachers or childish
behavior were impossible to address. The
teachers felt that if they small infractions were addressed, the big problems
would be reduced: nip it in the bud. The
solutions developed by the teachers and proposed to the administrators were
two-fold. First, promising art students
were selected by the art teacher to design and paint murals on the school
walls. Since some of these artists were
the same nocturnal graffiti artists, the staff felt they would want their
creations protected and the graffiti would be reduced. The second part included trash pickup. Students who acted in some inappropriate
manner were assigned one hour of after school clean up. Wearing a bright orange vest, each student
was given a large garbage sack and escorted around the campus to pick up paper
for an hour. When it was raining (which
was rare because it was southern California) they cleaned desks or scraped
gum. The most important part of the
punishment was the students talked to the teachers and they processed what they
had done and why it was wrong. Incidents
of inappropriate behavior were reduced dramatically and the graffiti was almost
eliminated.
3. Study
Help
Teachers at two
very different schools, designed similar solutions to the same problem: one
inner-city high school and one affluent suburban junior high school. The teachers in both schools recognized that
many of the families had either single parent households where parents worked
long hours to financially support their children or households were both
parents worked. Either way, parents had
little time to help their children with homework or help a struggling
student. In both schools, teachers
approached the administration to donate time before school or during their
lunch hour to tutor students who were struggling without pay. Naturally the administration acquiesced and
some struggling students were given much needed help.
3. No Zeros
Allowed
Two math teachers
at my former school developed a program called “No Zeros Allowed” after
attending a workshop. The problem was that assignments in a math class are
designed to support sequential learning.
When students chose to not complete assignments, they impaired their own
ability to learn concepts taught later.
Since work completed late was reduced in point value, students did not
feel compelled to complete missing work.
The principal loved the idea, (Maybe because he was a former math
teacher or because he felt students need to understand that learning to be
responsible is also important.) Teachers
would refer students who had missing assignments to the math teacher in
charge. The math teachers would assign these
students to “Lunch School." The students
would receive a call ten minutes before their lunch and were escorted to the cafeteria to receive a sack lunch and taken to the math
teachers’ rooms. There they would be
given a packet of missing assignments from all of their classes and the
guidance of a math teacher to complete the assigned work while eating lunch. It was a little extra work for the teachers
and the essays some of the students created were substandard, but students
began to become more responsible about completing assigned work. They only change I would make is to include
teachers from a variety of disciplines to tutor the students.
5. Teacher Advisory
Revisited
The administration
at the junior high school where I used to teach instituted Teacher Advisory,
twenty minutes three times a week where students participated in activities
from the affective domain. The activities were far too juvenile for the ninth
grade students who often ridiculed them.
While I was evaluating another junior high for the state, I witnessed a
program that I thought would benefit our students so I brought the idea to my
principal. At the other school,
students were either compelled to go to a study hall to make up tests or
assignments or if they were all caught up, they could attend an enrichment
activity. My principal loved it, so I
encouraged him to talk to the other principal.
The next year, he implemented the program. Just as the other principal told me in the
beginning there were problems, but our principal had learned a lot from the other
school’s mistakes. First, teachers had
to identify, students who had failed to complete assignments or tests, and
request that they go to appropriate location.
These students received a ticket and were escorted to their assigned
location before the other students were allowed to choose an activity. Second, the teachers in each discipline and
in each grade level had to decide before hand who would be teaching enrichment
activities and who would be helping students who needed help with missing
assignments or tests. Third, a huge mistake
the administration made was telling students who were caught up to go wherever
they wanted. Some of them wanted to go
to the local service station and buy a treat.
To solve this, teachers handed out tickets and students selected the
enrichment activity they would attend.
Unfortunately some activities were more appealing to students than
others. I taught an improvisational
theater class that was overwhelmed with students and my neighbor taught a
ukulele class that attracted about ten students. Regardless, the program proved much more fruitful
than the previous program. Students were
motivated to get their work in and those who didn’t were held accountable.
6. Catch
Someone Doing Something Right
My former husband
went to an administrative workshop and heard an idea where businessmen recognized employees doing their job well: Catch Someone Doing Something
Right. That would work with students I
thought so I brought the idea to my principal.
She loved it. She printed out
little cards and teachers were to present a card with a description written on
it of the child’s behavior. The
principal herself and her secretary would congratulate the child and present
him/her with a piece of candy. The next
principal took it a step further and put the child’s name into a drawing for a
fabulous prize at the end of the week.
The program was successful for two reasons: first, it forces teachers to
focus on the positive; second, it rewards the students who are doing the right
thing, rather than give all of the attention to the students who are behaving
badly. Attention is what students want.
As a result, the student who misbehaves learns he/she can get more
attention by behaving appropriately.
Conclusion
The next time you
feel powerless as a teacher, just develop an idea to solve a problem and present
the plan to the administration. You
might be surprised how receptive your over-worked administrator is. Don’t expect more pay or recognition; just do
it for the children.