Common Core and THE JACKASS FALLACY

I receive daily mini articles from Exchange Everyday, an online magazine for Early Childhood Educators and Leaders.  Today I received one with a link for a free digital magazine with the focus on How to Motivate Staff. (<Click link to magazine)

I oversee several pre-k classrooms in different public school buildings. I am not a micro-manager. I like to treat teachers like professionals, give them guidance, frequent communication and lots of space and autonomy. Two sites thrive under those conditions. They are almost entirely autonomous in their weekly planning and daily operations, have great rapport with the children and families, and they are always upbeat and willing to do whatever is needed for accreditation, grants, events, planning and organization. Another site is marginal, barely completes observations, their child files are disorganized, teachers often miss Professional Development Days, and don't report long term student absences (which results in lost revenue for their site), though they have wonderful rapport with their young students. I struggle at times to find ways to motivate these few teachers to care more about the condition of their classroom (clutter) the completion of "paper work" such as referrals for students who may  need services, child files and observations. Not everyone is motivated by the same methods.

So I was very interested to read a few of the free articles on how to motivate staff.  As I read the first article, I began to see how we are on the wrong path entirely with the Common Core and Assessments of teachers being tied to the progress of students. I read the article to learn better methods as a leader, but couldn't help but see how the real message is society is now treating teachers like jackasses:

THE JACKASS FALLACY

 as Harry Levinson, creator of the Jackass Fallacy analogy, explains: “As long as anyone in a leadership role operates with such a reward-punishment attitude toward motivation, he is implicitly assuming that he has control over others and that they are in a jackass position with respect to him.This attitude is inevitably one of condescending contempt whose most blatant mask is paternalism. The result is a continuing battle between those who seek to wield power and those who are subject to it.”

Whether you are a teacher, administrator, decision maker/policy maker or parent, please click the link and read the first article: SELF-MOTIVATION: MOTIVATION AT ITS BEST by Roger Neugebauer

Teachers need to be valued, not devalued; they must be respected and given the materials and budget actually required for educating each student in today's economy.  They also need to be given some free reign to let students converse, discuss, explore, question, ponder, wonder, hypothesize, create, and imagine.  This does not happen with multiple choice assessment preparation, skill and drill, desk work.  I happens when teachers are inspired and love what they do, and therefore inspire their students.  Think of every movie you've ever seen about a great teacher. They buck the system, right?  They give their students opportunities to sue their natural abilities and hone those skills as they learn new skills. They raise the bar, not dummy it down in a cookie cutter curriculum where everyone does the same thing at the same time like automatons. Expecting teachers to do this is the death of education, inspiration and our children's future.

Another resource for coaching/mentoring: Transforming Coaching

Book for all: Improving the Odds for America's Children