Teachers Working Harder Not Smarter
Teachers Working Harder Not Smarter – Self-Induced Stress, Based Upon Aggressively Maintaining a Flawed Teaching Methodology, Over a Better Paradigm, for Themselves and their Students
Teachers Working Harder Not Smarter – What Once Worked for Them, Now Works Against Them
Teachers Working Harder Not Smarter – By Tom McDonald, January, 10, 2017
Teachers Working Harder Not Smarter – A recent article shared a Study that finds teacher stress levels on par with those of physicians and nurses. I don’t disagree that traditional educators are under immense stress. Let’s look at why this is and why it’s self induced
Note, historically, those in the education field might think to erroneously capitalize on this research, to ask for similar compensation, but they would be missing the real reason they are under stress, why more money won’t fix their stress and why they have directly caused this stress on themselves
Can we first agree that education exists to empower ALL students with effective, efficient, consistent, affordable, relevant, student success outcomes, that result in individual student, sustained, performance improvement outcomes? I hope so.
The current, incumbent, flawed, education paradigm, is the 20th century, factory based, one size fits all, ineffective, inefficient, inconsistent, expensive, teaching methodology. This includes, a one size fits all information dump to students, delivered via; lecture; elearning; whiteboards; tablets; power point sides; laptops; desktops; projectors; Think of the last seminar you attended and how little that benefited your sustained performance improvement. Traditional education has similar results for their students:
The research is solid, that the best individual student outcome, of one size fits all teaching, to the middle, will be superficial initial understanding, that will soon be forgotten, but only for part of the class (the middle)…This means NOT empowering ALL students with the tools to effectively, efficiently, consistently, relevantly and affordably, achieve, individual deep, adaptive, 21st century learning
This, information dump, historically has worked nicely for the teachers, but has not been effective, efficient, consistent, affordable, or relevant for ALL their students. This is the work equivalent, of the teacher digging a ditch with a backhoe, while giving each and every student a shovel to do the same task. Some students will finish successfully, via true grit and determination, some will simply finish and others will quit, because they were left behind
Jump to today, when data, cognitive science and educationally innovative software, seamlessly integrating the best practices of cognitive science, enters the picture:
The data reflects painfully, that student graduation rates are low, students are graduating without relevant, necessary 21st century skills, and worse yet, students are dropping out, all because one size fits all teaching, via an information dump, does not empower ALL students to be successful:
This NOW puts the spotlight on effectively, efficiently, consistently, relevantly, affordably and measurably, advancing 21st century, student success, performance improvement outcomes. Interestingly enough the current, required, 21st century, student success outcomes, WILL NEVER be achieved from a one size fits all teaching methodology – NEVER. But traditional educators continue to nay say and ignore positive, research based, best practices change and divert attention from the real problem, one size fits all teaching. Hence, THEY are now in the endless ditch, digging frantically with a shovel, to improve, 21st century student success outcomes, with a flawed teaching methodology, that will not empower them, to empower their students to be successful. Somewhat ironic and certainly self-induced, but they don’t see it. They continue to focus on the trees (subsets of the real problem), not on the forest (the real problem which is one size fits all teaching)
Even so, we continue to reward ineffective teachers with pay increases, which reinforces their poor student success results and rewards their current, systemically flawed, teaching paradigm
And we continue to allow individual teachers to ‘teach’ differently, within individual classrooms, with no consistency of pedagogy, educationally innovative software, or defined, measured, student success outcomes, while they aggressively maintain their one size fits all teaching and resist individual accountability. All of which directly contributes to their self-induced stress and more importantly DOES NOT and WILL Â NOT advance 21st Century, student success, performance improvement outcomes for ALL students. We call this a self-induced, vicious circle
We currently have ALL the tools needed, currently available, to empower School Districts and individual teachers to effectively, efficiently, consistently, affordably and relevantly, empower students with advanced success resulting in sustained, 21st century, performance improvement outcomes, FOR ALL STUDENTS. But traditional educators continue to aggressively resist positive change, add unnecessary stress, which will only get worse due to student success outcomes not advancing, due to a flawed teaching methodology. They will historically wait to be forced to make positive change and then be unhappy with the results (reactive behavior vs. proactive behavior – not very professional).
It’s interesting that the tables have now turned on traditional educators, to advance student success, performance improvement outcomes, with their choice of an incumbent, flawed, 20th century, one size fits all teaching methodology, that will never get them to OUR objective. Am I the only one to see this current irony?
There is a solution, that requires a complete and total paradigm change, on their part. It will make OUR 21st century, student success, performance improvement outcomes, for ALL students measurably advance, in an effective, efficient, consistent, affordable, relevant way. It will also require some short term, change, pain, which will alleviate their current stress, by empowering them, effectively, efficiently, consistently, affordably and relevantly, to empower their students in the same way, to advance 21st century, student success, performance improvement outcomes for ALL students.
Society, with what we know now, will no longer allow advanced student success, Â sustained, performance improvement mediocrity. IF traditional educators continue to resist positive, advanced, student success, sustained, performance improvement change, measured student success accountability will not go away, nor will traditional educator stress to meet defined, advanced, student success, sustained performance improvement objectives.
Preservation of the current, flawed system of teaching works for no-one. IT MUST change for the direct benefit of all stakeholders. Does it make sense to fix all of Societies Problems FIRST, or, change paradigms FROM 20th Century, one size fits all teaching, TO 21st Century Learning? The research says change paradigms totally and completely to 21st century, adaptive, learning
Should we feel sorry, or sympathetic for traditional educators who have aggressively painted themselves into a corner? I think not. Especially, when we offer them  research validated solutions and they continue to nay say, or ignore them without offering positive alternatives, or validating with current research, how their incumbent teaching methodologies, measurably advance student success performance improvement outcomes, FOR ALL Students
We are either FOR advancing student success, performance improvement outcomes, or we are AGAINST advancing student success, performance improvement outcomes
Positive research validated, educationally innovative, change MUST Occur. IT MUST be a collective, collaborative effort for it to benefit our students, the reason education exists
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