Can Teaching Be Fixed to Transform It From a Burnout Job? – A Professional Approach
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60 responses to “Can Teaching Be Fixed to Transform It From a Burnout Job? – A Professional Approach”
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Not sure this will work. Most of my teacher friends burned out because teaching K-12 is like babysitting. The students and parents are often not engaged. You have to teach to the lowest common denominator. Then you have mental illness and behavorial problems with students. It’s a tough job.
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It is a tough job, but the statistics show a lot of the stress, a lot of the burnout and a lot of the resignations happen after the first couple of years of teaching.
A lot of the continuing stress after the first couple of years is going to graduate school at night to get degrees that are useless for anything but getting a pay raise and qualifying for promotion.
The ed schools are the embarrassment of every self-respecting college or university president. Arne Duncan nailed it. And he did so in front of the faculty of the Teacher’s College at Columbia – graduate students only. See the new graphic I added to the article.
So is the Harvard School of Education. They are built on the backs of the school districts that require graduate degrees for teachers to move ahead in their careers. Because incumbents had to get graduate degrees to move ahead in their own careers. It is a self-licking ice cream cone.
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You’re absolutely right. Private enterprises routinely and successfully use enterprise architecture to evolve (and sometimes transform) themselves. It’s what they need to do to compete and win. However, it is the market choice and competition that drives winning private enterprises to take EA seriously. Federal agencies generally don’t have competitors. You can’t choose which federal taxing authority to use when filing your taxes – there is only the IRS. In Virginia, lower and middle income parents have no choice when it comes to public, err …. government schools. You send your children where you are told to send them. Until that changes, I question how seriously enterprise architecture will be implemented in government schools.
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You, too, are absolutely right.
I have described architectures for government customers, usually new start programs, that were successful in application. They were not used to a different way, and more importantly were not promoted in a different structure.
I have also done that for mature government customer agencies whose senior career personnel looked me in the eye and told me that I could do the project, because it was the law and it was separately funded, but they had no intention whatever of following the results. And I knew they were not lying.
But, ultimately, it will be dependent on the good faith of the government agencies (VDOE and SCHEV) whose personnel will not be personally affected by the outcome.
Schools and schoolteachers will love anything that makes their lives easier. So therefore such a project has a chance.
But I admit to mixed feelings about being too old to participate. It will be a fight to the death with many of the ed schools.
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You, too, are absolutely right.
I have described architectures for government customers, usually new start programs, that were successful in application. They were not used to a different way, and more importantly were not promoted in a different structure.
I have also done that for mature government customer agencies whose senior career personnel looked me in the eye and told me that I could do the project, because it was the law and it was separately funded, but they had no intention whatever of following the results. And I knew they were not lying.
But, ultimately, it will be dependent on the good faith of the government agencies (VDOE and SCHEV) whose personnel will not be personally affected by the outcome.
Schools and schoolteachers will love anything that makes their lives easier. So therefore such a project has a chance.
But I admit to mixed feelings about being too old to participate. It will be a fight to the death with many of the ed schools.
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The article is very good. The process seems quite logical. It would require a total buy in by the executive branch and the education infrastructure. Doable if the goal is better results and not culture wars for political purposes.
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Th education schools will fight it to the last cap and gown. And then try to dominate the process if it happens. Properly done, the process will require revolutionary reform in undergraduate schools of education and 80% shrinkage in the graduate schools. A life or death struggle for overpaid and ultimately destructive graduate school of education professors.
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JS, you have more than once pointed out the incestuous relationship between various Virginia regulatory boards and their regulatees, where the boards are forced to take as a given both product design and board membership from those they regulate. Certainly this is the case in the health field, and now you’ve made a clear case for it in secondary education. What you are proposing is to disrupt — nay, obstruct completely — this “self-licking ice cream cone” as you so aptly put it.
Now consider the legislator forced to consider how to design the regulatory process — who else is he or she going to allocate scarce time to listen to but those who seem to know what they’re talking about — with facts and figures and arguments and talking points at the ready — in other words, the lobbyists? In this case, lobbyists for those graduate schools of education you so rightly disparage? How is that legislator going to resist the argument that the regulatees must be represented on the board, must have special administrative pipelines for input, must have special heads-up relationships with the boards’ staffs, all in the name of “efficiency”?
What you are calling for is the very antithesis: place in charge people who have healthy disrespect for the way things are done today, who are committed to (and good at) stripping away current processes in order to design the institutional architecture backwards from the needed output — educated kids — and who are not intimidated by well-spoken administrators whose talking points have been honed by decades of institutional self-aggrandizement and self-referential jargon.
In other words, you are asking for a State board of education to be created that will deliberately initiate a train wreck, then spearhead and oversee an intelligent, committed, well-funded rebuilding of the school system, all while withstanding the efforts of many parents and existing teachers and (most of all) administrators to protect the status quo.
In ancient Greek literature there was a narrative device called the “deus ex machina” or “superhero from nowhere” who could be relied upon to cut through human limitations to achieve the unachievable.
You need a “deus ex machina” here. A governor, perhaps, elected precisely and primarily to achieve what you so accurately describe as lacking. God knows we need to bring back good teaching.
Enterprise architecture sounds like the right tool to use, but it must be implemented relentlessly with determination. The overarching question is how to do this — specifically, how to do this in Virginia?
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They also had hemlock.
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What utter pie in the sky blather. The country is fortunate, and the Federal Govt undoubtedly more cost effective, since you retired. It is a small price for the good of the country that we here at BR pay to provide you an outlet in your dotage.
Figuring out what is causing teacher burnout and dealing with it instead of delusions of grandeur and creating castles in the sky out of whole cloth might actually work.
Have a nice day Admiral.
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A well considered option. I’ll give it the attention it deserves. Thank you.
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You are very welcome Admiral, my pleasure.
With a little luck that will distract you from some of your grandiose delusions of ripping up our educational system from the ground up without ever figuring out what was wrong in the first place.
Thank goodness you are no longer in a position where you could have a real impact. I feel for any poor Federal agencies that were subject to your twaddle.
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It was President Clinton’s and Vice President Gore’s “Reinventing Government” twaddle. But, again, thank you.
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It was President Clinton’s and Vice President Gore’s “Reinventing Government” twaddle. But, again, thank you.
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“Reinventing Government” was actually called “Up or Out” in his case.
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We can thank the Navy selection board for keeping the nation safe from more Sherlock. Unfortunately it seems the civilian side of the Feds suffered from EAman here to save the day as a consequence.
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And they say, “Government doesn’t work…”
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“We can thank the Navy selection board for keeping the nation safe from more Sherlock.”
That would be factually incorrect, if Mr. Sherlock retired as an O6 he achieved the last rank before Presidential Nomination requirement.
To reach beyond O6 in any branch of the Military means you become a Politician.
Beyond that you’ve moved beyond actual criticism of the authors work to criticism of the author, i.e. ad hom.
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I am just returning his behavior in kind. Ad hominem slurs are his specialty. We can take comfort that he did not make flag, and that still takes service selection, where he could have done more damage.
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“Lefty665 5 minutes ago
I am just returning his behavior in kind. Ad hominem slurs are his specialty. We can take comfort that he did not make flag, whether by selection out or a president’s good judgement, where he could have done more damage.”I’ve never experienced him “slur” anyone, I have seen him take “slurs” from a good number of posters on here.
The last Naval Flag Officer not to do “damage” was Adm. Arleigh Burke, I hardly think that Mr. Sherlock could do anymore harm than what has happened. As I said, O7 and above in any Branch is a Politician. You’ll find few and far between that care for their Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen.
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Your experience with him and mine have been different.
I respect you and regret getting crosswise with you on this. I grew up inside DoD in the D.C. area so have known a lot of people in the service and their families. Some are relatives. My experience is that they are almost universally bright, well educated people who have dedicated their careers to the service of our country. However, as with all organizations a few are slugs or dysfunctional.
I would put Hyman Rickover and Bobby Ray Inman in the category of those Admirals who have done more good than damage. But, with the Navy’s recent proclivity to run destroyers into super tankers and container ships, burning up multi billion dollar assault vessels dockside, and driving Seawolf class subs into the seafloor the Navy has demonstrably continued to do a poor job selecting out the dysfunctional.
In regard to enterprise architecture, the Navy has a fleet goal of between about 335 and 370 ships, depending on what day and who you ask. Each year recently the Navy has been decommissioning more ships than are commissioned. The fleet size is shrinking and is now below 300. Up is down for the Navy. Maybe that’s where Sherlock learned it.
Regards and I look forward to getting back on the same page with you.
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I appreciate your candor and civility. As am a former Service Member, E to O.
I think you’re neglecting Fat Leonard which showed exactly how “corrupt” politician wearing rank can be.
It’s not that we aren’t on the same page, I just only give what I get. I can understand that we’ve had different interactions, I’ve not always agreed with Mr. Sherlock and have made that opinion known. The only time that I will go below brow is when provoked.
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I had forgotten Fat Leonard. He certainly left a load of Naval officer careers in his wake. We can only hope that corruption was not typical, but it was apparently simply accomplished. Money, partying, good alcohol, drugs, presents, luxury suites, hookers and far too many officers for far too long were easy targets. There have been other Naval procurement scandals too. When there is cubic money that is going to be spent we find far too many are vulnerable to temptation and corruption. Although not about money, Tailhook was another low point.
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I’d venture to guess that the DOD budget is more bloated with pet projects and landing spots for O7’s and above than anything else, because they aren’t investing in things the troops need or what.
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Eisenhower’s warning was right. I saw a story the other day that he edited “Congressional” out of his Military Industrial Complex speech. Someone has to appropriate the money that makes it all go around.
Having a retired general as Sec Def who is hot off the board of a big defense contractor is inauspicious at best for several reasons.
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“Having a retired general as Sec Def who is hot off the board of a big defense contractor is inauspicious at best for several reasons.”
Gen. Austin being nominated was a giant red flag that is for certain. I thought Gen. Mattis was enough removed for the waiver but not Austin.
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Blue skies,
Filling his pen,
Nothing but blue skies
From this guy…
I’ll speak for Jim Bacon here. Lefty … feel free to write your thoughts into a blog post and submit that post to Jim Bacon for consideration. In my decade+ experience with this blog, your entry will be published so long as it is focused on matters of importance in Virginia and is not just an ad hominem attack. Until you are willing to do that, I think you should refrain from personal attacks on blog authors.
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Thanks for your thoughts. If I felt I had something to contribute as a blog post that was interesting to BR I would submit it. That does not preclude me from commenting on posts where the author is frequently judgemental, jumps to unfounded conclusions and pontificates in areas where his knowledge is superficial.
Sherlock has engaged in ad hominem attacks on me since I started posting here. He set the standard. Most folks can disagree without being disagreeable. That was where I started, but it has not worked with Sherlock.
Or maybe we should just act like we value them and don’t treat them like crap insisting that little Johnny is being brainwashed to become liberals. And ok maybe pay them a little more.
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Define “we”.
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You make the unfounded assumption that the rank and file teachers (as opposed to the school boards) want to be in the indoctrination business. It seems equally possible that the rise in front line teacher attrition is coincident with the decision by politicians (including school boards) to transform teachers from focusing on teaching basics to becoming social reformers.
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I make no such assumption. I believe the opposite. I believe that they just want to teach and be left alone. You are the only one attaching motives.
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It can not be fixed within the current public education framework which stifles innovation and promotes rule based education. The only solution is vouchers.
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Certainly immediately. Possibly in the future. I just would like to see a professional effort to restructure the public schools before making that call for future generations.
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Who, what political leadership do ya’ll think will do this?
Youngkin?
Do the majority of folks who vote in Virginia want a leader that will re-make education in Virginia?
Serious question.
I know how Conservatives feel but I just don’t see this coming close to happening unless we change the way that Schools operate in Virginia – i.e. local school boards with guidance from VDOE.
Is Youngkin and VDOE on a path to do this?
I see the Lab Schools starting – and almost nothing in terms of how they operate – really wide-open at this point.
It’s an opportunity for Youngkin to do something but wild and wooly in terms of specifics right now.
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A change this fundamental will have to be brought from the ground up. From the teachers through their unions. The Governor needs to support it, but it must have bipartisan support. This column is just a seed. Teachers will have to water it to overcome the fierce opposition of the Ed schools.
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lots of “anti” testing words in the American Federation of Teachers report:
” • Curb the nation’s current “test-and-punish” obsession with low-quality, time-consuming standardized tests, in favor of educator-led, curriculum linked assessments, project-based learning, and true measures of what students know and can do. The obsession with standardized testing and its impact on teaching and learning is killing the joy of teaching and learning and results in prioritizing pacing schedules and paperwork over student learning.”
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Got it. Thanks. Maybe that is what the enterprise architect comes up with after extensive interviews with all of the stakeholders. But wait for the work. If it ever happens. You should support it.
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Got it. Thanks. Maybe that is what the enterprise architect comes up with after extensive interviews with all of the stakeholders. But wait for the work. If it ever happens. You should support it.
“The burnout is why they quit.”
Another theory put forth as fact with no supporting evidence….
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Quoting directly from the American Federation of Teachers and every serious student of the wave of teacher resignations.
https://www.aft.org/news/educators-thriving-nuts-and-bolts-avoiding-burnout
Serious people have disagreements over the cause of the burnout, as I do with the AFT, but no serious person disputes it.
Something for you to consider.
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But you have taken it upon yourself to determine the causes and rule out others?
Much of what you have written prior if I recall is that wrong discipline policies is at the root of it.
correct?
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James, My beef is not with you saying that teachers are burning out – btw, I believe this is true for many these days in many different professions – might have something to do with ever increasing worker productivity with essentially flat incomes… but I digress – my beef is with you time and again citing these issues or stats and then claiming that this is the cause of the cited increase in teacher resignations without actually providing backup for that claim. “It MIGHT be a factor” would be fine and dandy with me. Then you compound the issue by accepting your claim as fact and launching into a attack on your target of the day (usually something to do with liberal policies) all built on an unsupported causal relationship.
Something for you to consider.
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Judy Tenuta moment: Well, it could be.
If anyone takes this blather seriously and implements it, then it will be.
He’d have made a good cop…
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-guevara-update-eight-homicide-convictions-20220809-wy2c6wok3jhwdkuhaluxrr5pmm-story.html
Seriously? Acbar’s post marked as spam and on this article at that?
Well, now that you’ve waded through that, have some other useless information you can’t use…
From the recent past, researchers playing with CRISPr and DNA strands encoded “Twinkle, Twinkle” in DNA and then played it back. It lacked timing, but the notes were struck.
Using this DNA encoding (and a vast amount of laboratory time, like millennia), the current data available on the internet could be encoded in a lump of DNA the size of a granola bar.
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Zat a high tech version of monkeys and typewriters?
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No. That encoding. This page banner is high tech version of monkeys and typewriters.
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It lacked timing, but the notes were struck.
Begin Stereotype Warning
The DNA strands used in the test must have been from a white person – no sense of rhythm
End Stereotype Warning
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Ah, yep! But funny. If they can name a movie “White Men Can’t Jump” I suppose rhythm is fair game. Elaine’s dancing, recall it? “Full frontal dry heaves”
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This is more than Virginia. For instance, in our neck of the woods, new teachers come in number from places like Pennsylvania.
You establish Virginia standards for licensing and certification and “Ed” colleges across the country offer the curriculum to lead to that.
You can’t “change” the Ed colleges per se.
But you can change Va standards which I suspect would not be a top-down decision from the Gov an VDOE without substantial participation and comment from a wide number of players.
For the teachers who are saints and place holders the answer to the article title is yes. For the others? Afraid not.
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