Inaugural Teachbad Book Club Eventacular
I am delighted to kick off the Teachbad Book Club with our very first book, Why Great Teachers Quit and How We Might Stop the Exodus (2010) by Katy Farber. The author has graciously agreed to participate in our discussion. Ms. Farber welcomes and invites you:
Thanks for hosting this book club, Peter. I hope your readers find the book helpful, validating, and motivating. Mostly, I hope they find that it gives voice to the real concerns of teachers today. My goal is to work to make teaching more sustainable, more humane, and more empowering. Maybe that would put Teachbad out of business!
But truly, we’ve got to find ways to preserve our creativity, our passion, and our voice in teaching. Too many teachers quit, or stay when they are drained by the system. No other educational “reform” will work one iota if we don’t address teacher sustainability.
What are your ideas, readers? How do you think schools, states, and our country could make teaching more sustainable and humane?
Here are some questions that might get us started:
1) As an individual, can you isolate any of the annoyances well-described in the book (parents, testing, time, student behavior, administrators, etc.) as the one that drives you most crazy? Or that really isn’t a problem for you? Why?
2) Is there any big thing that Farber left out or might have explored more deeply?
3) This book came out in 2010, so I assume it was mostly written in 2008/09. Last week a Met Life teacher survey came out showing that teacher satisfaction has plummeted in the last two years…after Farber’s book came out. As Larry King would say: Whadaya make of that?
Begin….
Mr. Teachbad
I think one of the most galling and disheartening aspects of teaching is the total lack of accountability in School and District based administration. Teacher accountability is the name of the game now, and everybody’s got a metric–even my students now upbraid me on my “style” or “enthusiasm” (usually after they fail some test). But rarely, as Teachbad points out, is the latest clusterfrak “policy” or initiative ever tested for success. Moreover, they never go away, even when they are demonstrated failures, and have been superceded by something else!
Oh yes. How many administrators have never even been teachers, or had limited experience? The accountability there can be seriously lacking, all the while ours is growing by day.
And lovely legislation written by folks who never spent a day in the classroom. How exactly does that work?
Thanks for chiming in.
i am currently at a school with an administrative team of one that is intent on vilifying and demonizing and flat-out punishing teachers who are not her bffs. sadly, i am not her bff, which means that i get extra work, more hoops to jump through, and am constantly reminded that i am not really putting ‘children first’ if i don’t comply.
obviously i looked for another job, and landed one (thank god) and the administrative team of 3 seems to be normal, sane, and trying to balance teacher job satisfaction with educating children. of course i’m still wary that my new administration will suddenly ‘snap’ and rear their ugly heads – although it seems highly unlikely.
i think that one place to use this book (where it isn’t being used extensively) is in teacher-training programs. teachers are encouraged to grab the first shiny offer that comes along, and they don’t always know what to look for – it’s more about being thankful that someone actually wants to hire you.