She points out the importance of the following qualities:
A talented and skilled educator is aware of their students strengths so they can have a sense of self-worth and well-being. A qualified, skilled and talented teacher is someone who is nurturing, sensitive, fair, firm and loves to engage in students’ learning experiences.
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Effective teachers also create a positive classroom environment that helps give children appropriate choices within given boundaries. Teachers need to emphasize fostering respect. “Do unto others as others would do unto you.” You can only instil respect by modeling or by example. It is up to the teacher to show students what their choices are and show them what kind of behavior is appropriate. As an early childhood educator, I have encouraged discipline through love and not hate. On those few occasions when I have disciplined a child, I focused on having the child appreciate the consequences of the offensive behavior in question by being fair and consistent. In creating an atmosphere that will enhance each students’ social and emotional development, using the phrase “that children matter and that they are important” during center time, snack time and whole-class instruction will assure a positive classroom environment.
In a related move, Queens Teacher points out that the NYCDOE is hiring a a Director of Teacher Effectiveness for $95,000 a year.
Here is what the position entails and what the qualified applicant will need:
Position Summary: As part of the Department of Education’s (DOE) Office of Talent and New Initiatives, the Senior Director, Teacher Effectiveness will be responsible for operational and strategic management of several key initiatives including the launch and scale up of an innovative and comprehensive teacher talent management system which focuses on teacher development and evaluation. The ideal candidate is someone who enjoys managing development and execution of complex, multifaceted initiatives, thrives in a fast-paced environment, and is interested in many aspects of teacher talent management.
Reports to: Executive Director, Teacher Effectiveness
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Responsibilities
•Advise the Chief of Talent and New Initiatives and Cabinet-level DOE leaders on the creation and implementation of teacher effectiveness policies and processes.
•Lead the effort to develop and implement a rigorous evaluation system for teachers, in conjunction with the Executive Director, Teacher Effectiveness and senior staff throughout the organization.
•Develop and implement tools and protocols for program evaluation, best-practices research and continuous improvement in areas such as teacher tenure.
•Lead communications and engagement efforts with the field around teacher effectiveness initiatives including teacher value-added reports, and teacher evaluation and development initiatives.
•Provide workshops and trainings to network-level and principal-level staff around teacher effectiveness initiatives.
•Oversee scale-up of the teacher evaluation and development system across all NYC schools.
•Manage the contract with an external teacher effectiveness vendor, including workflow, budget, and staffing levels.
•Partner with the Talent Analytics team to drive the analysis of large sets of confidential human capital data to form innovative strategies, policies and practices.
•Lead cross-functional decision making with internal and external partners; facilitate agreement in a wide variety of settings to launch new teacher effectiveness initiatives.
Qualification Requirements:
Minimum
1.A master's degree from an accredited college in economics, finance, accounting, business or public administration, human resources management, management science, operations research, organizational behavior, industrial psychology, statistics, personnel administration, labor relations, psychology, sociology, human resources development, political science, or a closely related field, and two years of satisfactory full-time professional experience in one or a combination of the following: working with the budget of a large public or private concern in budget administration, accounting, economic or financial administration, or fiscal or economic research; in management or methods analysis, operations research, organizational research or program evaluation; in personnel or public administration, recruitment, position classification, personnel relations, employee benefits, staff development, employment program planning/administration, labor market research, economic planning, social services program planning/evaluation, or fiscal management; or in a related area. 18 months of this experience must have been in an executive, managerial, administrative or supervisory capacity. Supervision must have included supervising staff performing professional work in the areas described above; or
2.A baccalaureate degree from an accredited college and four years of professional experience in the areas described in '1' above, including the 18 months of executive, managerial, administrative or supervisory experience, as described in '1' above.
Plus
•Passion for the Children First agenda and commitment to the success of all NYC students.
•Experience as a school administrator or teacher, preferably in an urban public school district.
•Exceptional strategic thinking skills.
•Excellent project management and organizational skills, with a demonstrated record of accomplishment bringing complex initiatives to successful completion.
•Extraordinary attention to detail.
•Superior adult facilitation skills.
•Excellent oral communication and writing skills.
•Ability to work independently and manage multiple responsibilities simultaneously.
•Outstanding interpersonal and teamwork skills.
•Strong record of experience as an effective manager.
•Ability to critically assess challenges and identify effective solutions.
•Flexibility and comfort with ambiguity.
•Able to thrive in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment.
•Able to strategically manage multiple projects at once.
•Flexible, optimistic approach; committed to overcoming obstacles.
•Ability to learn new systems and adjust to changing priorities. •Self-starter with an entrepreneurial spirit.
•Strong working knowledge of MS Outlook, Word, Excel, Power Point and the Internet.
Apparently the qualified applicant to be the new NYCDOE Direcot of Teacher Effectiveness does NOT need to be a teacher nor have any of the classroom experience that might lead a person to think that an effective teacher has some of the qualities and knowledge that Sweet Girl Tracie thinks effective teachers should have.
I have said for a long time now that many of these people "reformers" - from Klein to Rhee to Gates to Bloomberg to Obama - are deficient human beings lacking in empathy, social skills emotional awareness and humanity.
They're more comfortable with numbers, data, and systems rather than feelings, emotional as well as intellectual growth, and authentic interaction and communication between people in REAL environments (not some VIRTUAL WORLD.)
The qualities they look for in the people they put in charge of teacher evaluations points that out over and over again.
Bad systems attract and reward bad actors. What you correctly describe as the deformers lack of empathy (and including in its most extreme Rhee-esque iterations dishonesty, aggression and narciscism, in fact all the components of the sociopathic personality), is built into the system they impose on their subject peoples.
ReplyDeleteSweet Girl Tracie's eloquent description of good teaching is a profile of exactly what the deformers hope banish from the classroom, the workplace and every other realm of life. Every motion, every breath, must be monetized, and the deform model is imposing that upon younger and younger people: they now have kindergartners sitting on rows in front of computers.
As for their obsession with numbers and (junk) data, that is both a matter of character and a mechanism of power. They control the data, and they use the data to control the rest of us.
: )
ReplyDeleteThank you for the acknowledgment.
Beg to differ. Tracie's only focus is discipline and behavior. Elsewhere she has posted that she wants to stay at the elementary level because the kids are easier to handle and "worship" the teacher, and how being an "effective teacher" is not about age or experience. The post is not about effective "teaching," rather, only elements that affect the classroom environment. The post might have some merit but it requires more thought and more experience to be truly meaningful.
ReplyDeleteooohh..I am sparking controversy over what I wrote. This is turning into a nice debate.
ReplyDelete@ Michael, its true. Kindergarten children are not receiving the appropriate education that they are entitled to. They are expected to sit in theirs chairs or sit on the carpet for 20 minutes or sometimes more. They are writing and reading for long periods of time. These are the reasons why behavior and classroom management are an issue in the younger grade classrooms. Developmentally inappropriate lessons for kindergarten. Its not the teachers, its the New York City School system. The teachers have to do because they are being told to do it and making the best out of a crummy situation.
ReplyDeleteReality-Based Educator, I forgot to tell you. I think this anonymous person also dissed me on Pissed Off Teacher's blog too. On her "Far Fetched" post.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like its the same person.