The Great American Teacher Shortage | Dr. David Jeck | TEDxWarrenton

so I want you to stop for just a minute think about your favorite teacher what were they like and what made them special because we all have that person in our past that we can point back to and remember that that person wanted us to become the best version of ourselves but now we have a little bit of a problem in that there are fewer and fewer people who want to take on that role there are more and more teachers who are getting out of the teaching profession there are fewer and fewer teachers potential teachers coming out of colleges and universities 58 percent of teachers surveyed last year said that they were seriously considering leaving the teaching profession between fall of 2020 and spring of 2022 300 000 teachers quit teaching altogether that's roughly the population of Pittsburgh they quit and they're being replaced by far fewer professional well-prepared teachers when you ask the average person what do we do about this teacher shortage issue because if you've if you've been paying attention at all you've probably seen that the media state government federal government they're catching up to the problem they're catching up to this issue we've known about it for a long time and we've done a pretty poor job of preparing for it but now it's hitting us squarely in the face when you ask the average person what do we do about this shortage most times the reaction you'll get a response you get is what we need to pay more that's absolutely right I don't even think that's debatable anymore we have to pay teachers commensurate with the value they provide not only to the schools but the school communities and those are two different things so when you ask teachers who have left the teaching profession and this is where it gets interesting when they're asked why why did you decide to quit well they mentioned pay but then they mentioned a bunch of other things that are qualitative in nature that really don't have anything to do directly with money they say I don't feel appreciated by my Administration and that falls on our shoulders I don't feel uh I'm doing too many things that have nothing to do with teaching any teachers in the audience okay can you relate to that too many things that nothing to do with teaching they don't feel supported and this is going to step on some toes parents I'm a parent I know most of you are probably parents they are tired of dealing with difficult parents okay okay so I'm gonna tread lightly here because I I work for parents uh but the ball game has changed completely relationship between teachers and parents has completely changed the expectations the time commitments completely change and it's stressing out teachers the other piece which I just mentioned at being asked to do too many things that don't have anything to do with teaching here's my favorite example assessment we assess the poop out of kids okay in Virginia between third grade and high school 32 standardized tests now in Finland you've probably heard this Finland is the you know the country with the school system that we're supposed to emulate they give two not only are we doing all this end of the year assessing but building up to that end of the year assessment we're doing more formative assessment growth measures Benchmark tests Pals testing now someone has to administer grade disaggregate use the disaggregated data to figure out how to best to help kids and who usually has to do that teachers huge time suck huge and they resent it and I don't blame them over the last 125 years we've put so much more on teachers shoulders and I think we're at that Breaking Point I think that's part of this issue time is another issue we don't provide enough time for teachers we encumber their planning time sometimes I was a former principal I'm guilty hey can you cover this Duty can you go cover this teacher can you come to this fed meeting and teachers are nice people so they say okay sure I'll help out but the work that they don't get done during their regular planning time they're going to take home and I've been married for 32 years to a teacher principal who brings work home every night she's here somewhere and they the people resent that teachers resent it so there are things that we can do that are qualitative to help teachers give them time show them that we appreciate them support them and here's the other piece and I'm glad I don't have any of my school board members here tonight today we have to be courageous leaders and we have to take back the narrative relative to K-12 education we have to take it back because it has been stolen there's other people out there telling our story and they're telling it poorly and we've let it happen especially in the last two years example our teachers pulled off a miracle in the last two years absolutely we asked them to Pivot we asked them to teach differently we asked them to use technology for instruction we asked to use ask them to use new technology that they never used before for instruction we ask them to do all these things and then one day we tell them this and then CDC says something the next day and we say no you got to do this other thing they pulled off a miracle we have to courageously support our teachers I don't know if you remember this guy if you Google crazy guy at school board meeting that's the guy you're gonna see now typically at these school board meetings this energy that you've seen on television or maybe in your communities has been directed towards usually the superintendent school board that's fine we're we can take it but sometimes it's directed towards teachers which makes no sense it's outrageous and even if it's not directed at them they've got to be thinking to themselves do I really want to be a part of this organization do I really want to be part of this this is crazy so imagine some 22 year old kid gee whiz what is going on we have to courageously stand up against this and you know what we haven't done it and often the reason why we don't do it is because we don't want to be the story but this is a way to support our teachers actively all right now we're going to get even deeper we're going to talk about critical race Theory are you ready all right you all know what a red herring is right the reddest of the red herrings on the planet is critical race Theory okay it's there is such a thing but the idea that is somehow infiltrated at our public schools and teachers are grooming students and indoctrinating students is ridiculous teachers don't have time to pee during the school day it's nuts but people have latched on to this and again teachers see this and they go what are they talking about what there's 1865 standards in Virginia time to teach critical race Theory now there's some Bad actors out there somebody in Michigan teacher gave some assignment or somebody in Florida you know uh said something in class and yeah there's 3.5 million teachers in this country there's some bad actor if someone's going to go off script and teach the you know the informal formal curriculum in an improper way of course but the idea that this is somehow a part of our schools it's just crazy and teachers feel it and here's something else that they see that is insulting teacher tip lines we got tip lines now in Virginia we have an environment where someone can contact someone in Richmond and share a concern about something that they heard may have happened in a classroom so they jump over the teacher they jump over the principle they jump over the superintendent they jump over the school board go right to Richmond I don't like something that's happening in the classroom okay fair enough but you know what that's where it stays we don't get that information so think about it the People Best able to adjust the problem they don't even know the problem exists for the most part it's not reported back to them again it's insulting to teachers it's a negative influence and I'm going to I'm going to end with this talk about school shootings you want to talk about something that's pervasive school shootings that's real kids teachers are getting murdered in classrooms and I'm going to tell you something school divisions will do whatever they have to do to protect their staff and their children's they will they'll put up fences they'll hire arm guards they'll redesign vestibule so it's hard for people to get in they'll buy software where you can just press a button to call the sheriff's office but these teachers see this anemic response from state and federal government officials and they've got to be thinking do they really care about me do they really want us to be safe because they don't seem to be doing anything what they usually do is they'll suggest they'll thoughts and prayers I'm a Believer in prayer but I also know that faith without works is dead has got to take action and that's where we are and somebody will suggest we need to arm teachers no we don't teachers are there to teach they are trained to teach they're not armed bodyguards that's our job we're supposed to protect them if we're going to insist that teachers are armed then double their salary because we're asking them to do two things serve as teacher and ad hoc school resource officer look as I said we've got to take this narrative back we've got to take our message back we've got to support our teachers with courage courage because here's I'll finish with this every student no matter where they live no matter what kind of car their parents drive no matter what community they're from no matter if they're City kids or country kids deserve to be taught by a highly qualified well-paid well-prepared teacher every single one of them and right now we're not doing that and the problem is just continue going to continue to get worse unless we do something meaningful about it but these kids deserve it every one of them and we're not doing it now in the short term kids will pay for it in the long term guess who's going to pay for it we are we got to do something and on a more positive note I got a stack of teacher contracts down in the green room if you're interested you let me know thank you very much thank you thank you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 32,981

Keywords: Education, English, Leadership, TEDxTalks, Teaching, [TEDxEID:49046]

Id: o2ekPZg3jb4

Length: 12min 44sec (764 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 11 2022