Project Based Learning

I just finished a short paper called  Can a Human Resources Model in Schools Result in Increased Student Achievement? In short, schools need more of a professional function for recruiting experienced teachers. Current methods fall very short of matching experience to needs. Followup support is often nonexistent. Reasons for placing teachers in classrooms are often not based on a match for expertise.

The idea of being out of sync comes to mind precisely because schools feel free to put almost any teacher in any classroom regardless of specific experience or expertise. Districts reserve the right, per a teacher’s contract, to place a teacher in any school or grade level as needed. A fourth grade teacher can become a first grade teacher; a kindergarten teacher can become a fifth grade teacher, and so forth. Imagine your own child is starting 5th grade in school and you discover that your child’s teacher for this year has been teaching 2nd grade for the last 25 years.  Hello….what? You might begin to wonder what skills and expertise this person has acquired in 25 years with 7-year olds that is immediately applicable to 5th grade?  In fact, the new (experienced) teacher is probably wondering the same thing: “How will I teach this older student? Am I qualified just because I have been teaching for 25 years?” Likely, no. Thus comes the mismatch, the out of sync teacher. As a parent, you might wonder why the school district didn’t search for a teacher with experience with older elementary students instead of putting the first available teacher into your child’s classroom. News flash: this happens everyday, all the time in schools. Teachers are shuffled into rooms not based on being a good fit for the job, but based on the fact that a teacher, any teacher is needed. Somehow, a belief exists among school administrators that if one is a teacher, one can teach any grade level. No teacher worth his or her salt believes this is true - people become good at what they do by practice and study and reflection and by working with others in a community. Can you imagine this same thing happening in medicine or engineering or any other profession? Of course not.