Teacher Shortages Ring in the New School Year

Both APS and Rio Rancho school districts are facing a shortage of teachers this fall. Their plan, I believe, is to hire retired teachers as substitutes until vacancies can be filled. I think we all know why this is happening. Teachers are tired of being attacked and held accountable for their students’ performance on standardized tests. They are also tired of trying to build up student self esteem when standardized testing is so good at tearing it down. It just isn’t worth the heartache.

I’m hoping that those teachers who have decided not to return to teaching in the public schools (or those who have decided not to even enter the profession in the first place) have found other rewarding ways to make a living, and I hope that those who truly love and are good at teaching will be able to continue to do what they love, just in another venue.

Teachers Doing Capitalism

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again for those who haven’t read earlier posts – teachers can do capitalism as well as the next person. If they simply advertise their services to students who know and love them, and their parents, then maybe there are ways to hire them and form a learning co-op of sorts. Or charge tuition and call it a private school.

They could use existing systems to find work as an educator outside the public schools, like I did when I started tutoring for Wyzant. If you bring your own students into the Wyzant program, you get 95% of the fee you charge. That isn’t bad. 

I bet there are a lot of teachers out there who have students whose parents would be willing to pay them to tutor their kids. It’s not much but it’s a start. If a good teacher had ten students per week at $25/hour and spent 4 hours with each student, they are working a 40-hour week and making pretty good money.

Community Learning: the home school approach

Looking at it from yet another angle, the home school angle, we can see how these things could happen. No one has to break any laws or revolt against the government. We just use laws that are already there, register our kids as home schoolers, and then pool our resources in individual neighborhoods or however we group ourselves –– true community learning centers -- then it’s up to the kids, their parents, and their teachers to define the system, vision, and goals. They are responsible for making it happen.

Teachers can be facilitators in not only kids’ learning, not only in the parents’ but in their own learning as well!

There are more issues here than standardized testing. We have to recognize that the need for the traditional public school system is no longer there; we can learn without going to a certain building and meeting with others of a certain age level during certain hours.

We can learn 24 hours a day. We can learn anywhere. We can learn with people of all ages all over the world. We can learn with our families and in our communities. But we still need someone to help us learn in a good direction, and that is the teacher.

So teachers, let’s change the system. Let’s redefine it and start with the idea that it’s all about learning, not education. Let’s quit trying to get legislators to understand enough to effect change; let’s effect change ourselves! Let’s take another look at our resources and where they can take us in an Internet-driven world. Let’s start the conversation with our students and their parents and see where it takes us. We can do this! We’re ready for this!