Week 4 Milestone: Responding to Other Blogs
After reading Candice Shively’s blog called “(Good) Teachers Worry Deep,” I began to think about how do parents and school administrators measure how well a teacher is doing. From personal observations, I know most parents base it on how their son or daughter is doing in class because that is what is important to them. And I know that principals stop by and evaluate their teachers, but is there a more effective way of measuring to see which teachers are good? From Candice’s blog she mentions a lot of it has to do with student achievement. Administrators and parents want to see that teacher’s students are developing their knowledge in the classroom and are achieving their potential. If students are failing then administrators and parents automatically assume the teacher must be bad rather than the possibility that the students are goofing off and not applying their knowledge. I am in agreement with Candice that there must be a better way to evaluate teachers that is fair to teachers and their students.
In the rest of her blog, Candice describes how worrying about students and searching for a way to reach them is what defines a good teacher. She compares it to a good doctor who will check in on his patients to see if his diagnosis was right and if it was not then he will bring the patient back in. She also compares it to a mother worrying. A mom can sense when her children are sick, and she thinks this is the same for teachers. Good teachers will know when their students are struggling and when they have had a bad day because they watch their students and help them get back up from a struggle. I personally believe that all teachers should let their students make their own path, but if they are struggling and they fall then I believe teachers should be there to help pick them up. And the only way to know how to do this is if teachers watch how their students act and worry about them on a regular basis. I agree with Candice that seeing how teachers respond to and care for their students should be one way of evaluating if they are a good teacher because it is not all about academic achievement; it is also about social and emotional achievement and understandings.
Click here for Candice’s blog if you would like to read the blog I just commented on.
