I would offer higher salaries than what teachers are getting in the public school system, but would hire only the most outstanding teachers. And they would have to perform or they would be gone. They should be enthusiastic, creative and models for the students. ( I think about 20% of present public school teachers might meet this standard. Teachers would have to be recruited from elsewhere enticed by better salaries).
I would then organize class time in such a way that kids would not automatically spend day after day in a class room with their peers. There would be a greater variety of learning activities, ranging from lectures, to video, to group and individual learning activities focusing on reading, computer based learning, (including LingQof course), more music, sports.
It would be up to these super teachers to figure out how to best organize these activities so that all students achieve the best results they can, and remain focused.
Teacher performance would be based on their ability to get their students to become enthusiastic about learning and spend the necessary time on meaningful learning activites, as independent learners.
The objective would be to induce the students to do more on their own, thus making it possible for a much higher student to teacher ration than in the public system.
High-powered enthusiastic teachers, independent learners, is this possible? Maybe I am just dreaming, again.
2 comments on “In my ideal school I would increase teachers’ salaries – a dream?”
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Steve,I think you make a valid point about independent learning. While I did have some great teachers, I was frequently annoyed by some teachers insistence on assigning a vast array of meaningless worksheet assignments. This was especially true with language learning where I would get assigned worksheets that consistently required conjugation of verbs and grammar exercises. The problem being these assignments were far too easy and far too boring to hold much interest. Also, student had no trouble copying each other or working together to get finished in minutes. For example, if you have 20 problems, I would get 3 friends and we would split up the problems. Those 20 problems would take 5 some minutes and we’d all share answers. Basically no learning was occurring aside from rote application of grammatical rules and I had such a awful rudimentary learning of foreign language.Still today, by and far my most sophisticated school-based skill is reading comprehension, which has nothing to do with my school teachers and has everything to do with all the independent reading I’ve always done. Looking back, I wish I would have taken the bare minimum of classes during high school and instead tried to take community college classes or get some sort of private teacher/tutor.
I always wondered why teachers didnt get paid more than what they really do. when I think about it some teachers are that good. I agree with this. They should get a higher pay, but only if they are great ones.