Preparing for
the Shortage: UNC-CH School of Education and the Predicted Teacher Shortage
Gripes from
friends about 8 a.m. classes do not produce much of a reaction from Jennifer
Stough.
In her second-to-last semester
in the School of Education, Stough is preparing for her spring semester of
student teaching like 53 other elementary education majors at UNC-CH. When
they graduate in May, many of them will enter a teaching field that desperately
needs energetic and motivated individuals as more baby boomer teachers retire,
leaving vacancies across North Carolina and the United States.
This semester has been a tough
one, Stough says, as she described her demanding schedule that includes traveling
between several area elementary schools to learn how to teach literature,
math, science and art and creating huge folders on each subject.
Jane Lawrence, one of Jennifer’s
classmates, said many of the students in the program are feeling burned out
after two years. And her friends who are not education majors aren’t always
the most encouraging, Lawrence said.
“A lot of my friends joke around
with me and ask, ‘What did you do today—play Red Rover or Duck, Duck, Goose?’”
she said. “They don’t realize how much work we have to do.”
Unlike some college graduates
who are looking forward to high-paying careers in computer technology or business
consulting, Lawrence says education majors know their incomes will not hit
the “oh wow”range.
“I want to make a difference
in a child’s life,” Stough said.
As much as they love children
and want to make a difference, Jane and Jennifer agreed that there is a possibility
that they will not teach next year, musing that they might take off a year
to travel or get a job or go onto graduate school for more advanced education
degrees.
Although senior education majors
may feel burned out when they graduate May, North Carolina needs their help
as the predicted teacher shortage approaches.
In March, the News & Observer
published estimates that North Carolina will have to hire 80,000 new teachers
by 2010.
The School of Education at
UNC-CH is one of the state’s 15 education schools developing programs to help
school systems recruit new graduates like Jane and Jennifer and retain their
teaching force.
One of the biggest changes
in the UNC-CH School of Education is its shift to a more hands-on approach
for teacher training, according to the school’s communications director, Linda
Baucom.
Charles Coble, vice president
for University-School Programs in the General Administration, said UNC-CH
received approximately $125,000 of those funds. A portion went directly to
creating a more clinically based education program.
Professors at the School said
they hope graduates will enter their first jobs adequately prepared to manage
their own classrooms and teach young North Carolinians.
*Help
in the first year*
Dr. Dwight Rogers, an associate
professor in the School of Education, says he remembers his trying first years
as an elementary school teacher.
“It’s the only profession that
I can think of where the initiates are expected to perform at the same level
of those who have been there 10-15 years,” he said.
For many new teachers, it is
like being a young doctor called into the ER to do a triple bypass operation,
Rogers explained. Comparing teaching and this situation, he described up an
extreme scenario with the doctor being told that a Boy Scout knife is the
only available medical instrument, the waiting area will have to serve as
the operating room and only ether is available as an anesthetic.
“New teachers frequently have
fewer materials, teach the most difficult children and are stuck in less-than
desirable classrooms,” Rogers said.
Add learning how to handle
school politics and students’ parents to that equation, Rogers said, and more
often than not, a beginning teacher will feel stressed and discouraged.
Rogers came up with a solution
to this problem while discussing teaching problems over dinner with friends
at the Armadillo Grill in Carrboro.
In 1995, Rogers formalized
that plan to bring together new teachers and a facilitator on a bi-weekly
basis. The group would share and work through their problems with teaching,
whether it was a disagreement with a teaching assistant or a principal’s criticism.
With grant money from the Z.
Smith Reynolds Foundation, Rogers set up “New Teacher Groups” in the Chatham,
Orange, Chapel Hill-Carrboro and Durham school systems.
Since the first group of five
elementary teachers in 1995, the groups have served over 100 new teachers,
Rogers said.
“It’s empowering for them to
realize they’re doing some good, and at the same time, recognize there are
some things that they’re doing that aren’t so good,” he said.
After working with the groups
for five years, Rogers has turned the program over to individual schools.
The “New Teacher Groups” have
expanded across North Carolina and the idea is catching on across the nation,
Rogers said, referring to a call he received from a school system in Michigan.
*
Moving with the technology*
Another program affiliated
with the UNC-CH School of Education is moving across the state; only this
one is using the World Wide Web as its main vehicle.
Bobby Hobgood, a teacher education
specialist with LEARN NC, said teachers in low performing schools particularly
could use help with planning lessons.
From the LEARN NC web site,
a seventh-grade history teacher can look up what material North Carolina requires
to be taught, and from there he can link to lesson plans submitted by other
teachers related to certain objectives.
LEARN NC staff train teachers
and administrators face-to-face how to navigate through the site.
Each new teacher in North Carolina
must create a portfolio of their work but the vague instructions explaining
how to document their experience, such as “creates relevance for students
by linking with the prior experiences,” often confuse the teachers. LEARN
NC turns those explanations into layman’s terms with a quick of the click
of a mouse —“When introducing a lesson, find out what they already know.”
Hobgood said there are plans
to include videos on the web site of master teachers working with students.
Explanations of the teacher’s methods would accompany the video, as would
links to resources for dealing with certain types of students.
Just as the football team studies
game clips or medical school students learn how to perfect operating techniques
by watching a video, teachers should be able see models of quality teaching,
Coble said.
As with everything, advancing
education is going to require extra money, he said.
Harvesting money from the money
tree is one area that the School of Education at UNC-CH cannot be of assistance.
*
“If you pay them…”*
Raising the salaries of North
Carolina’s public educators is one of the most common solutions offered about
retaining and recruiting teachers.
Referring to the pay of North
Carolina teachers as a “real shame,” Mary Glenn Benton, PTA president at Frank
Porter Graham Elementary, said teachers’ salaries must be raised if North
Carolina wants to hold onto the teachers they have and recruit new educators.
“If we don’t make serious changes
in pay, it’s going to hurt us in the long run,” she said.
Benton said she fears that
the state will have to lower its standards and hire individuals who are not
as qualified if improvements are not made.
A survey by the American Federation
of Teachers found that North Carolina has made significant improvements: The
state’s teachers had the highest salary increase in the United States in 1998-1999,
with the state’s average teacher salary rising 11.3 percent. Although the
typical North Carolina teacher does not earn the national average of $40,574,
she did see the average increase from $33,129 in 1997-98 to $36,883 in 1998-99.
*
“The pay is not everything”*
As Jennifer and Jane said, teachers teach because they love children, not because they expect to get rich.
Although they have both known since coming to college that they wanted to be teachers, other college graduates might have chosen a more lucrative job path upon graduation but found that they needed a more fulfilling job once they spent several years climbing the corporate ladder.
The NC TEACH program, which UNC-CH participates in, works to recruit and train a portion of those mid-career professionals as teachers, Charles Coble said.
Coble
said 120 people have quit their old jobs as lawyers, IBM executives, pharmacists
and science researchers and are trained by NC TEACH to enter the world of
schoolchildren, desks, bulletin boards and textbooks.
NC
TEACH (North Carolina Teachers of Excellence for All Children) trains these
lateral entry teachers in the basics of education during an intensive six-week
summer seminar and weekly meetings during the school year. Upon completing
the program and licensure requirements, NC TEACHers will have full licenses
to teach in North Carolina.
Coble
says he hopes the program will expand to over 300 participants every year.
*One convert’s story*
Although she is not a member
of the NC TEACH program, Natalie Johnson is one of the state’s lateral entry
teachers.
Johnson,
who graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1999 with a biology degree, now teaches
sixth-grade science at Brogden Middle School in Durham County.
She quit her position as a
research assistant at the Center for Outcomes Research because she was not
satisfied with her job.
“I told myself in college that
I would never settle for a job. I must continue my search for a job that makes
me excited everyday, challenges me, and mostly, I should be able to show and
feel the effort I put into my career will be appreciated and rewarding,” Johnson
said.
She found that teaching meets
those needs and desires for a career.
Johnson said every day she
learns something new and becomes more independent, thanks to the advice and
encouragement of other teachers at her school.
“I really feel like they have
a sincere interest in making this a successful transition and are willing
to help wherever and whenever possible,” she said.
Although Johnson said students
continue to test her consistency and her ability to be tough, she is learning
“the hardest part about teaching is not always the teaching.”
She listed a long list of non-instructing
duties, including “making sure the students are getting along with others,
learning the students’ backgrounds—family and academic and making sure they
eat the right foods in the cafeteria.”
“The wonderful thing about
teaching is that you truly get out of it what you put in it,” Johnson said.
“I have never been in such a rewarding experience as I feel I am now.”
Johnson plans to continue teaching
and get her certification and masters’ degree in the near future.
*Decisions,
decisions*
The days of feeling frustrated
with some professors’ lack of organization and the class assignments that
pile up will soon be over for Jane and Jennifer, and they will have to decide
which path to follow.
Will it be graduate school?
Will a few months traveling or taking a non-teaching job in new place entice
them? Or, as school system human resource directors such as Ernest Alton in
Chatham County hope, will they apply for teaching jobs in North Carolina?
Caught between the standard
comments of “That’s such a waste—you’re so bright and could do so much” and
“You’re going to make such a difference as a teacher,” the two soon-to-be
student teachers will have a lot of soul searching to do in the next few months.
In the meantime, the School
of Education, like others in the state and nation, will continue to look for
ways to ease the worries about the much feared phrase, “teacher shortage.”
Sources:
Jennifer Stough: senior, UNC-CH
School of Ed. phone number: 933-2924
Jane Lawrence: senior, UNC-CH
School of Ed. Phone number: 914-4708
Linda Baucom: UNC-CH School
of Education communications director.
Phone number: 962-8687
Charles Coble: V.P. UNC General
Administration. Phone number: 962-4596
Dwight Rogers: Associate professor,
UNC-CH School of Education.
Phone number: 962-5376
Bobby Hobgood: LEARN NC. Phone
number: 962-8944
Mary Glenn Benton: PTA president,
Frank Porter Graham Elementary.
Phone number: 932-9349
Natalie Johnson: teacher at
Brogden Middle School. Phone number: 932-1502
American Federation of Teachers
web site: www.aft.org
UNC-CH School of Education
web site: www.unc.edu/depts/ed
March 5, 2000 News & Observer
article: “Teacher shortage looms for N.C., U.S.”
By Jonathan Goldstein