The Faculty

Let’s Hear It for the Lefties - or - Living Left in a Rightie World

New thoughts since the first posting: If you have also read The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman, you might be interested in his magazine interview with Daniel Pink in the American Association of School Administrator’s February 2008 issue.

I get tickled when people notice that I’m left-handed - I’m fond of remarking, “yes, we lefties are the only ones in our right mind!” Now it seems that our time has come… if indeed you believe that being left-handed  means you are  right-brained.

In his 2005 book, A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age, author Daniel Pink has given us some news, both bad and good.

The bad news is that people (like my engineer hubby) who earn their living using linear, logical, analytical skills may soon find that demand for their skill sets has waned. In the place of left-brained thinking has risen the need for a set of traits that have historically been  discounted in education and industry. These skills include creativity, empathy, inutition, and the ability to find  relationships among seemingly unrelated objects and events; or as I like to call it: putting the puzzle together without the benefit of the picture on the box.

According to Mr. Pink, a new era is beginning to take shape Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: economy, global economy, globalization, left-brained, Pink, right-brained, Shari Pobjecky, Stager, Toffler, workforce

Posted in The Economy and Education | 2 Comments »

Teaching and Selling - Could you make the switch?

 Ten years ago, I left the classroom to become a salesperson.  I discovered that the two professions are not as different as you might imagine, with the caveat that not everyone who is a good teacher can be successful in sales.

As a teacher, you must interact with different kinds of people (students, parents, administrators and fellow instructors) with varying personality and learning styles, and you probably would say that you’ve developed the skill set of an effective communicator. You must have the competency that the education schools call “withitness,” or the ability to keep lots of plates spinning at the same time. The classroom teacher must be able to find innovative and novel ways to present, or “sell” information to often times unwilling and uncooperative students. These are all the foundational skills of effective salesmanship.

Teachers must be self-renewing, constantly learning and self motivated in what is arguably the most difficult profession in the world.  And despite the rewards (and there are plenty),  teaching in the schools is difficult and teachers are very underpaid, so…you might be thinking you’d like to move to sales. 

After all, you’ve seen those textbook and software salespeople at your school, and at the summer conferences. They are nicely dressed and look tan and relaxed. They have good hair cuts and nice shoes - they lunch with their colleagues over white wine and salad nicoise while you maybe get 20 minutes at your desk hunched over mystery meat and tater tots.

When I made the transition to sales, I doubled my salary in one move - then doubled it again each year for the next three years. I was finally able to say I was making the money that I thought my education, experience and expertise entitled me to.  Then - I made a startling discovery.

If you’d like to hear more about my path, what I learned and how it might help you, please comment.

Join the conversation, won’t you?

Tags: career, education sales, learning, sales

Posted in Career Trends, Selling and the Education Market | 1 Comment »

Why Do Hard Things?

This is a different kind of book -  a non-fiction piece that encourages teens not to treat adolescence as a vacation from responsibility but to rebel against the low expectations set upon them by society.

Do Hard Things was written by 19-year old twins Alex and Brett Harris, and is Amazon.com’s top-selling youth ministry title.

Say the authors, ” Most people don’t expect you to understand what we’re going to tell you in this book. And even if you understand, they don’t expect you to care. And even if you care, they don’t expect you to do anything about it. And even if you do something about it, they don’t expect it to last.”

See the Wall Street Journal Review here and visit the authors’ website.

If anyone wants to get together an online book talk, give the faculty lounge a shout.

Tags: book talk, learning, philosophy of education, teen rebellion, worldview

Posted in Must Reads | No Comments »

HELP WANTED: Two million teachers

Due to the fact that lots of these ole’ gals are going to be retiring - in addition to a large upcoming student population, the United States is faced with attracting around two million-plus teachers in the next ten years. 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that between the years 2006 - 2016,  the national numbers of preschool teachers who will be needed will go up 21%, elementary school teachers will go up 14-20%, secondary school teachers up only 3-6%, but the need for all categories of postsecondary teacher will increase at least 21%!

In Florida, where I live, the numbers are even more astounding. Even though we are struggling through economic downturn, and the population is dropping somewhat, the state public school system still had a shortage of about 16,000 teachers for the 2007-2008 school year.

Why is it so difficult to recruit good teachers? And why is it that this sour puss stayed twenty-five years and is retiring with a pension and the hides of 4,568 sith graders tacked to her bulletin board - but today ’s average new teacher “burns out” within the first three years? Here’s a new website that tackles the issue and provides good resources from the teachers’ point of view.

It doesn’t really go to the heart of the issue, though.

Thoughts, anyone?

Tags: Career Trends, elementary teacher, teacher

Posted in Career Trends | 1 Comment »

What do you believe?

“There are neither ignoramuses nor perfect sages; there are only men who are attempting, together to learn more than they now know.”    - Paulo Freire

The starting point of any educational process lies with the philosophy held by the educator. Perhaps there is no more important aspect to the teacher-learner relationship, because the working philosophy of the teacher determines the purpose, and ultimately much of the success of the educational activity.

What is the aim of the instructional program?

What assumptions has the educator made about truth and what experiences are valuable?

What assumptions exist about the nature of the learner, and his will to learn?

Don’t you wish that education could begin with the end in mind – and that the end was something other than Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: learning, philosophy of education, teaching, university

Posted in Teacher Education | No Comments »