Preparing Teachers To Be The Best

Teaching is a very demanding profession. To be a highly effective teacher, one must possess the ability to control the class, present engaging lessons, appropriately challenge all students, provide support and scaffolding as appropriate, not to mention analyze data to inform instruction, provide information to IEP teams, serve on the school improvement team, and other duties as assigned. Wow! And how do we treat new teachers? They are assigned the most challenging and needy classes, teach a full load, and are the ones who do not have a classroom, but rather schlep materials from room to room on a cart.


For teachers to truly be “ready and willing” to do their very best, I offer the following ideas:

• Increase the rigor of teacher education programs with the things that matter—instructional strategies such as differentiation and making accommodations and modifications for special needs students. I have interviewed far too many candidates who barely know the basics on instructional strategies and have not had instruction in working with special education students. Today’s classrooms are more and more diverse. Teachers must be equipped with the skills needed to be effective with all populations.

• Change teacher education programs to a five year program and infuse the program with more hands-on experiences. My daughter has just been accepted to Duquesne’s pre-pharmacy program. It is a six year program. After two years of general education courses, she will begin participating in various rotations and experiential learning projects. She must accrue 1500 hours of experience before sitting for her boards. She will learn to be a pharmacist not only through ‘book learning’ but by being in the field, working side-by-side with pharmacists. Shouldn’t we want the same level of experiences and learning for our teacher candidates, preparing them for a myriad of situations and students they will encounter during a 35 year career?

• Finally, new teachers should participate in a three year induction program. This program should provide an instructional mentor and professional development opportunities embedded into their daily routines to move new teachers from surviving to thriving.

Most people enter the teaching profession because they are passionate about children and desire to help students succeed. And yet, education does not operate on a framework to help teachers succeed. For teachers to be ready and willing to do their best, we must set them up for success.