GRAD School is for FLUNKY Teachers...

Said the teacher without an advanced degree. Or maybe I'm just jealous. Let's see.

 As is customary at the first staff meeting of the school year, each teacher is asked to introduce themselves. We are told to say our first and last name, and how many years of teaching experience we have, along with any educational background we wanted to share.

I did my regular intro. "Hi, My name is Courtney Baskill, This is my nth year of teaching, and my 6th year at this school.  I teach content area and I am also the department head."  The young lady next to me, was new, so I looked forward to hearing a little about her."Hi my name is Sophie More."  I have a B.A from GSU, I graduayed last year with a Master's in School Policy and Reform from Nova, and I am only one semester away from finishing my Specialist degree in Special Ed at GSU.  Everyone nodded their heads in in approval at her strong academic background. Immediately, you could see the department heads, and other teacher leaders scrolling through their mental  list of committees and special projects to ask her to be a part of - you've gotta getthe new staffers on board early. I leaned over and asked, "How long have you been teaching?" She replied, "This will be my first year."  "Oh - really?" I said, trying not to look as surprised as I sounded.  I know I am no educational guru, but I actually thought that for a person to earn 2 advanced degrees in education, make more money than a experienced 10 year veteran teacher, and earn the title of Master Teacher, that one might actually...err have atleast been a teacher for any period of time.

So  the next day - I meet the teacher I am to team teach with the the rest of the year. A very nice sweet lady who had been teaching for as long as I had. I learned that she was in the midst of a working on her Ed.D at a local university. She had been teaching about 7 years. What surprised me most about this woman, is that in the five years she had been at this school, she

had constantly been moved from department to department, from one grade level to the next because of poor teaching and classroom management. Everyyear she had a major disruption of some kind, her students were always running amuck or talking back, and after observing her teach for 5-10 minutes, one would get the impression that she was brand new to teaching. For all her degrees, and research the bottom line, was thats he could not teach. But she obviously didn't let such little details thwart her pursuit of higher education and higher teacher salary. I guess I would have to get my own advanced degree to see this benefit in a different light.

Finally, this summer, I met a really smart, passionate (almost militant) educator. he was militant in the sense that he had very dogmatic opinion about the current educational ills, and a definitive plan on how to remedy it all. This guy, Dr. Noah Itall, was an assistant prinicpal at an Atlanta Public highschool. I asked him how long he'd been in education, and he told me 7 years. I though this was a short period of time for a soon to be principal, but then again - some people are just on the career fasttrack because they are truly gifted and talented teachers, reliable, and above all, they get results. "So how long were you teaching before y ou became AP?" I qeried. " He told me, "I've never taught in the classroom. I spent those seven years as a school psychologist and counselor." Truly, I was at a lost for words. To think that a man would principal a highschool in a major public school system without ever havingbeen a classroom teacher just sickened me (although, some would say it was the hater-aid I was sipping on).

I guess these three instances of very learned people with no, or low teaching experience or ability helped me realize that I had some lessons yet to learn. It showed me that experience isn't necesary to be a master at a profession. You simply needed a piece of paper called an advanced degree to be part of the  elite. And further more, who the heck needs to actually be a teacher at any point in  their career to qualify to hire, supervise, or evaluate teachers.  Yet , teachers like me, with a dozen years of experience, having been nominated and/or elected teacher of the year more than once, and consistently receiving the highest possible evaluation year to year will always be passed up for promotion. The reason is simple. Georgia schools value the quantity of grad school hours over the quality of  practical teaching experience. I guess I need to join the bandwagon and become a flunky too.