The system used to train teachers hasn't changed much over the past twenty years (maybe even longer, but I feel confident about twenty years). But first, let’s look at teachers.

Teachers are some of greatest people on the planet. Many of the teachers I know love people. Teachers have qualities that other people don't have - fulfillment from seeing others succeed despite serious threats to your own manifestation of patience. To teach is to sacrifice.

But what enables teachers is also disabling. Being people persons hampers their ability to take hard looks at the system, themselves, and each other. The result is a routine of getting though each day much like you did the year before. This serves a great majority of students.

Unfortunately, US culture tends to change at a faster pace. So as teachers learned a style during their instructive days, the style they learned probably isn’t as effective as it once was. I’m not trying to imply that there isn’t training for teachers to improve that situation, but training isn’t going to dent an approach that was reinforced by years of success.

So what you hear now is blame; mainly on parents. And there is truth to that. But teaching has never been a job of ideal circumstances. Potential teachers know that going in. I know there are many teachers that roll up their sleeves and embrace the challenge. For instance, there is a group in the San Francisco area called Reach. They use a team based system to improve teacher performance and ultimately devotion to the job Reach. What I find great about this is that the team based approach consistently prods improvement and idea sharing. Innovative methods can spread much faster this way. Also, failures can be learned from by many more people. Another byproduct of the team approach is the limiting harm of loneness. And I mean this twofold: 1) There are X amount of other people who are going through the same thing you are at the exact same time. 2) Having uniform tests as a measure of success can undermine what the teacher tries to achieve day in and day out from a learning perspective. The only people who understand walking that line between a new teaching method and teaching to the test are other teachers.

I’m an advocate for trying new ideas. The kids are and they are changing because of it. The teachers should have that opportunity too.  So take risks and hopefully, you have a team to help you through them.