Is Being Nice A Requirement To Be A Good Teacher?

In an article in today's New York Times, Deborah Kenny writes

AS the founder of a charter school network in Harlem, I’ve seen firsthand the nuances inherent in teacher evaluation. A few years ago, for instance, we decided not to renew the contract of one of our teachers despite the fact that his students performed exceptionally well on the state exam.

We kept hearing directly from students and parents that he was mean and derided the children who needed the most help. The teacher also regularly complained about problems during faculty meetings without offering solutions. Three of our strongest teachers confided to the principal that they were reluctantly considering leaving because his negativity was making everyone miserable.

As a person of the curmudgeonly persuasion, I'm a little distressed by this paragraph. What I'm taking away from the parapgraph is that the teacher was fired because he wasn't nice. That his students performed well seems to be inarguable. But he was fired for reasons that had nothing to do with his teaching excellence and all about his demeanor.

So he "derided the students that needed the most help." Have we still not put the abomination of "self esteem über alles" out of its misery? Maybe those special flowers that needed the most help also needed a little derision. Teaching isn't about always making you  feel good.

As for the faculty members complaining about his negativity, "Suck it up, Buttercups." That sounds like staff room backstabbing to me. I really dislike the faux constructive attitude some people have that you're only allowed to complain about a probllem if you have a solution. Is it a problem, or isn't it? If you want to sweep his complaints under the rug only because he doesn't have a solution,. what you often mean is that you'd prefer to ignore a problem because it's hard to solve.

Teaching isn't a popularity contest, either for the students or the teachers. Ms. Kenny's school fires a teacher not because he was incompetent, but because he didn't know how to play the popularity game. He was a grump, a curmuedgeon, a son-of-a-bitch. Well, a lot of great things in history have been done by people who were real sons-of-bitches.

Ms. Kenny goes on to explain that the firing of this teacher is why she opposes government-mandated teacher evaluations. "If our schools had been required to use a state-run teacher evaluation system, the teacher we let go would have been rated at the top of the scale." Yes, that's because the state-run evaluation system would have been objective and performance based, instead of basing his employment on whether the teacher was able to assuage the delicate psyches of some liberal buttercup teachers and some whiny students who didn't like being told they sucked.

Ironically, though, I am opposed to state or federally-mandated teacher evaluations on principle. At the federal level, the government simply has no grant of power to become involved in education. If you don't like it, push for an amendment, but that's the way it is.

Farther down at the state level, I think local control of education is the most fair and beneficial for all involved. Local school districts are best suited to work directly with parents and students to meet the educational needs of the students. If you could remove unions from the picture and local boards of education were free to fire teachers at will, and judge performance however they chose -- from Ms. Kenny's more subjective standard or an objective performance-based standard -- then that maximizes the choice and freedom of all involved. Ms. Kenny's charter school network has a right to be a feel-good liberal enclave that values feelings and group tranquility over performance. And parents have the right to either not send their kids there or to voice their dissatisfaction and work for change.

Once you move control of the system up to the state and federal levels, you remove much of the ability for individual parents to effect change in their local school systems. At that point, getting anything done requires lobbyists and activists groups, not 20 upset parents at a school board meeting. Removing that immediacy of control is a bad thing.

At the local level, schools should be permitted to kick out the unions and run union-free. I've worked in at-will employment all my working life, more than 30 years, from my first teenage
 part-time jobs to the present. I've never had a union to "protect" me. My employes have always been free to fire me anytime they want. And I don't have a problem with that. If I was being subjected to harsh, unfair conditions, yeah, I'd consider a union to protect me, or maybe I'd just quit and look for a better job. But I don't live in a Dickens novel, and neither do teachers in the U.S. They're professionals, just like me, and they can seek employment on the same footing as me. The companies I've worked for have always treated and compensated me at least adequately for the work I do, and I've always been free to leave if I didn't like the situation. Teachers are no different.

There's no reason to have our schools held hostage to teachers unions that promote the interests of the teachers over the interests of our children.

Of course, my ultimate advice is to opt out of the current system: home school or private school. We have been home schooling my children for more than 20 years now -- two are out in good careers, one is in college, two are still being home schooled. I recommend it heartily. It's not easy, by any means, but I'm very proud of how they're turning out.

One of the things I like most about it is that the buck stops here. There's absolutely no one to blame for my children's educational failings but myself. That's quite a responsibility, but it's no more responsibility than any parent should be willing to take on for their child.