Can We Demand Less of Teachers — And Actually Get Better Results?
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder discusses how the teaching job has become impossibly complex, and why simplifying expectations could actually improve outcomes.
Key Takeaways
- The job has become too complex - Increasingly demanding expectations have made teaching unsustainable without improving results
- Less can be more - Reducing the scope of what teachers are asked to do could lead to better execution of core responsibilities
- Focus on what matters most - Teaching and learning should be the priority, not an ever-expanding list of non-instructional duties
Transcript
As a society, how can we get the best from teachers?
There has for a long time been this idea that to get the most out of teachers, we have to demand the most from teachers.
We have to be demanding.
We have to make the job hard.
We have to get long hours out of teachers.
We have to get teachers to do a lot of paperwork and requirements and professional development and meetings and certification.
There are all these things that we demand as a society from teachers.
under the assumption that that will result in good output, good work, good impact on student learning.
And I wonder if it's time to question some of that, that the demands that we place on teachers may actually be counterproductive.
We may be reducing people's performance, making their jobs harder and making their impact lower.
by everything that we pile on.
So let me know what you think about this and let me know what specifically makes your job harder because I think one of the things that we're going to have to adjust as a society and as a profession is just the level of demand that we place on people.
If this job is so demanding, so hard, We're finally realizing now that people don't have to stay in this job forever.
They can find something else to do.
And often we will not get the best from people by demanding the most.
So let me know what you think about that, this idea that we might be able to help people do better by having them do less, that we can be less demanding and get better results.
Let me know what you think.