Recent political banter has painted this term with many negative connotations. It is ironic that by the true definition, this word describes the daily work of a teacher, whether describing our daily work with students or ongoing self-reflection of practice. Our profession is one that has always looked for new ways to improve the student learning environment and the art of teaching.
The Elgin Teachers Association has not waited for outside pressure to look for ways to improve the educational environment. The ETA’s participation with reform organizations such as the Teacher Union Reform Network, programs offered by the Consortium for Educational Change, and the NEA Foundation all support our desire to move our members to a deeper professional level. Our members individually have personally pursued numerous professional development paths, always looking to improve practice through proven methods.
We have worked collaboratively to bring forward an award winning mentor program and a teacher appraisal that others look to as a model of how to reform their plan. We supported the Continuous Learning Calendar that unfortunately was part of a major budget cut. For years we have had a process so that teachers at a site could request to be exempt from contract language if they wanted to make significant changes to improve learning. To address increasing crisis situations in our classrooms, we crafted the Para-Interventionist Teacher program to add emergency assistance to keep all students and staff safe and learning. We believe change can lead to success when the practitioner is part of the collaborative planning.
However, we will always question change without purpose and thoughtful planning. There are endless studies and many private businesses that would seem to promise a silver bullet for meeting all student needs. There are numerous examples of how limited resources have been directed to canned programs that cannot be sustained, or that in their pre-packaged form, do not address our needs. External studies may point the way, but they have to fit our unique needs. We believe while we can learn from those outside experts, we first need to know what our needs are, and then craft solutions that fit identified concerns.
The research does support the need to deeply consider a fundamental change to the structure of our student’s learning day and the need for collaborative professional behavior. During the 2007 bargaining, we agreed that we needed to better understand the changes of curriculum and student learning to begin to know how to fundamentally make the best use of one of our most important resources, time. We crafted language that would have created a time audit, to really understand how we were using our time and how to improve. The audit did not occur. The ever growing professional responsibilities beyond the school day are still not quantified for our teachers. The current research also shows that a collaborative culture supports teacher effectiveness. A researched based culture survey that could help access our site cultures was agreed to in bargaining. However, the plan to implement was rejected by administration and no such survey was ever done. We continue to believe that reliable data can be collected and used to make the best decisions to improve practice.
The members of the ETA will continue to advocate for the best learning environment possible within the limited resources of our District. We will continue to actively pursue collaborative partnerships to enhance the good work our teachers and students are doing now. We believe we can be more effective by using the expertise of the practitioners in the classroom. We will never be satisfied with the status quo and are committed to the improvement of student learning for all students.