Advice on Growing as a Professional

PsyGuy
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Post by PsyGuy »

@Walter

The only splashing or rowing is in your mind.

@santacruzin1

All the leadership would have you believe you have to martyr yourself on the sword of doing it for the students, they have been peddling that con for decades. This is a job, it isnt a mission, in no other profession would an employer give you poo and expect you to make it into fudge. No restaurant would give a chef crude for ingredients and expect a Michelin 3 star meal, nor would any other profession. It is not your duty or obligation to make up for the deficiencies of the IS, and to be blunt its the ISs obligation to provide the quality of the education the parents bought, its not you the ITs.
There is this nonsense pseudo Zen idea that you must suffer to be a good and successful teacher, its bunk.
If you always want to be groveling at the feet of loser leadership who hold a reference above your head like a knife to your throat and demand some magic as they hand you straw and expect you to turn it into gold, than by all means listen to @Walter and @Sid.

@Thames Pirate

None of that mitigates that your still being treated like poo from crummy leadership.

Would agree there is a difference between MUN and debate club, but unless thats an ISs focus its not going to compensate for anything else. Its just better sprinkles.

@thebeard

PD isnt going to get you a better appointment. PD is like sprinkles ona cupcake, its a great bonus, but you have to have the cup cake and the frosting. No conference, or seminar or workshop is going to make a resume. Even the activities that add value to a resume like IB or AP training or Technology are not going to compensate for a lack of performance and experience you can transition. The LW is in a unique position at this early state to cut their losses and try again.

Classes are junk, every IT/DT knows by the end of their first year of teaching what they learned in the classroom breaks down in the classroom.

I doubt they have an instructional coordinator. it would be better asking someone in the department to do an observation, but im imagining the entire IS faculty is either ITs who are of the same caliber or ITs who gave up a long time ago. Youd be better approaching a higher tier IS and asking the leadership if you can do some observations. Then you might find something adaptable, and can network, but unless that leadership offers you a job, its not going to mitigate anything you personally can do.

The professional resume writer is truly BAD advice. Most agencies dont know how to write for IE, as the vast majority of DE has gone to applications. That and few leadership know a good resume anyway. The only think that matters is 1) What you can teach and 2) What you have taught. 3) Skills; Meaning, Qualifications, Credentials Experience and special Skills. So much of the professional editing and writing services are focused on corporate industry.

Im not advocating being a bad teacher. Its one thing to be handed something of whatever quality and make it worse, but nor should you be expected to or try to do miracles.

I typically advocate for portfolios. One thing to do is to create lessons with video recordable products, think of your students more like cast members who are going to showcase a few snapshots of what you can do.
Thames Pirate
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Re: Advice on Growing as a Professional

Post by Thames Pirate »

I always love the PsyGuy "I know you are, but what am I" responses.

You also missed my point. If you don't draw encouragement and inspiration from your students, whether running MUN or not, you are in the wrong profession. The admin on here are saying to focus on students, and I just added ways you can do that while still padding the resume. Holing up in the classroom, with or without clubs, doesn't make the admin suddenly rosy, and it isn't sustainable. However, in terms of growing as a professional, it is certainly a "keep your head down" way to keep your sanity and will help you in the long run. If focusing on students as growing young human beings is "falling on your sword," you are in the wrong profession. Sure, you might not be taking diamonds and making jewellery, but you might be turning coal into diamonds (as a teacher at one former school of mine put it). You aren't doing it for leadership--you are doing it for the kids, and while I am a firm believer in finding a balance, if you aren't in it to educate kids, you are in the wrong profession.

I think you also missed the point of the original question. The OP wasn't asking how to get a better job (which PD gets me into a higher tier), but how to grow as a professional--in other words, how to become a better teacher for kids. PD can help you keep abreast of changing research or new methodology if it's good PD. However, observations, reading, mentoring, and such can also do the same. But like anything, practice makes perfect, and you have a likely honest and responsive audience in your students. Focusing on them will help you grow as a professional. Knowing what worked for little Timmy will help you next year when Janey has the same struggles. So when admin say focus on the kids, this is both a way to keep your sanity and to grow as a professional. Nobody said anything about being a martyr. It's good advice, both in terms of growth and in terms of sanity.

I also disagree with the use of professional services, but I also disagree with your list of what matters. Sorry, but if it were just what one can teach, has taught, or skills, education would look very different. It's about so much more. Schools look for quality, and there are a lot of bad teachers with IB experience and good teachers without it. Most good schools would rather have the latter. Personality also matters--someone who is perpetually negative is not someone they want. Aggressive or very insecure personalities might not fit in a school or in a local culture. Having taught something once does not make one an expert. I think we underestimate the value of a professional presentation and quality references. A strong cover letter paired with a decent resume will probably get further than a haphazard application with all the check boxes. This strong application process is highly individualised, both to me and to the school to which I am applying--one of many reasons I don't like professional services.

Also, I have never once been asked for a portfolio.
PsyGuy
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Post by PsyGuy »

@Thames Pirate

As much as I love getting to mock the "confidence compensates for competence" bunk you peddle, which is all your advocating again.

I didnt miss your point, I dont agree with it. You dont have to like your job or anything about it to do well, and thats what it is a job, you dont have to be inspired, or have Disney moments to teach and be good about it. Its a skill that you hone overy time with application. You can hate painting and be a great painter, you can hate tennis and still be a professional player. I know personally lots of people in customer service who hate customers and people in general, think every customer is stupid and they give great service. The same is true for teaching, you can hate children and be a great teacher. There is no requirement to "draw encouragement and inspiration from your students" to be successful at teaching, you just have to be good at transferring knowledge.
Why should anyone care what the admin on this forum preach, their admin, its not like they know anything. Those that cant do teach, and those that cant teach administrate. You can pack all the leadership of an IS on a bus and drive it off a cliff and no one will even notice for weeks, and as soon as the faculty figure out how to get paid, then no one will even miss them. Who cares of leadership is "rosy" its not any ITs job to make them happy. Where have you been? Its absolutely sustainable, there are many ITs who have made their entire career at getting by, and doing the minimum.
I understand if you have a martyr complex, thats your choice, I learned a long time ago you have to watch out for yourself because no one else in education will, they could not care less about faculty as long as they are in their room.

The point isnt about becoming a better IT for kids, its becoming a better IT for you. The goal of every IT is to figure out how to make the students do more, and the IT do less.

Changing research, like what? 96% of all education research is just recycling old research, the last real innovation in education was the neuro-learning model. No one ever pays attention to most of that, they dont fix what isnt broken. You might have an IT pick up a few antecedents like jewelry, coal and diamonds stuff, but the vast majority of PD is garbage.

Not the first time we disagree, but your whole person feelings bunk is just that bunk. You dont hand out resumes with smileys on them, and poetry. You list experience, education, skills. You dont go to a fair and get asked by the line screener if youre a happy person or whatever such nonsense, youre asked if you have X years of IB experience, "no", sorry wont be getting to your love working with children pitch.
Those three things are exactly what matter.

Most good ISs would like to have everything, but they will take competence character any day.
You over estimate the value of presentation and references.
Cover Letters dont get read until the interview list, and no one really cares they are all self congratulatory "Im awesome" puff pieces.
Having the check marks (substance) matters way more than style. Everyone can fake being whatever they need to be for 30 minutes to an hour long interview.

You havent been but others have and what do you do when your asked for a portfolio and you dont have one. Oh wait you believe confidence compensates for preparation.
Thames Pirate
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Re: Advice on Growing as a Professional

Post by Thames Pirate »

The OP asked how to be a better teacher. You don't become truly good at anything, whether it's teaching or tennis, without enough passion to put energy into it. And the OP is clearly passionate about it, something to which you cannot relate. The advice I gave was for the OP, not for you. I wish the field were competitive enough to keep people like you out of it. Don't get me wrong. I am not a martyr. I refuse to do a job for which I am not adequately compensated or which is unreasonable in its expectations. However, when I worked for crummy admin, I was happiest when I spent as little time outside of my physical classroom as possible and just focused on the kids. I did zero extracurriculars that year, and I worked hard to do as little work as possible outside the school day, but I had a lot of fun designing more thoughtful and insightful lessons--and ones that, incidentally, required less marking or setup time--and experimenting with my practice within the actual classroom. Yes, that means making students do more and the teacher doing less--by focusing on their learning. It isn't the either-or you describe.

While you believe a school can function without administration, the difference between a good school and a bad one generally comes down to leadership/admin. There are good and bad administrators just as there are good and bad teachers. If you ever get to work for good admin, you will notice the difference immediately. I never understood how important vision is until I got to experience a school with good leadership. It really does matter.

You also missed my point about the application process. I said make it individualised and let your personality show, not put smileys on your resume. But I won't waste my time belabouring the point. My guess is the OP understands it. Furthermore, checkboxes in no way indicate competence. Sure, if a job is highly competitive they can use some checkboxes to shorten the list, but there are ways to customise even a listing of experience to tailor it to a specific job. Additionally, you can often work around the lack of check boxes--not always, but more often than you think. Then again, those of us who have done so are also the ones who advocate focusing on the kids and caring about practice. Funny how the two go hand in hand.

There is a lot of research in education. I don't understand how anyone could not realise that.

I also find it amusing that you continue to attribute this confidence over competence mindset to me when I have always said that competence (in the form of caring about students, for example) doesn't need the embellishment of a gimmick. Honestly, I can talk about specific lessons or examples of student work for just about any question an administrator could ask--and that I can do so without any props speaks just as highly as any photos of student work.
thebeard
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Re: Advice on Growing as a Professional

Post by thebeard »

@ psyguy

I guess I got sidetracked so lets go back to becoming a better teacher:
Actually the classes from Learners Edge were good. I learned a lot and the professors sole focus was to tailor the assignments so you were being self reflective and applying what you learned to your classroom and/or your practice. That is why I took the classes and why they were valuable. That is why they were recommended at my school which is a decent not great american school. As teachers we've all been to pd sessions that were bad or taken classes that were useless. However, if you take the attitude that classes and/or pd are junk and useless I don't see how you can grow and/or improve as an educator with that attitude

As far as the next job:
I was applying to jobs and getting no replies. I did research and hired a resume writer who focused on teaching not corporate resumes. I got replies and I got interviews. The sole purpose of the resume is to get interviews. Mission accomplished. It might still be horrible advice to hire one but thankfully it worked for me.

@ Thames Pirate: I get why you should have a portfolio but no one has ever asked me for one either.
Walter
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Re: Advice on Growing as a Professional

Post by Walter »

@psyguy “Why should anyone care what the admin on this forum preach, their admin, its not like they know anything. Those that cant do teach, and those that cant teach administrate. You can pack all the leadership of an IS on a bus and drive it off a cliff and no one will even notice for weeks, and as soon as the faculty figure out how to get paid, then no one will even miss them.”
Dave, if you didn’t exist we’d have to invent you. How many more times shall we see this hoary old cliché about doing and teaching? And then you add the original and witty bit about administrating. Hahahaha. (The actual line is from a play by GBS “He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.” And GBS was a sparkling illustration of how people can be clever but not wise.)
I appreciate that you feel unloved and unwanted because you never made it up the ranks to become an administrator yourself, and that this site is like “Second Life” for you where you can reinvent yourself with stories about teaching in Cape Town, which you never have, or working at DODEA, which you never have, or having a doctorate, which you don’t possess, but you’re of an age now where you need to grow up and confront the world as an adult.
In one thing though, you’re right. Teaching can be a job or a career. For you, it’s a job. Or rather, a string of jobs at a series of bottom-feeder schools, where you stay for a few months or even a year until you get found out and then move on or, more likely, get moved on. You follow your own advice by stitching together a plausible but wholly imaginary resume and trust that there will be schools gullible enough to believe what you’ve written. Hence, all your talk about “ghosting” and “padding” and “inventing references”, which really amounts to lying, deceiving and falsifying.
If that’s the life you want, it can work. About 18 months ago, I posted a warning about doing this kind of stuff. The head of a school on an island in East Asia sent round a warning about a teacher he’d hired – a last minute fill in for an unexpected vacancy. He appointed someone from the States, through Skype, who seemed to have all the right attributes – at least on paper. He tried to contact the referees but it was the end of July and the phones just rang and rang.
As soon as the head met the teacher off the plane, he knew he’d made a mistake. The vibe that came off was just wrong. To cut a long story short, he ended up firing the guy within three months – he didn’t show up to work, didn’t provide sick notes, didn’t stay in to see a doctor the school sent to his apartment (because he was out playing cards, though he’d been too sick to go to work), when he did go to school he was abusive to colleagues, and he didn’t/couldn’t teach the curriculum.
When he’d finally gone, other teachers did some research on the guy. Many of the claims on his resume were fabrications: the advanced degree, the certifications, the experience – and it didn’t mention that he had a long running legal dispute with South San Antonio school district where he’d taken a job, just not shown up for work (ever) and was claiming leave pay. As for the referees, one of the organizations simply didn’t exist, one of the referees refused to speak and the other said that although this guy had worked there, they had parted on bad terms and she certainly could not make a recommendation.
You’d have thought that after the head sent around this information on the usual list serves – complete with the name and social security number of the teacher – this guy would never get a job again, but he surfaced a few months later on an archipelago in East Asia. Presumably with a different resume and referees.
All of which goes to show that Dave is right. If you treat international education as a great place to scam a living, don't care a hoot about the children you're harming and rely on the fact that bottom-feeder schools will have bottom-feeder administrators who only care about having warm bodies in situ, then you can find jobs. My presumption was that the OP wanted a career. If that is true, then my advice still holds. Don’t listen to losers.
sid
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Re: Advice on Growing as a Professional

Post by sid »

So much has been said.
I'm sure my opinion can be guessed.
I find my life is happier when I bow out of these ridiculous fights (one can't even reasonably consider them arguments).
No one is changing any minds here, at least not anymore. Good information has been shared, reasonable adults can figure out what to do with it.
Sid out.
PsyGuy
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Post by PsyGuy »

@Thames Pirate

More confidence is everything rhetoric. You dont need passion to be good at what you do and that includes teaching. I work with ITs everyday who have long given up on anything resembling passion, and yet they are still very good at teaching.

Youre mistaken, Im very passionate about my job, and I know that passion isnt a requisite trait for success.
This isnt your post its the forums. I dont need your permission to post a comment on you post.
I dont waste wishes on things that arent going to come true.
You might have been happiest but thats you and your central nervous system, and you still werent happy, you were just minimizing the frustrations.

That might be true, but good leadership is leadership thats out of sight and out of mind as much as possible, in essence good leadership is absent leadership.
No such thing as "good leadership" just relative degrees of bad.

Didnt miss it, I disagree with you. Individualization doesn't matter, generic resumes get hired as much as intricately crafted resumes. No one has time for appreciation of a good resume (well maybe @sid) its experience, credentials and skills,a nd you get maybe 30 seconds to convey those aspects.
Check boxes in EVERYWAY indicate competence, far more so than your Disney Confidence is going to compensate for a lack of competence.
Its only funny if you add the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.

Theres a lot of recycled research. There is very little innovation thats actionable.

I attribute it to you, because its your position, your prior claims that you just go out and make them hire you, and all the related confidence is everything bunk.

@thebeard

Im sure you believe they were good for you. Thats not the same as actually having value. What I see in classes, seminars, workshops is that;
If you have 20 attendees a good presenter will at best impart too 4 of them in a meaningful professional way, those 4 will get something minor out of it they can take to their classroom, they like it, they have the materials and resources, and it fits into their meds/peds.
13 of them will get nothing out of it, for a variety of reasons, even good PD isnt always new or novel, or anything significant. They will sit there, never aska question, never answer one, will go through the motions of what they are directed to do and then will take their certificate when its done.
1 of them will disagree or find whatever the information is as bunk, some type of pseudo scholarly premise for doing something the presenter thinks is awesome and they have to share it. They will sit in the back of the room though and keep their mouth shut.
1 of them will be an agitator, they will ask questions without real answers, and argue with the presenter, etc.
1 of them will be convert, will love it and begin figuring out how they can get it to work.

Well you grow as an IT by innovation, creativity, and finding answers though yourself for your problems. Not buying or copying something someone else figured out or worked for them. I remember all the excitement about Harry Wong, and the ISs that spent large amount of coin on redesigning their curriculum, some it worked great, some was a lesson on what worked and what didnt, some failed miserably. That research was nothing new.

Thats called a causality fallacy, the chief beats the drum and it rains and thus the drum most have caused the rain.

@Walter

Recycled fear mongering.
Youve been pretending you know something you dont. I understand why no one will take you seriously if you cant claim to know who you claim you know.
Thames Pirate
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Re: Advice on Growing as a Professional

Post by Thames Pirate »

OP, I think you got what you needed and figured out which advice to take and which to ignore. Additional replies now would be talking in circles as I have clarified all I need to. Good luck! I am sure you will find something great and make the most of what you have until you do.
PsyGuy
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Post by PsyGuy »

@santacruzin1

Something @Thames Pirate and I can agree on, as we will go at this forever. You know your not growing where you are because of the IS you are at, nothings going to fix that. Look around see what opportunities are available, if any and then visit up again when you have some options that require a decision. All of this becomes moot at a better IS that actually cares.
santacruzin1
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Re: Advice on Growing as a Professional

Post by santacruzin1 »

Yeah, that's basically what I thought myself. Trying to stay as positive as I can given the situation. Thanks again to those of you who offered suggestions on how to be a better teacher - I've already got an ASCD subscription and am reading articles in my spare time, and also trying to reflect on my own practice more. Focusing on my own classes & improving those as best I can, all the while keeping my eyes open for opportunities to move up to a better school, is probably the best possible course of action.
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