By Phyllis C. Murray

“Teaching is a difficult, demanding craft. Under optimum conditions of meaningful teacher education, good mentoring, strong supervisory supports, appropriate professional development and a safe, orderly school, it takes a minimum of three years to master the fundamental skills of teaching.”Leo Casey UFT

Leo Casey is right. However, after three years, many of our gifted teachers leave with their master degrees and the incalculable skills and abilities which they have honed while working in our Hunts Point school. They leave and… off they go into the wide horizon. Several of the teachers have become assistant principals, law students, or teach in charter schools or the suburban schools of Westchester County. And we wish them well. And we cheer them on because others will benefit from their skills and abilities and talents. All is not lost.

However, there are still gifted teachers who remain in our inner city school. These teachers know that they are working under less than optimum conditions than their former colleagues. Yet, they have chosen to remain. And even under the harshest conditions, while fighting to enforce the UFT contract, they take pride in the fact that they can make a difference in the lives of their students as they move many of the students from Point A to Point B. Thus, many of our former students, like our former colleagues, are on a new and different path to success.

Moving students forward, takes an inordinate amount of energy. And at times, it becomes a constant struggle or hassle in a school complete with over-sized classes, loss prep periods, meager resources, and day-to-day imposed drama and trauma. These teachers know the challenge of being a teacher means:

1. They must use their personal resources to invest in the lives of the students they serve.
2. They must also work to enforce the UFT Contract by any means necessary.
3. They must become New Yorkers: Resilient. Resourceful.
4. They must press on! Adalante!

Phyllis C. Murray

Madeline Hunter, in her voluminous compilation of educational research, did state that the single greatest factor in classroom success was the knowledge of the teacher of the subject matter to be taught.
If that is the yardstick then many of us have been transformed into poorer teachers because the DoE has changed what we have been asked to teach.

My education, my prior experiences have not prepared me for the classroom methodology called America’s Choice. It is like being asked to learn to bat and throw with your left hand after years of being a righty. If mandated methodologies like AC which the Union supported, are the future, then the current crop of experienced teachers are not better teachers because of their experience. And if the powers that be frequently adjust those methodologies or contract with different providers, no one’s experience will count for much

Are there teachers in the UFT that support the opportunity to be paid significantly more based on some sort of judgment of performance? What percentage of the UFT membership would you guess has this viewpoint?

Ken