Leading American Educator on How to Provide Teacher Empowerment
Teacher Appreciation Week Should Be Teacher Trust Year
The following is an excerpt from Ester Wojcicki’s Teacher Empowerment post on Medium:
Teachers are striking across the country. Fifty percent of teachers leave the profession after just five years. Teacher absenteeism is a national problem. Teachers are mad, frustrated and fed up. Salary is a focal point but their ire is rooted in more than that.
Teachers are not in it for the money. They enter the profession to make a difference. When they are not empowered to make that difference, or trusted with the means to accomplish that goal, that’s when frustration and disillusionment sets in.
Empowerment, I purport, is where the money is. Folks on top, with keys to the purse strings, are making a variety of decisions, and teachers are tasked to execute. As a result, teachers are pulled in many different directions at decision makers’ whim.
Teachers need access to purse strings themselves. With purse strings comes true empowerment. Teachers are on the front lines, in the trenches, solving student needs on a day-to-day basis. They need to be trusted to act quickly, nimbly and creatively, characteristics that school district culture does not cultivate. This may sound like an ad, but what I am going to suggest is a solution to a problem all teachers face — -spending their own money on classroom supplies.
Read the rest over on Medium.