Without High Quality Teachers, We Have Nothing
How to Effectively Train the Best Quality Teachers in the World
We all have at least one favorite teacher we remember from when we were a student. This teacher not only helped us and guided us in class, but they boosted our self-confidence and made us believe that we could go out into the world and accomplish great things.
The truth is without high quality teachers — we have nothing.
But did you know that less than 1% of our certified teachers are considered high performing in our public school system?
When I found this out — I was not shocked. And here’s why?
Because when I became a school administrator in 2007 — I quickly realized that most teachers are just “trying to do their best” in class.
The problem is that we are blaming teachers for low student outcomes — when the teachers themselves are “trying their best.” And no one seems to jump to this conclusion.
Then maybe teacher’s best isn’t good enough?
Dumbing Teachers Down
If you’re the head of an evil plot to take down America, then the first place you want to hit is our public school system. But what’s the best way to ruin our kids education?
Dumb down teaching.
When I show parents what is happening inside our schools — they are shocked to say the least, but what I try to do is get them to not turn that anger toward the teachers.
The truth is — it’s not their fault.
This is an evil plot against America — and the teachers are also a victim in this evil plot. The teachers do not mean to ruin our kids lives — but the problem is our public education system is designed to destroy teachers who stand up or speak out.
Haven’t you seen that happen in your local community? The minute a teacher tries to raise a question or oppose an initiative — they are crushed, silenced or worse fired from their job.
Where did “Everyday Math” come from? The answer is China. Where did the curriculum about American History come from? The answer is Russia and Iran.
Where did our English curriculum come from? The answer is the Muslim revolution.
The Critical Thinking Skills Lie
Parents are being told that their kids are learning critical thinking skills in school — and every teacher promises that they are helping kids use higher order critical thinking skills as well.
But are they really?
If you look at the graphic that I made above, you will see all six levels of critical thinking skills that are supposed to be taught in our school system. But just so you don’t get confused — let me draw your attention to the very bottom of that graphic.
Remembering.
If you recall in Part One — I told you that there is an evil plot against our school system. And that evil plot wants to turn your children into foot soldiers for the Muslim revolution and become allies with Russia and China.
Now think about the Pro-Palestinian protests at every college in the US. What were the protestors doing?
Were they questioning the status quo? Were they proposing new ideas to make America better for their generation?
The answer is no. At every single rally and every single protest — the college students were showing off how well they could memorize chants and also rattle off the “talking points” they were taught by their teachers and professors.
And high school students are next.
One of the critical elements of higher order critical thinking skills is “analyzing and evaluating” the information you receive from someone.
Thus, if you want your kid to be the smartest one in the classroom, you need to make sure they are “analyzing and evaluating” every piece of information the teacher is handing them.
Where did this information come from? What is the purpose of learning it? And how does it help your child become successful later in life?
These are the “analyzing and evaluating” questions you want your child to ask their teacher and professor.
But here’s the problem.
Teachers and professors do not want your children to ask any questions, in fact, they are highly discouraging students from asking questions of any kind.
In other words — all of this information is supposed to be unquestionable.
For example, “The Jews stole the Palestinians land.”
You’re not allowed to question the validity of that claim. And if you do try and raise a question — the teachers and professors will call your child an “Islamaphobe.”
So let’s just do a lesson in higher order critical thinking skills together.
But where do we begin? How about we start with a historical timeline — since dates are important. When was the ancient Kingdom of Israel established — which made Israel the Jewish homeland?
The answer would be around 1,000 BC.
When did the first ancient Palestinian wander into Israel? The answer would be the 6th century.
If you just do the math — that means the first ancient Palestinians arrived in Israel 1,600 years after the Jews created their homeland. And if you believe in Indigenous Rights — that would mean the Jews were Indigenous to Israel — and not the Palestinians.
But the Palestinians know this is true — which is why they came up with a counter-claim. If the Jews were Indigenous — then how come they came from Britain and Europe?
This sounds logical — but only if you rewrite all of human history. That would mean you would have to erase the Roman Empire, the Persian Empire, the Ottoman Empire and the British Empire from history.
Are you prepared to eliminate all four empires from history?
The Romans conquered Israel right before the birth of Jesus and stole the land originally from the Jews. Then the Persians came in and stole the land from the Jews, before the Ottomans conquered Israel and stole the land for a third time.
And then lastly — the British Empire stole the land from the Jews after they defeated the Ottomans in 1917 at the end of WWI.
When you use your higher order critical thinking skills — that’s when you realize that the Jewish homeland has been stolen from them four separate times over the last 3000 years.
Talk about classic gaslighting.
The $100,000 Teacher Salary
If I were in complete control of America’s school system — I would be working to accomplish two goals. One is to provide all certified teachers with the highest quality professional coaching and feedback — so that we can have the highest performing teachers in every single classroom.
No child should be taught by a low performing teacher.
But that’s not what happens right now in our public schools. One of America’s leading data scientists — Dr. Robert Marzano, actually studied the long term effects of a low performing teacher on student achievement and the results are painful to repeat.
That’s because if a student spends one full year with a low performing teacher — it dramatically affects their long term academic success over the next three school years.
Yes, one bad teacher will ruin a student’s academic success for three years.
But I have highly developed critical thinking skills, so I asked the follow up question: Why is a student’s academic career ruined for three years?
And the answer is this. When a student has a bad teacher their academic growth is stunted. Let’s say there are 10 items a kid needs to learn in Year One, but they have a bad teacher and thus only learn 4 of those items.
Well, in Year Two it means the student is really behind every other kid in class. That means the Year Two teacher needs to work extra hard just to catch the student up to the beginning of Year Two.
But there aren’t enough hours in a school day to catch a kid up completely, meanwhile the kid is also supposed to keep learning Year Two material.
What Dr. Marzano found is that if a kid has one bad teacher — it takes up to three years to fully catch up to where they would have been if they never had a bad teacher in the first place.
And here’s a doomsday scenario to consider.
What happens if a student has two bad teachers in a row?
Raising Teacher Quality and Raising Teacher Pay
The goal therefore, in order to fix our school system is to raise teacher quality and then raise teacher pay accordingly. And one has to happen before the other.
We cannot raise teacher pay for low quality teachers. I hope people can agree with that idea — and do not think raising teacher pay for low performing teachers is a good idea.
We should be rewarding our best teachers with better pay. That is not only fair — but it will incentivize every teacher to stop sleeping in class, showing movies or not taking their job seriously.
In other words — we need to stop giving Hollywood ideas for new scripts about how to portray America’s classrooms and teachers.
Want to Know How to Fully Prepare Teachers?
If you want to know how to turn every teacher in your school district into the best teachers in the world — then click on the link to go to Part Three of this series:
