Updated: 3/6/2005; 9:41:24 PM.
Urban Educ8r: A Wickerblog
This weblog is dedicated primarily to the discussion of Education issues and policies, as well as to chronicling the author's experiences as an inner-city school teacher. These days, the education discussion is too much in the hands of ignorant politicians merely doing what they need to gain re-election, and not enough in the hands of knowledgable professionals with first hand experience.
        

Monday, February 14, 2005

The Generation Gap and Teacher's Unions

I like what I see in an L.A. Times editorial which calls for a new approach from the teacher's union. The UTLA, of which I was a meember for the 6 short months that I was employed by LAUSD, was once, according to the article, "a leader in the effort to remake urban schools. Now, union leaders spar with the district over small-change pay raises, paperwork demands and teacher assessment." It points out that the educational landscape has changed and so the old model of the union is no longer as relevent. The union needs to work more for how to support teachers in meeting accountability standards by imporving their craft, and less on just protecting retirement accounts and getting pay raises--not that there is anything wrong with those things. The current union elections apparently pit old union members running onthe merits of what they did 16 year ago (whoopee!) versus a new crowd who wants to fight for "social justice" by fighting against class size increases and standardized testing. The article rightly points out that we all know what the union is against, and it needs to better identify what it fights for. In addition, one thing the article doesn't touch on, I think there is a generation gap between older teachers and younger ones, a gap that reflects the generation gap between baby boomers and Gen X, my generation. Baby boomers tend to put a lot more of their identity in their work. They came of age in a time when choosing a career was for life. In this generation, one characterized by much more mobility and transience, your job is not your life, so we're much less likely to get all passionate about protectiong our pensions or how we're treated in the workplace. We don't see any job or situation as permanent. And we see our job as just one aspect of our life, or as a part that fits into our whole life mission, but not our mission in itself. That outlook makes a world of difference. We are much less likely to really "get" what the union is all about. I am still a member of my local teacher's union, though I am now in a state where unions are not really unions. And I do see their value. They do have a much broader function than the stuff that gets the headlines when educational reform is on the table. Though they don't do as much as they can, and have the potential for so much more. The Times editorial points out a case in Denver, Colorado where "the union worked with the school district on a merit pay plan to promote good teaching and protect teachers' rights," and a case in Rochester, N.Y. where "the union created an internship program for new teachers and a peer intervention program for failing ones." This type of positive cooperation with the district, rather than the conventional knee-jerk reactionism against anything they might feel threatened by, would be much more effective union practice. Some of my colleagues from the baby boom generation may call this type of action a compromise. My generation would call it practical. When I got my first teaching job, I must admit I knew little about the union, and since I was making real money for the first time in my life, I didn't think so much about fighting for pay raises. Of course, I hadn't been employed when the salaries were cut. But I also had the attitude that if I were as good a teahcer as I believed I would be, then I had no reason to feel threatened in my job. I have since come to understand the need for protection from the sometimes unfair practices of school districts and administrators, but I still think the approach of a teacher's union in this day and age really needs to be more cooperative and practical, as well as more positively supportive of teachers in improving thier practice and raising the prefession. Let us remake the teacher's union into something more suitable for our generation as well as something more fitting for today's educational climate. I've not yet formulated all of what I think such a makeover would entail, but I'd like to enter into discussion.

12:11:53 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2005 Greg Wickersham.
 
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