Teaching is the unique phenomenon that ensures transmission of knowledge from one generation to another, its preservation, and enrichment. For this reason, this process is one of the key elements of the further evolution of our society as it contributes to the increased efficiency of different activities. Especially important teaching becomes for the healthcare sector as the price of a mistake is extremely high there, and deep knowledge and specific experiences help to avoid these mistakes. For this reason, the RN might become a teacher needed to improve different competencies and guarantee positive final outcomes as the experience she/he possesses contributes to the unique efficiency of the whole process. Additionally, a nurse might provide clients with unique information that might help them to save their lives.
Assessment and Identification of Client Learning Needs Readiness/Motivation to Learn
Thus, the RN should be able to identify and assess client learning needs to attain success and guarantee positive final results. For this reason, this specialist should be attentive and concentrated to examine a client and obtain the information about the most topical problems peculiar to this very case. It is obvious that the major concerns related to this very issue will become the main client learning needs. Moreover, this approach will also ensure a high level of motivation as he/she will be interested in acquiring additional information needed to improve the state of his/her health.
Preparation of Environment and Client
The preparation of the environment is another RNs important task. Resting on his/her experience, this specialist could contribute to the improved final outcomes by reorganizing a clients dwelling, surrounding, etc. (“How to educate patients,” 2011). A specialist could adjust it to the specific needs of a client. For instance, in case a client is not able to move, space should be reorganized for a wheelchair to move freely. It will obviously help to attain success and improve the state of clients health. Improvement of a dwelling according to this pattern might be complicated, though an RN still should be ready to insist and use all possible tools to guarantee the reorganization of the environment in which a client lives.
Special Needs of Clients and Intervention to Meet those Needs
Therefore, the above-mentioned processes should rest on a clients specific needs that exist at the moment. In case a client has problems with eyes there is a need for remedies that will help him/her to orientate himself/herself. Patients with mental problems need some assistance in the simplest everyday tasks, etc. These needs create the basis of their further cooperation. Moreover, a nurse should create the intervention plan to explain a patient his/her position and establish the terms of their cooperation and usage of additional tools to fulfill these very specific needs (“Five tips for providing effective patient education,” n.d.). Besides, provision of the information about the ways to fulfill these specific needs is one of the most efficient interventions used by a nurse.
Teaching Strategies/Methods Resources and Referrals
Besides, there are also different teaching strategies and methods that are explored by any specialist who wants to establish good relations with a client and help him/her to improve the state of health. One of these methods is a communication between a patient and a nurse to set their main goals together (“Ten patient teaching strategies for nurses,” 2015). It will obviously improve their collaboration and establish a certain trust between them. They will work together to achieve the final goal. Furthermore, another method is the consideration of costs and incomes together to obtain important information and create an affordable strategy that could be used by a certain specific patient (Ward, 2012).
Summary of the Teaching Process
Altogether, the teaching process becomes extremely important for the modern healthcare sector as it contributes to the improved final outcomes and creates an environment that contributes to a clients speedy recovery. In this regard, a nurse is an efficient educator who establishes cooperation with a client and applies different methods to ensure positive final results.
Teaching has been established as a stressful job, especially for teachers of very young children at the preschool level. This study attempts to gather information from preschool teachers about stress factors involved in their jobs and what possible ways may be done to manage the stress. This Qualitative study aims to come up with a design for a Stress Management Program for preschool teachers to be presented to school administrators in support of their greatest asset – their teachers. It is believed that in doing so, schools are able to have more efficient teachers who can provide a better quality of service to their preschool students.
Problem
Due to the multiple roles, a preschool teacher plays in the execution of her job, how can she be able to handle the stress that comes with it? This paper attempts to come up with solutions to the problem by taking the insights and suggestions of preschool teachers.
Review of Literature
Young children are at a very delicate stage in their lives when they are so impressionable. Any experience or interaction will somehow leave a mark on their thinking, feeling, and personality development. Adults around them should be careful in their dealings with such young children and the life experiences they expose these little ones too.
Preschool teachers hold significant roles in the lives of their students. They are in a position to be influential in the early learning and development of children. Teaching is indeed a very fulfilling career. However, with it comes great responsibility and a whole lot of stress.
Generally, stress is what one feels when the demands on his life exceed his ability to meet those demands. The stressor may be external, such as too much workload, meeting deadlines, or a sudden change in activity level. Or, it may be an internal stressor such as an illness. For teachers, teaching-related stress can affect their health, well-being, and performance, which have great effects on the school. This may translate to unproductive teacher behaviors like alienation, apathy, and absenteeism (Gugliemi and Tatrow, 1998).
The article of Tsai, Fung, and Chow (2006) studied sources and manifestations of stress in female kindergarten teachers and found out that teacher stress comes from a variety of factors. The findings of their study revealed that preschool teacher stress sources are: Time Management-related, Work-related, Professional-related, Discipline and Motivation-related, and Professional Investment-related. Work-related Stressors include feelings of having too little time to prepare, having too much work, the pace of school day being too fast, class size too big, personal priorities being shortchanged, and having too much administrative paperwork, whereas Time Management includes feelings such as having to do more than one thing at a time, being rushed in speech, and not having enough time to get things done. Professional related may be relationships with co-teachers. Discipline and motivation-related may be in handling the preschool-aged children, and professional-investment related may be the professional development activities teachers need to attend such as training, meetings, and seminars. Kelly and Berthelsen (1995) did a study with preschool teachers documenting their day for two weeks and identified their sources of stress as child behavior problems, workload and time pressures, working conditions, and relationships with colleagues. These were reflected in the multiple tasks a preschool teacher needs to do in a day. Role overload is common with preschool teachers because not only are they expected to come up with a curriculum for the class and implement it, they deal with the management of the class, considering the developmental characteristics, individual personalities and backgrounds of the children, concerns of the parents, meeting requirements of the school administration, planning school events, and even non-teaching related tasks such as clerical work and entertaining visitors and business agents.
Tsai, Fung, and Chow (2006) also reported that findings from early studies on health-related problems associated with teacher stress indicated that the negative effects of stress could range from minor physical symptoms such as mouth sores to more serious psychopathological symptoms like depression and suicidal ideations.
Their study revealed the five types of stress manifestations as Emotional, Fatigue, Cardiovascular, Gastronomical, and Behavioral. Sample experiences for each type of stress manifestation are as follows: “Feeling depressed,” “Sleeping more than usual,” “Feelings of increased blood pressure,” “Stomach cramps,” and “Using alcohol” (Tsai, Fung and Chow, 2006). These symptoms can eventually lead to “burnout” as their motivation and enthusiasm for their work wanes.
The term “burnout” is a relatively new term, first coined in 1974 by Herbert Freudenberger in his book “Burnout: The High Cost of High Achievement”. He originally defined ‘burnout’ as “the extinction of motivation or incentive, especially where one’s devotion to a cause or relationship fails to produce the desired results” (Scott, 2007). While burnout is not a recognized clinical psychiatric or psychological disorder, there are some similar features between burnout and diagnosable conditions such as depression, anxiety disorders, or mood disorders.
Figure 1. Pressure curve.
This graph shows the pressure curve in relation to a worker’s efficiency and the continuum of work pressure. It shows that a person’s efficiency is maximized when the pressure is just right. However, if it continues to increase, then performance suffers as worker experiences burn-out (Greenberger and Strasser, 1986).
“Emotional exhaustion results when an imbalance occurs between the emotional demands of work and the personal psychological resources available to fuel the energy to meet such demands. Thus, to the extent that the effort required depletes one’s energy and emotions, the result is feelings of estrangement from self (Hochschild, 1983; Leiter, 1993) and emotional exhaustion” (Wilk & Moynihan, 2005).
Based on various literature (Greenberger and Strasser, 1986; Neils, n.d., Scott, 2007 among others), the following are representatives of burnout symptoms:
Depleted Physical Energy: Prolonged stress can be physically draining, causing one to feel tired much of the time or no longer have the energy she once did. Getting out of bed to face another day of the same gets more difficult.
Emotional Exhaustion: One feels impatient, moody, inexplicably sad, or just gets frustrated more easily than one normally would. She feels like you can’t deal with life as easily as she once could.
Lowered Immunity to Illness: When stress levels are high for a prolonged amount of time, the immune system does suffer. People who are suffering from burnout usually get the message from their body that something needs to change, and that message comes in the form of increases in susceptibility to colds, the flu, and other minor illnesses (and sometimes some not-so-minor ones such as heart attacks and high blood pressure).
Less Investment in Interpersonal Relationships: Withdrawing somewhat from interpersonal relationships is another possible sign of burnout. One may feel like she has less to give, or less interest in having fun, or just less patience with people. But for whatever reason, people experiencing burnout can usually see the effects in their relationships.
Increasingly Pessimistic Outlook: When experiencing burnout, it’s harder to get excited about life, harder to expect the best, harder to let things roll off your back, and harder to ‘look on the bright side’ in general. Because optimism is a great buffer for stress, those suffering from burnout find it harder to pull out of their rut than they normally would.
Increased Absenteeism and Inefficiency at Work: When experiencing job burnout, it gets more difficult just to get out of bed and face more of what’s been overwhelming you in the first place. This may be an unconscious defense against burnout, but those experiencing it tends to be less effective overall and stay home from work more often. (This could also be due to increased illness resulting from lowered immunity, as discussed above.) This is part of why it makes sense for workers to take some time off before they’re feeling burned out and why it makes sense for employers to refrain from running their workers into the ground; they might not get back up so quickly!
“As stress can reduce a teacher’s motivation and ultimately affects the operation of the school and teaching (Brownell, 1997), perhaps kindergarten principals can assist teachers in managing their stress by providing them with better resource support, and principals can also search for means to curtail administrative procedures so as to
allow teachers to work at a pace that they find more manageable.” (Tsai, Fung, and Chow, 2006). Also, the working environment should encourage support from colleagues. Relaxation strategies are also essential in preventing burnout.
This paper attempts to design a Stress Management program as suggested by the prospective teachers in the sample based on their own contexts. Its goal is to help preschool teachers deal with their work stress so that they become more effective workers and provide better service to the preschool teachers they serve.
Research Procedure
In the article by Kelly and Berthelsen (1995), it was discussed that a qualitative study could garner more information regarding the subjects’ real insights and feelings, as it allows them to delve deeper into the research questions involved. “Bogdan and Biklen (1982) proposed that the worth of a study is the degree to which it generates description and understanding. Keeping a personal document such as a reflective journal is an effective method of acquiring such description and understanding. A personal document is any self-revealing record that intentionally or unintentionally yields information regarding the structure, dynamics, and functioning of the author’s life (Woods, 1986). Woods also noted that documents which have a strong personal investment provide indicators of the participants’ views and attitudes and may contain much more information than can be acquired by other means.” (Kelly & Berthesen, 1995).
The Kelly & Berthelsen study required preschool teachers to journalize their daily tasks and experiences in their preschool work, and from there, gather the necessary data to identify stress factors.
For this proposal, Interviews of at least 20 preschool teachers regarding stress and probable strategies to de-stress them will be conducted. The following guide questions shall provide structure for the interviews:
What do you think are the factors that cause stress in your work as a preschool teacher and why?
What do you think can be done to lessen your stress?
Do you have any suggestions as to how the school administration can support you in lessening the stress in your job so you would be a more efficient preschool teacher?
Although there are guide questions, interviews shall still be free-flowing to allow the subjects to freely express their ideas and opinions genuinely.
Responses of the interviewees shall be analyzed by categorizing them into themes and organizing their suggestions into a Stress Management Program to be presented to school administrators for their consideration.
Expected Result
Based on the realities preschool teachers will report in the foregoing interviews regarding how stress affects them, a program for stress management shall be designed for preschool teachers to be proposed to management as it will also benefit them. It will consider all factors, including work-related load, parent relations, relationships with co-workers, administrative tasks, etc.
This Stress Management Program is valuable, especially in the field of Early Childhood Education, because it will greatly support the teachers of the youngest students in their hard work in helping raise a better generation of learners.
References
Bogdan, R.C. & Biklen, S.K. (1982). Qualitative Research for Education: An Introduction to Theory and Methods. Toronto: Allyn and Bacon.
Brownell, M. (1997). “Coping with stress in the special education classroom.” Teaching Exceptional Children, 30, 6.
Greenberger, D. B. and Strasser, S. (1986). “Developing and application of a model of personal control in organizations’” Academy of Management Review, 11, 164±177
Guglielmi, S.R. and Tatrow, K. (1998). “Occupational stress, burnout, and health in teachers: A methodological and theoretical analysis.” Review of Educational Research, 68, 61-91.
Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Kelly, A., L and Berthelsen, D. C (1995) “Preschool teachers’ experience of stress.” Teaching and Teacher Education 11(4):345-357.
Leiter, M. (1993). “Burnout as a development process: Consideration of models”. In W.Schaufeli, C.Maslack, & T.Marek (Eds.), Professional burnout: Recent developments in theory and research (pp. 237–250). Washington, DC: Taylor & Francis.
Neils, H. (n.d.) “13 signs of burnout and how to help you avoid it “.
Tsai, E., Fung, L. & Chow, L. (2006) “Sources and manifestations of stress in female kindergarten teachers” International Education Journal, 2006, 7(3), 364-370.
Wilk, S.L., & Moynihan, L.M. (2005), “Display rule ‘regulators’: the relationship between supervisors and worker emotional exhaustion.”Journal of Applied Psychology. Vol.90 (5) pp. 917-927
Karabenick, S. & Clemens Noda, P. (2004). Professional development implications of Teachers’ beliefs and attitudes toward English language learners. Bilingual Research Journal, 28, 55-72.
Summary
Multiculturalism is said to be the process of accepting and appreciating the diversity of people and their cultures. Multiculturalism takes different dimension in terms of social, economic and cultural community values.
Multiculturalism entails uniting the natives of a society and the immigrants. Appreciation on the other hand focuses on acknowledging the fact that we come from different social backgrounds and so our view of some social norms is different (Karabenick & Clemens Noda, 2004). In this paper, the focus will be on multicultural education and in particular, English as a language.
Multicultural education is as a result of an influx in the number of people in a society that are non-natives speakers. Such immigrants are referred to as English language learners (ELL) and English language to them is considered English as a Second Language (ESL). This group of students forms the bilingual class.
Analysis
According to a survey conducted in America, there are different opinions and views in regard to English language learners. A majority of the teachers embrace multiculturalism, but fails to implement it in their classroom environment. For instance most learning institutions do not permit foreign and immigrants to speak their first language within the institution vicinity.
Although the immigrants are not prejudiced against in terms of academic and education matters they are forced to engage in observing and participating in norms that are of the natives and others from the education institution policies. Honoring days like Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, and all these factors lead towards assimilation of the immigrant’s culture and beliefs.
Some of the teachers in the survey from the dominant culture expressed dissatisfaction in having multicultural students because communication becomes a barrier and have to change their mode of teaching instruction to accommodate the immigrant’s students. However, this has been caused the failure of some teachers to collaborate with ELL teachers on how to modify their teaching approaches, discuss academic expectations with the ELL parents, or just having to take time to know their new students.
Most English teachers are trained on the model and value of the dominant culture. However, with the increased influx of immigrant students teaching becomes challenging. Teachers need to be empowered with tools and inculcate new methods in the curricula model so as to negate the negative belief and attitudes that teachers may hold against teaching EELs. In addition to multiculturalism, learning needs to be aware of the demographic changes within their states.
A casing point is the influx of Latinos in America. These immigrants are linguistically challenged and therefore, although there is the existence of ELL classes, most teachers do not value them as being grounds towards understanding their diversity and culture, but see ELL classes as just being English tutorials for these immigrant students. Whether they do understand and appreciate the dominant culture does not bother them as long as they speak English at the end of it learning period.
Application
The consequence of this attitude is that most immigrant students opt to drop out as they cannot fit in their new social-cultural environment. Others take a negative view of the dominant culture as being oppressive and discriminative and so rebel against the education system and engage in speaking their first language within the institution’s vicinity as a means of protest.
To ensure that America as a whole natures a promising society, it is important that teachers are given a specific training on how to handle the EELs so that this group of students is incorporated and assimilated into the education system rather than adopting measures that are repulsive to them (Karabenick & Clemens Noda, 2004).
References
Karabenick, S. & Clemens Noda, P. (2004). Professional development implications of Teachers’ beliefs and attitudes toward English language learners. Bilingual Research Journal, 28, 55-72.
While both the public and teachers believe discipline management to be an issue of major concern which faces schools, there is disagreement as to what might be the more serious misbehaviour problems. Public discussion and debate is frequently characterised by comments based on popular opinion, hearsay, and isolated incidents of a dramatic and newsworthy nature, rather than informed knowledge regarding the types of discipline issues which prevent learning from taking place in schools.
A further confounding of the discipline in schools debate has been, as Atkinson (1989) noted, a sustained attack in recent years on state education in general, and classroom teachers in particular. Yet the problems of discipline in schools, as Barcan (1979) reminds us, have had a long history, and their causes extend beyond the classroom and its members.
The recent studies of Lewis & Lovegrove (1988,1989) and Lewis et al. (1991) on the beliefs of teachers, students and parents concerning desired approaches to the management of discipline problems have highlighted the diversity of views on what constitutes effective school discipline. They found that parents were more supportive of traditional, or interventionist management approaches to behaviour and classroom management issues, in contrast to the more liberal (person-oriented) and interactive approaches espoused by many teachers (and education authorities overseeing the schools) in their survey. Students at primary levels were also more in favour, while secondary students (and their teachers) were less supportive, of interactive approaches (Lovegrove & Lewis, 1991).
Findings from this current primary school study also suggest that teachers place more value on the effectiveness of interactive approaches in the management of their classroom problems. Both Lovegrove & Lewis’s (1991) survey of parent attitudes, and anecdotal evidence of public reactions in the media to incidents of indiscipline in schools suggests that the public in general remain firmly entrenched in their views that discipline problems are best managed by the maintenance of traditional approaches, whereby control and resolution of problems is best achieved with teachers using directive and interventionist strategies. Clearly there exists a challenge for policy developers in education to inform parents and the public of the reasons behind recently-instituted behaviour management strategies based on other than traditional methods, and to justify the efficacy and advantages of such approaches.
There also appears to be a need for greater public awareness and understanding of the actual nature of the discipline problems which most commonly disrupt school and classroom environments. Alley et al. (1990) have made a number of cogent points arguing the necessity for “identifying the actual discipline problems that teachers find the most difficult to handle” (p. 63) as a basis for more constructive explorations of the causes and management of discipline problems. Several authors have pointed to the need for the specific types of discipline behaviour in classrooms to be identified, if teachers are to be better prepared in developing their skills and implementing strategies to manage such behaviour (Lovegrove et al., 1985; Borg & Falzon, 1990). Lawrence & Steed (1986) noted the large amount of research on disruptive behaviour in secondary schools, in contrast to the “relative dearth” of research relating to the primary sector. Several subsequent studies have redressed this situation to some extent (Merrett & Wheldall, 1984; Borg & Falzon, 1989, 1990).
Until recently, research into primary school-based discipline problems has been a neglected area, apart from generic descriptions of misbehaviour (Lawrence & Steed, 1986; Borg & Falzon, 1989). The intention of this research was to gather data on teachers’ perceptions of specific discipline problems in primary schools in Australia and Malaysia.
Investigation Context
In recent years there has been widespread public and professional debate over discipline in Australian government schools. While a perennial educational issue of public concern, student discipline became a major concern of the Australian and Malaysian communities in the late 1990s, several years after similar movements in other Australian states. Issues have ranged from the place of corporal punishment in schools, the efficacy of ‘modern’ approaches to managing groups of often rebellious school students, through to the behaviour of schoolchildren on public transport. This debate has taken place within a community in which the major political parties have opposing policies on corporal punishment in schools, and ‘law and order’ more generally.
Reacting to this concern and a political directive to abolish corporal punishment in schools within 3 years, the Education Department of Australia decided to “strengthen support for schools” in the area of school discipline in its influential Three Year Plan for government schools. The justification for increased ‘support’ to schools was that all children need a “safe and secure learning environment” that allows teachers to “get on with the job of teaching” (Education Department of Australia, 1989a). The question of whether or not teachers were, in fact, being prevented from “getting on with the job of teaching” by disruptive and poorly disciplined students, was not addressed.
Late in 1989, the Director General of Education and the Minister of Education in Australia jointly launched School Discipline: policy and guidelines for practice, a comprehensive and assertive statement on student discipline intended to “guide” school communities in the development of “school based discipline policy” (Education Department of Australia, 1989b).
Because of the politicisation of the student discipline issue, significant questions about student behaviour in government schools have remained largely unasked, let alone thoroughly addressed through empirical inquiry. As there was a lack of research in the area, it was decided to undertake a major study of teachers’ views on discipline in schools. The principal focus of the study was to review teacher attitudes and practices in the area of student behaviour management in Malaysian primary schools.
The study was influenced by the work undertaken by members of the Educational Research Centre at Sheffield University. Their report, Teachers and Discipline, was commissioned as part of the Elton Enquiry into Discipline in Schools (England and Wales) which was released in 1989 (Department of Education and Science, 1989). Negotiation with the research team in mid-1989 resulted in the survey instrument being released for a comparable study in government schools in Adelaide, the largest city in Australia. It was necessary to revise substantially sections of the questionnaire to comply with the specific characteristics of the Australian and Malaysian educational settings. This process included a trailing phase with a representative group of teachers.
References
ALLEY, R., O’HAIR, M. & WRIGHT, R. (1990) Student misbehaviours: which ones really trouble teachers? Teacher Education Quarterly, Summer.
ATKINSON, J. (1989) Responding to Elton: a whole school approach, Support for Learning, 4(4), pp. 242-248.
BARCAN, A. (1979) Discipline in N.S.W. Schools (New South Wales, NSW Committee of Inquiry into Pupil and Discipline in Schools).
BORG, M.G. & FALZON, J.M. (1989) Primary school teachers’ perception of pupils’ undesirable behaviours, Education Studies, 15, pp. 251-260.
BORG, M.G. & FALZON, J.M. (1990) Primary school teachers’ perception of pupils’ undesirable behaviours: the effects of teaching experience, pupil’s age, sex and ability stream, British Journal of Educational Psychology, 60, pp. 220-226.
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE (1989) Discipline in Schools (England and Wales) (London, HMSO).
EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF AUSTRALIA (1989a) Three Year Plan (Adelaide, Government Printer).
EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF AUSTRALIA (1989b) School Discipline: policy and guidelines for practice (Adelaide, Government Printer).
EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF AUSTRALIA (1990) Student Census: July 1990 (Adelaide, Statistics Unit).
LEWIS, R. & LOVEGROVE, M.N. (1988) Students’ views on how teachers are disciplining class-rooms, in: R. SLEE (Ed.) (1988) Discipline in Schools: a curriculum perspective (Macmillan)
LEWIS, R. & LOVEGROVE, M.N. (1989) Parents’ attitudes to classroom discipline, Journal of Australian Studies, 25, pp. 11-22.
LEWIS, R., LOVEGROVE, M.N. & BURMAN, E. (1991) Teachers’ perceptions of ideal classroom disciplinary practices, in: M.N. LOVEGROVE & R. LEWIS (Ed.) Classroom Discipline (Melbourne, Longman Cheshire).
LOVEGROVE, M.N., LEWIS, R., FALL, C. & LOVEGROVE, H. (1985) Students’ preferences for discipline practices in schools, Teaching and Teacher Education, 1(4), pp. 325-333.
MERRETT, F. & WHELDALL, K. (1984) Classroom behaviour problems which junior primary school teachers find most troublesome, Educational Studies, 10(2), pp. 87-92.
STEED, D. (1985) Disruptive pupils, disruptive Schools: Which is the chicken? Which is the egg? Teachers? Teacher Education Quarterly, Summer,.
WHELDALL, K. & MERRETT, F. (1988) Which classroom behaviours do primary school teachers say they find most troublesome? Educational Review, 40(1), pp. 13-27.
The practice of using a mixed research method is relevant when scholars face the task of describing this or that problem from different points of view. For these purposes, it is often common to resort to a mixed analysis strategy where both oral surveys are conducted among target groups, and digital statistical data are compiled. As the object to analyze the use of this method, a separate article will be discussed. It is called “Examining the Attitudes and Concerns of the Kenyan Teachers Toward the Inclusion of Children with Disabilities in the General Education Classroom: A Mixed Methods Study” and it is written by Odongo and Davidson (2016). The evaluation of the method of this article’s research and its features will help to describe the relevance of the applied sample for the problem under consideration and to analyze the main characteristics of the study.
Appropriateness of the Research Questions to the Study Under Consideration
The research questions proposed in the article correspond to the stated type of the study since the answers to them provide not only the survey of interested persons but also a digital report on the data. Odongo and Davidson (2016) argue that one of their goals is to trace “the relationship between teachers’ concerns and their experience with inclusion of children with disabilities” (p. 3). For this purpose, it is required to cite some points that are necessary for appropriate evaluation and providing teachers with answers, which is done in the article. Also, the authors mention the peculiarities of perception of the described problems and digitally present the participants’ answers (Odongo & Davidson, 2016). It allows concluding that the applied method of research is consistent with the claimed design.
Reasons for Integrating Two Types of Research
The primary reason why the two research methods are combined into one is likely that the authors sought to corroborate the obtained findings in the survey process with digital information and wanted to receive the complete picture of the problem. According to Teddlie and Yu (2007), the successful integration of a quantitative and qualitative method makes it possible to have as deep an analysis of a particular issue as possible since different ways of evaluating data are applied. Odongo and Davidson (2016) note that the significance of their work lies in the fact that different stakeholders should realize the importance of the described problem. Therefore, a detailed study involving two methods of data collection and evaluation helps to comprehensively solve the task.
Philosophical Perspective of the Study
When assessing the article from the point of view of the philosophical perspective, it can be noted that the concept of interpretivism is relevant here since solutions taken on an individual and subjective level play a major role in the decision-making process. According to Odongo and Davidson (2016), the significance to take actions on the problem of the children with disabilities’ socialization in schools is an acute social issue. Accordingly, the need for intervention does not have the value from the economic, political or other side but is determined solely by the individual characteristics of the topic under consideration. Therefore, such a concept is the most appropriate.
Mixed Methods Design Characteristics and Their Implementation
The characteristics of the analyzed mixed methods design provide for concurrent timing. It means that the data that are needed for the assessment were collected in parallel rather than sequentially, and the researchers did not first use one method and then the other. The oral collection of information and drawing up of a digital picture passed in the same time interval, which is explained by the authors in their article (Odongo & Davidson, 2016). Also, scholars did not give priority to one particular method, and both designs are equal. As Creswell and Clark (2007) remark, this approach to research allows equally using the merits of both quantitative and qualitative methods that are integrated into one. On the whole, voluminous and high-quality work was done, as it can be seen from the results of the study.
Mixed Methods Design of the Study
When evaluating the study’s mixed methods design, it is possible to claim that the triangulation design was used to collect and assess all the data. In this type, “only one data collection phase is used, during which quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis are conducted separately yet concurrently” (“Mixed methods research,” 2016, para. 19). In their study, the authors did not focus on a specific method for analyzing the issue but conducted surveys and the compilation of digital tables in parallel, while conducting conversations with teachers and inputting their answers into appropriate forms (Odongo & Davidson, 2016). This method was likely used because many participants were involved (142 teachers). Therefore, it was logical to record their answers in the process of the study and not to postpone the procedure for drawing up percentage reports.
Sampling Strategies
In their study, the authors used not a continuous sample but a selective approach to the search for participants (Odongo & Davidson, 2016). Thus, according to the report, one hundred general teachers were invited and forty-two representatives of education from special educational institutions (Odongo & Davidson, 2016, p.8). Also, two separate schools were selected from ten originally considered (Odongo & Davidson, 2016, p. 9). It means that the sample was thorough and suitable for this type of the study since for a competent assessment of the problem, the sufficient number of participants was necessary. As Creswell and Clark (2007) note, the triangulation design provides targeted sampling at each phase of the study. The authors successfully coped with this task.
The Strengths and Weaknesses of the Used Methodology
From the standpoint of the strengths of the study, the authors were able to present well-validated and substantiated findings. Also, “compared to sequential designs, data collection takes less time in concurrent research,” which is significant in the acute need for effective practical intervention (“Mixed methods research,” 2016, para. 21). However, there are some weaknesses in the used methodology, which should be taken into account. Thus, for instance, the described research requires much experience and expertise for simultaneous integration of two methods. Also, it can be difficult to compare the results of two separate methods, using the information presented in different forms. Moreover, given that data collection is concurrently conducted, the results of one method, for example, an interview, can hardly be integrated into the other. Therefore, all these nuances deserve particular attention.
Conclusion
Thus, the evaluation of the article’s mixed methods design and its peculiarities can help to assess the relevance of the applied sample and to analyze the basic characteristics of the study. The design of triangulation contributes to a faster study compared to other types. A concurrent quantitative and qualitative approach is useful when working with many participants to timely register all the information. The applied method also has some weak features (the need for having much experience, difficulties in comparing the study’s outcomes, the absence of the possibility to integrate one method into the other). The described article can be a good scholarly platform for further successful interventions.
References
Creswell, J. W., & Clark, V. L. P. (2007). Designing and conducting mixed methods research (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Mixed methods research. (2016). Web.
Odongo, G., & Davidson, R. (2016). Examining the attitudes and concerns of the Kenyan teachers toward the inclusion of children with disabilities in the general education classroom: A mixed methods study. International Journal of Special Education, 31(2), 1-30.
Teddlie, C., & Yu, F. (2007). Mixed methods sampling: A typology with examples. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 1(1), 77-100.
In recent years, decreasing number of teachers become a real problem for educational establishments. The main problems affected teacher attrition involve low salary and lack of administration support, poor working conditions, and inadequate teacher preparation. The literature review will focus on these problems paying attention to current policies and teachers’ attitudes towards reforms. All researchers admit that there is increasing and strong interest among institutions in the position of teachers thus all of them lack a strategic approach to teacher retention strategies and careful planning of future initiatives.
Compensation and Teacher Attrition
The vast layer of literature focuses on compensation problems and low salaries proposed for educators. It is found that the remuneration policy of teachers does not meet state, province, and district policies. In his articles, G. Gaines states that the main problem in teacher attrition research is lack of data and statistical information concerning the real state of the matters on both national and regional levels. In two research articles, Focus on Teacher Salaries and Focus on Teacher Pay and incentives, G Gaines underlines that the main problem is that salary averages do not account for regional and national variations. Using only national and regional data, it is not easy to produce an acceptable system of the wage structure, especially if inflation increases and social values change. According to Gaines (2000), regional remuneration policy prevents many teachers around the country to be paid accordingly to their degree and experience. The research finds that: “Pay often is linked to the highest degree earned”. Recent policies do not establish a systematic means of relating rates of pay to jobs. In theory, remuneration policy is intended to arrive at a rate for a job (usually through negotiation) irrespective of the attributes of individual workers who are employed on the job. Although the scope of job evaluation is unlimited in principle, its application has been somewhat restricted to groups of relatively homogeneous jobs. The main problem with the current policy is that “two states could have the same salary schedule but different salary averages because one state has a higher percentage of teachers who have more than 20 years’ experience”. Salary ranges should be allocated to each class and sub-class of teachers. This is derived from the previous basic methods and is based upon a points system where points are awarded to significant elements of a job.
Another layer of literature addresses the problems of technical problems and lack of government support. In The Report of the Teaching Commission, M. Cochran-Smith (2004) states that national and regional information systems do not take into account different retirement patterns in each state. For instance, teachers who retire usually are replaced with less-experienced, lower-paid teachers. Similar to M. Cochran-Smith J.W. Guthrie underlines that this policy leads to a decline in salary averages per state. In general, a survey is made of the wage structure, from which several key jobs are selected, representing various wage levels. An analysis is then made to determine the proportion of total wages. As the most important, there is a great difference between the length of teachers’ contracts. Most assessments are inaccurate because the number of grades is small and jobs of a different character are put in the same grade. The researchers agree that decisions accepted on the national or regional levels do not reflect employee benefits per state and lead to teacher attrition. These policies prevent state authorities to value jobs and establish several different pay classes. Also, they do not take into account priorities for quality and expertise which can “raise individual teachers’ salaries by thousands of dollars” . So, no allowance is made for differences displayed in the performance of a job. In addition, they often include a few broad qualities which are characteristic of all jobs to varying degrees.
Quality of Teacher Preparation
The maim layer of literature addresses the problem of teacher retention and quality of teacher education. In his research, Cultivating and Keeping Committed Special Education Teachers, B.S. Billingsley (2005) unveils that many teacher educators find themselves constantly on the defensive and with few allies when educational reformers go looking for easy targets. Reforming teacher education is a popular sport in the United States, and one consequence is that teacher educators are the most regulated of all academicians (which further diminishes their lot within academe) to the point that some state legislators have ordered education professors into the schools regularly to learn what schools are like. Most teacher educators complain about the rigor versus relevance conundrum in which they seem to be inextricably caught and seek to walk the fence, or perhaps build gates in the fence, between academe and schools. We can conclude, however, that the demands on teacher educators for both relevance and rigor are not very compatible without concluding that the balancing act often attempted is as productive as would be the reduction of this role ambiguity. Billingsley (2005) underlines that the administration might look for such clarification in the search for the reasons why greater efforts to achieve relevance do not seem to translate into greater support for teacher education. That search, in turn, might start with a concern for how teachers learn.
A large body of research indicates that beginning teachers often have a very difficult time applying the full range of what they know and can do in “their own classrooms.” This, of course, constrains their professional expertise and limits the positive effects they can have on students. Fiore and Whitaker (2004) stress that many new teachers have such a difficult first year that they decide that a career in teaching will not have the rewards for them that they thought it would11. This leads to decisions to leave teaching. Some studies of teacher attrition estimate that as many as 20 to 25 percent of new teachers leave a school district after their first year. Large-scale induction programs have only recently gained attention. Therefore, there is little research in print which links such programs to teacher performance or attrition. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that such programs are contributing to a more productive and satisfying transition from college to work for many teachers.
I. Rodsen in the book Teacher Retention: What Is Your Weakest Link? suggests that there is reason to believe that most programs would be more effective if mentor teachers had more time and training to undertake this task and if university faculty had more involvement aimed at linking what is being learned on the job with what is being learned in the classroom. Recent research on teacher mentoring suggests that this role is difficult to perform and that it takes time and specific training before most teachers feel comfortable with and are competent in the role. Moreover, the idea that experience is a good teacher of teachers, despite the testimony of many teachers that experience has been their most influential teacher, is increasingly being called into doubt. This research suggests that people learn best from experience when they have been trained to learn in that way and when they have the support from one or more persons who can provide objective feedback, discuss alternative behaviors, and facilitate interpretation of action on their perceptions. The need for induction programs is not seriously questioned in the United States, but some observers believe that most induction programs, which invariably seek to link new teachers with more experienced ones, are usually inadequate.
Administration Support
The research literature recognizes that first-year teachers often have experiences that are unsatisfying professionally and that new teachers fail to implement much of what they learned in their pre-service preparation. It is assumed that induction programs that provide support for new teachers will both increase teacher effectiveness and reduce teacher attrition. Thus, it is found that poor support and lack of administrative initiatives lead to attrition among schools teacher. Another layer of literature, represented by Fiore and Whitaker (2004) and Greiner and Smith (2000), underlines that the transition from college to solo teaching requires a year-long internship in schools that are specially structured to foster the novice teacher’s professional development. There is growing interest in professional development schools – regular schools serving diverse populations and thus different from the university-based lab schools of the past–as the way to achieve effective entry to the teaching profession.
Working Conditions
Researches made by Huling et al (2001), Inman and Marlow (2004), Westling et al (2006) demonstrate that poor working conditions and lack of equipment result in high turnover rates and attrition. Huling et al (2001) underline that the grading system has been in use in all the states, although the organization of schools differs according to grades and levels. These differences in school organization, combined with other developments such as full or partial integration or continuous progress plans that eliminate grades, the existence of many schools of differing sizes and policies about subject specialization, and self-contained classrooms, all point to the need for teachers who can teach in a wide range of organizational patterns. Schools in several states have been introduced to school-based management wherein they are not involved in planning and other decisions about school operation. This change in the locus of decision making requires the preparation of teachers in areas formerly reserved for administrators.
Almost all researchers underline that education institutions in America are experiencing problems securing adequate financial resources. Guthrie, J.W (1999) underlines that selection of student intakes based on secondary education scores is a relatively resource-free process. Interviewing students, analyzing references, and observing in situ performances are cost-intensive processes. The same position is shared by Billingsley (1999) who states that higher education administrators are not able to meet the costs of such selection procedures. However, the advocates of such careful selection processes argue that they are cost effective in the longer term in that course attrition rates are lowered and that committed and able students make higher quality inputs to the teaching profession. At present the “resource guardians” hold sway.
Conclusion
The literature review shows that teacher attrition is caused by numerous factors affected modern education. Fairly static ratios and school enrollments imply a consistent demand for teachers, provided that current attrition rates and school policies remain unchanged. In this respect, a significant development in recent years has been the pressure by teachers’ organizations, through collective bargaining, to reduce pupil-teacher ratios and to receive more planning time. School boards and teachers, in their bargaining, tend to refer to research evidence or the lack of it pertaining to reduced ratios and their impact on student learning. Administration costs, the number of administrators and their salaries, have also entered the negotiations. All these demands, if met, will have a direct impact on the number of teachers required. The development of several political, economic, and social scenarios (proposing “what if” options) that are likely to prevail in the future appears to offer promise in applying the above factors more meaningfully. Thus, strategic planning can utilize alternatives in interpreting and applying the data so as to match the scenario developed, leading to greater reliability of the projection techniques. Researchers underline that teacher attrition can be eliminated, if the local and federal administration pays more attention to current problems and teachers position at schools. The likelihood that the collaborating colleges will in time press for and succeed in acquiring full independence in responsibility for teacher education. Such a change would markedly increase the number of teacher preparation institutions, with significant impact on quality control and financial allocation for programs. It would also have an impact on the nature of the programs and on the status of teaching as a profession.
Bibliography
Billingsley, B.S. Cultivating and Keeping Committed Special Education Teachers: What Principals and District Leaders Can Do. Corwin Press, 2005.
Billingsley, B.S. Special Education Teacher Retention and Attrition: A Critical Analysis of the Research Literature. Journal of Special Education 38, no. 1 (2004): 39.
Cochran-Smith, M. The Report of the Teaching Commission: What’s Really at Risk? Journal of Teacher Education, 5, no 3, (2004): 195.
Fiore, D.J., Whitaker, T. Six Types Of Teachers: Recruiting, Retaining, And Mentoring The Best. Eye on Education, 2004.
Gaines, G. Focus on Teacher Salaries: What Teacher Salary Averages Don’t Show. 2000.
Greiner, C.S., Smith, B. Determining the Effect of Selected Variables on Teacher Retention. Education 126, no. 4, (2006): 653.
Guthrie, J.W. A Response to John Goodlad’s Whither Schools of Education? Unless Other Changes Occur, They Might Well Wither. Journal of Teacher Education 50, no 5, (1999): 363.
Huling, L., Resta, V., Rainwater, N. The Case for a Third Alternative. Journal of Teacher Education 52, no. 4, (2001): 326.
Inman, D., Marlow, L. Teacher Retention: Why Do Beginning Teachers Remain in the Profession? Education 124, no. 4, (2004): 605.
Rodsen, I. Teacher Retention: What Is Your Weakest Link? Eye on Education, 2002.
Westling, D.L. et al. The Teacher Support Program: A Proposed Resource for the Special Education Profession and an Initial Validation. Remedial and Special Education 27, no. 3, (2006): 136.
Teaching across cultures involves teaching people from different classes in terms of social, economic, political as well as religious background. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the factors that influence health-seeking behavior among different cultures or groups of people. In this paper, the client of assessment is a group of people working in the same manufacturing company in the city but holding different positions and responsibilities.
The teaching topic for this group of employees is pollution and the diseases related to it. The choice of this topic is convenient for this particular group because working in the same company with different responsibilities ranging from managers, accountants, secretaries, drivers, messengers, and even cleaners, implies that their income varies and hence their living standards. This topic is very exploitative on this group of people and therefore of great significance to health promotion and disease prevention. Working in the same environment probably exposes them to similar environmental pollutants depending on nature and also the location of the company. However, other factors may influence the effect of pollution on different people in this company and they are going to be discussed later in this piece of work.
Significance of the topic
By teaching the employees of this company about pollution and its effects on their health will help them to be able to protect themselves from hazardous pollutants and consequently prevent diseases.
Factors affecting health-seeking behavior
Teaching on environmental pollution will help these clients to be conscious of their environment and their body health. There are many factors that influence their health-seeking behaviors. These factors include;
social-economic factors
education level
personality
cultural beliefs
age
family background
Health status.
These factors are explained below in detail so that they can be understood for the sake of trying to promote health and prevent pollution-related diseases. Dr. David N. Schwartz MD, Director NIEHS said that; “People tend to talk most often and loudly about those things which they are passionate about. In reality, it is my role as a physician that has enabled me to recognize that clinical research and fundamental research in disease prevention are not separate paths, but rather intricately and necessarily connected approaches to achieving health.” It is therefore clear that research on the factors that influence health-seeking behavior is necessary for health promotion and disease prevention purposes.
Social-economic factors
This is the main factor that affects the other factors. It determines the living standards of the employees. In this case, the low-earning group of people in the company will be living in the slums or in low-class areas where risks of pollution are high and cannot be avoided. Hence the efforts of teaching them on this topic will have little or no influence at all on their health-seeking behavior and choices. On the other hand, the well-paid personnel who live in the posh suburbs of the city will see the relevance of this topic hence they can have control over pollution to some reasonable extent though not fully.
The well-paid workers also have a positive behavior towards health and tend to seek medical attention in case of illness, unlike the economically suppressed group.
Level of education
The Education of people in any given group differs. This is a result of the social-economic status of the family. Poor parents do not take their children to school because of a lack of money. It is also evident that even if these parents somehow manage to take their children to school, they take them to poor schools, and therefore do not manage for higher education. Education influences the health-seeking behavior of individuals. Highly educated people tend to be more sensitive to issues concerning health than people with little education who opt for self-medication which is not healthy.
Cultural believes
These are cultural or traditional believes that exist in every ethnic group. A company in the city will have people from different cultures who come from different places in the country. This group, therefore, holds different perceptions on different health matters, for example, some communities believe that Tuberculosis is a result of witchcraft and cannot be treated in a hospital but through traditional practices.
Age
The age of a person also influences their health-seeking behavior. Young people are not much affected by pollutants like the old who have a weak body immune system. The topic will therefore not have equal influence on all the people working in the company since they are of different age categories.
Health status
The initial health status of a person also influences his or her health-seeking behavior. People who have a problem related to pollution will have a very good concentration on this particular topic than those who have never experienced a problem at all.
Family background
A person’s family background also affects his or her health-seeking behavior. People who have been brought up in families where hygiene and matters regarding pollutants and health are emphasized have a positive view of health behavior even if they do not have a rich educational background. Individuals brought up in a less concerned family about hygiene, pollution and health do not have
health-promoting behavior even though some may be highly educated.
The concept of health promotion and disease prevention
By teaching people who work in a hazardous environment it will familiarize them with the precautions they are required to undertake while working in such an environment and at home as well. This will help them to prevent themselves from diseases occurring as a result of pollution. At the same time promoting health through eating well-balanced food. The idea of disease prevention seems to be poorly followed. The problem that most people have in any society, with the concept of disease prevention is that it is not interesting in any way. If one considers eating well as a means of preventing diseases, he will never be excited to follow it up properly. (Khudston, 1992).According to Suzuki, the only people who become excited about preventing diseases are usually people who already have a disease.
The most effective way of motivating oneself towards healthy living is to understand how food will make one stronger than before.
Cultural attributes
The cultural attributes of this group of people towards pollution are very differing, it is amazing that most of them have no or little concern about pollution as a factor promoting diseases. Some believe that pollution is part of our environment and we have no control over it.
A good number of people believe that diseases are just a natural phenomenon and blaming pollution for it is not justified in any way whatsoever. This cultural belief makes health-promoting efforts ineffective to these people.
For example, smokers have a different opinion on smoking cessation as a health-promoting factor. In a research carried out in the United States on 4351 smokers aged between 25-64 years, as part of the National Cancer Institutes Community Intervention Trial for Smoking Cessation, Younger people responded that there are health benefits in stopping smoking while elderly people said there are no health-promoting benefits accrued to smoking cessation. People who had smoked for more than 20 years also had the same opinion. Those who had a college education also supported that, there are health benefits in stopping smoking while those without college education responded negatively to this health topic. This meant that greater concentration had to be focused on the negative responding group.
A randomized trial for smoking cessation in. (Bernhardt, 1990) Smoking is a form of pollution especially secondhand smoking and it has many effects related to health matters. This is a very good tool for teaching people about the effects of pollution because in a workplace there are people who smoke and do not mind the health of the non-smokers around them.
Conclusion
The information in this piece of work will help these clients in taking matters regarding pollution and health more seriously and this will change their health-seeking behavior regardless of their cultural beliefs. In the workplace, they will be more careful and also implement this behavior at home. The positive change includes eating a well-balanced diet, for example, drinking milk to prevent choking cough by dust which also promotes good health. Educating people on the importance of healthy eating, and positive behavior in seeking health is also a long-term investment because once people are educated about health matters, they protect the health of others either directly or indirectly consciously or unconsciously.
Though it is not that easy to teach across cultures, it is necessary for an educator to know that he or she has a role in changing people’s behavior in seeking health no matter what it takes.
References
Bernhardt, R. (1990), Culture Community and the Curriculum, New York: Oxford University Press.
Gardner, H. (1991), the unschooled mind, New York: NY basic books.
Khudtson, P. and Suzuki, D. (1992), Wisdom of the elders, Toronto: Stordant publishers.
Linda, C.(2006), Social economic status Psychosocial processes and perceived health, New York: Oxford university Press Teaching across cultures also available at.
In almost all the business firms and work areas, workers are paid according to the quality of their work, and not based on how many years they have been doing the job. But teachers are traditionally paid uniformly based on their experience only. This traditional system has invited criticisms from many corners of the nation. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Commented: “as substitutes for performance-based standards, school systems now reward teachers on degrees and seniority.
Yet neither of those measures may correlate with student achievement” (Link Teacher Pay, Student Gains, 2005). As the authorities recognized this idea, Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts put forward a master plan for school reform, which gave stress on merit pay for teachers. The concept of merit pay for teachers, i.e. “giving bonuses in response to how well students perform” (Daily Policy Digest, 2007) has become a topic of discourse, not only among the educational intelligentsia but also in the ordinary social exchanges. The federal government has given around $80 million to the schools and states since November 2006 to implement a merit pay system.
Main text
In the 2000 presidential elections, George W. Bush and Al Gore had a debate over the issue of ‘merit pay’ for teachers. While George Bush supported the new system and proposed “$400 million in new funds for merit pay to be given out to the states” (Merit pay remains a bone of contention among teachers, 2000). Al Gore dismissed merit pay and put forward his plan for the benefit of the teachers. Now, the history repeats with a slight change, when Barack Obama supports the program and Hilary Clinton supports only the school-wide incentive pay and not the extra pay for individual teachers.
Many studies have been conducted in various US universities to study the results of connecting teacher pay to student achievement. Many scholars criticized the effectiveness of the school-district and state-sponsored merit pay system that is seen in many States. They strongly opposed the merit system by saying that a teacher’s performance cannot be measured as in the case of a salesman or lawyer. Teaching is teamwork, and the resultant competition from the merit pay system will weaken the teamwork. But recent findings by two economic professors, Michael J. Podgursky and Matthew G. Springer, “found that student achievement mostly improved when teachers received financial incentives” (Performance-based Pay for Teachers? 2007). They examined the outcome of such systems and found that the results are positive.
Many teachers support the merit pay system by arguing that good teachers should be well compensated. They criticize the traditional pay system where a teacher who cannot do simple mathematical calculations is not only spared from getting fired, but also receives the same reward as the best teacher in the school. Though the system is only in its experimental stage, some good results are already received from different parts of the nation. “At Meadow cliff, a poor urban school in southwest Little Rock tests scores rose about 7 percentage points after instituting merit pay” (Daily Policy Digest, 2007). But many of the supporters of the merit pay system agree that it is a challenge to measure the quality of a teacher.
Teacher’s unions’ in the states strongly oppose merit pay. The largest national Teachers’ union, The National Education Association has taken a stand that considers any kind of pay system “based on evaluation of teachers’ performance, as “inappropriate” (Education, 2007).
One of the leaders of NEA called Romney’s plan as “inequitable, divisive, and ineffective” (Janofsky, 2005). The American Federation of Teachers acknowledges that “the traditional salary schedule does not reward additional skills and knowledge that benefit children” (Olsen, 2001), but their disagreement is that considering student performance on standardized tests to decide the extra payment for the teachers will be unscientific. Protest have aroused from many teachers; unions as in Texas and Florida. But in many states, the unions are recognizing the merits of this system, but they are still of the opinion that student achievement is the only factor for consideration that reduces the effectiveness of the program. But Thomas Hruz tells why unions oppose merit pay: “The threat that teachers’ unions see from a performance-based pay system is clear: it would make them less relevant” (Hruz, 2000).
Conclusion
It seems that the debates happening in the country over merit pay for teachers do not affect the policies taken to make the system into currency. While teachers’ union conventions vigorously declare war on merit pay, educational departments hurry to endorse contracts that pay additional money for teachers to attain good results from the students.
Reference
Daily Policy Digest. (2007). Merit pay for teachers begins to earn high grades. National center for policy analysis. Web.
Merit pay remains a bone of contention among teachers. (2000). Cw.com. Web.
Performance-based Pay for Teachers? (2007). Science Daily.
Education. (2007). Long Reviled, Merit pay gains among teachers. The New York Times. P.2. Web.
Olsen, Darcy Ann. (2001). Teachers Deserve Merit Pay, Not Special Interest Pay. CATO Institute. Web.
Link Teacher Pay, Student Gains. (2005). Ed. Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Janofsky, Michael. (2005). Teacher Merit Pay Tied to Education Gain. The New York Times.
Hruz, Thomas. (2000). Quality Control: merit Pay and Why the Teachers’ Unions Stand in the Way. Wisconsin Interest.
Among the major and urgent concerns that exists in the world today is the ever rising population size that falls in the category that is excluded from meaningful participation and constructive contribution in the economic, social, political and cultural realm of the larger communal context in society.
As it were this state of affairs presents a wanting situation in as far as safety and efficiency. Even more compelling is the role burdened on education as a key component and determinant in the motivation and enhancement of the individual capability and potential. It is seen as a vehicle for widening the individual’s available choices in as far as the enjoyment of the freedoms that are presumed to make life meaningful and worthwhile.
Thesis Statement
The history and jurisprudence of the education sector worldwide has since been influenced by the changing trends and ideologies that have brought human rights to the forefront in all educational management and administration initiatives. To begin with the skills provided by basic education beginning with the basic ones such as being able to read and write receive their own levels of prominence.
Secondly, education is said to de-motivate and discourage the continuance of and existence of other more negative life components. For instance the creation and enforcement of the provision of free and compulsory primary education presumably ameliorates child labor. Thirdly, education bears a great obligation and burden that extends towards powerful empowerment of specific individuals who inadvertently suffer from social and economic devaluation.
The acquisition and attainment of universal education by the general population has a necessarily fundamental impact in the alleviation and elimination of social and economic barriers that accrue to any functional society and forms an essential part of the realization of the individual human freedoms (Bloom, 1956)
Instructors worldwide have the responsibility of being key players in the facilitation of the achievement and fulfillment of the objectives of any education system. In this quest they are faced with varying challenges that vary from financial, social and physical nature.
Of specific interest are the physical and social challenges that appear in the form of diversity in the student body. As it is the success of any education policy lies in the class room setup however small it may seem. This means that the actual challenges in the educational sector lie in the class room (Campbell et al, 1988).
The particular goals of every teacher are to ensure that all his children receive equal access to education especially in areas where it is free and compulsory. They also seek to ensure that the learning needs of the learning individuals are met in the best way possible. They also ensure that the child receives quality education at all times despite the differences in the status of the students.
The objective of education is to provide a uniform ground for every child to acquire knowledge is their individual capacities. These principles are emphasized in the goals of education for all. This however begs the question as to who exactly is all since the student body is wide and diverse in age capacity and status. As it were the intended impact of the education sector education still has a lot to achieve in as far as uniformity in the provision of service especially to the marginalized groups in society.
The general trend has been to exclude these individuals based on a social, financial, ethnic or lingual footing in the hope of providing them with additional assistance. As it is they have been regarded as interested parties in the education arena and have ended up being neglected in as far as education all matters is concerned.
Further little input has been made by educational scientists in evaluating ways which can be adopted to aid the education of children from ethnic and linguistic minorities (Collicott, 1991). Some present even more pertinent concerns that require individualized attention such as girls and children with severe social stigma such as children from family that is of sex-workers’ as well as children from slums.
Others have even more conspicuous needs such as working children, street children, house helps. A more recent concern that has grown tremendously in the last two decades is that of children who are physically and intellectually challenged. This kind of outreach does not in any way suggest creating an advantage to the marginalized groups but more of bringing to the forefront the pertinent needs of specific students that stand at a disadvantage as compared to all others.
The diversity of the student body has gradually risen to the forefront of the emerging concerns for the staff and instructors in the educational sector. More often than not the trained teachers are not trained to accommodate the volatility in needs of the various teaching environment.
In specific regard are the mentally challenged children, specialized students and bilingual students who learn English as their second language. This paper seeks to put to perspective the extent to which these diversities affect the delivery methods of the instructors and staff in the teaching profession. In examining these personalized concerns the paper addresses the pertinent contemporary challenges of the modern day teacher in the hostile education setup.
It will also evaluate the extent to which educating an institutions should bend towards supplementing the disadvantaged students within their institutions of learning. It will evaluate the justification that is held in the adoption of a compulsory ridged curriculum as the manual for the delivery of knowledge to the students as opposed to a random based approach to education.
Arguments
Bilingual students.
It is a well established doctrine that English is the most appropriate educational language due to its worldwide acceptability as well as its flexibility and receptiveness to new ideas and concepts. On the other hand there exists a conservative argument to the effect that English bears a since of linguistic prominence and it therefore should be compulsorily learnt for any successful academic achievements (Darling-Hammond, 1997).
This is however academically incorrect and a misrepresentation of the actual value and object of the language in the furtherance of and delivery of education.
The generalization of the failure of bilingual education is ill informed since the English language is just a vehicle for the conveyance of knowledge and it is not the only mode. It so happens that the conservative English only proponents miss out on a fundamental element of the educational mechanism that goes to establishing the study of English language as learning and the basis of exclusion.
They grail to address the most pertinent concerns that lie in the actual administrators of the bilingual education who are essentially common social science teachers who rarely meet the hard lined demands of the English only. Further despite the fact that English is the most prominent and widely used education language a great number of native English speakers still remain functionally illiterate. This therefore means that the adoption of an English only system does not solely guarantee success to the bilingual students.
Even more compelling the greater populations of minority who have over the years learnt and mastered the language still remain illiterate. This is specifically intense among the black American population. This presents the argument that the success or failure of bilingual education does not lay in the extent of mastery of the English language neither does it lie in the lack of such mastery. From this stand it is easier to formulate a solution to the problem of lingual diversity in the class room setup.
There lies an even greater source of motivation for the continued rise in the number of dropouts and unsuccessful bilingual students. Racial and other modes of segregation play a great role in this process. The history of this challenge is long and winding. It however does not conclusively explain all the incidences of such anti learning behaviors. Research indicates that most of these students find the school process boring inflexible to their modes of adaptation.
Objectively the success of bilingual education can be ended by the instructor’s body if only the teachers would take a little extra effort to motivate the process. This can be done by an extra effort by the teacher in learning the native language of the student to allow them to relate the language with their native language. This is not in any way a move towards maintaining the student’s native languages prominence.
It is an effort that creates a better relation of the learning environment with what the student knows best. From a utility point of view the use of the native language prepares the student for the implementation and transposition of the knowledge acquired in the English language to the actual societal setup back home. It also allows the student to embrace the concept more readily.
In the process the learning process becomes more interesting to the student reducing the level of dropouts. Studies indicate that those students who received an attempt to create a connection between the student’s native language and English were more motivated than those who received the rigid English only lectures. The implementation and adoption of this approach into the education curriculum will increase the success rates among the minority groups in the class.
Full inclusion model
The trend for inclusion of children with disability into the public sector was set in 1975 when the education sector bowed to the human rights campaign for equality among individuals with disability. The law created a provision to allow and ensure that children with disabilities get access to an equal opportunity at public education. In later years the legal platform was reviewer and redrafted to accommodate the contemporary concerns of the disabled population.
It now provides that the disabled population is not only entitled to public education they are also entitled to education in the least restrictive environment. The implication of this provision is that there is a more than probable chance of students with disabilities within the public and in private schools receiving education alongside their normal counterparts who happen not to have such disabilities (Forest and Pearpoint, 1992).
The general trend in schools has been to rush at excluding the children from the normal mainstream class. However these students are just like any other and should be treated as so in as far as allocation of resources that are considered as the best for a student’s well being.
The inclusion approach allows the children a better opportunity at socialization and friendships and motivates a since of belonging and cultivates the social behavior and academic potential as well as the behaviors of such a student. The inclusion of these children into the normal mainstream class room embraces diversity in such a setup.
From a human rights stand the exclusion process goes against the fundamental right. As it were the majority of the individuals who fall in the exclusion class do not really want to be in such a setup due to the stigma that is associated with members of such a class. If the resources are to be availed to a student then they should be done so equally to all students.
This however does not disqualify the truth that these children seem to perform better under the secluded environment. This however blinds the parents who form the majority of the proponents of exclusion since the children only succeed in short term goals such as class room relations and book excellence (Tomlinson, 2001). They however miss out on the most fundamental aspect of the knowledge transfer process that involves the sieving of this knowledge to benefit themselves and the society at large.
The child will therefore fail to fit in the society out there. The situation out there is contrary to the common claim that the world is all inclusive. In actual sense the world is very discriminatory and unreceptive to people with disadvantages. It would therefore defeat the purpose of the education process since the student will not be able to implement the knowledge in the real world.
Inclusion is indeed more cost effective, an element that has been inappropriately interpreted as being the sole objective of the inclusion model (Tomlinson, 1999). The success if the inclusion program does not necessarily center on the student ability to fit into the class. Different children in the disabled category and the mainstream class require different sets of instruction.
This therefore means that it is only a matter of a change e of instruction by the teachers. Inclusion presents the student with an opportunity to overcome the disability notion and fit more into the society.
Teaching education and intelligence
Intelligence can be generalized as an individual’s potential to at problem solving in a society that holds with regard the ability to solve problems. The jurisprudence on the research on the intelligence of the human dates back to the Stone Age and has survived several centuries to date.
Each time the search resulted in a new definition of intelligence depending on the specialty that was used to evaluate such intelligence such as language, logical mathematical calculation and the body’s kinesthetic intelligence which goes to the ability of the individual to use their body parts. There are varying explanations and generalizations of the concept of intelligence. A naturalist would suggest that intelligence is the ability to recognize and classify the various aspects of nature such as plants minerals and animals (Gardner, 1983).
The common ground has been that intelligence is inborn and is therefore a fixed human element that cannot be varied. Biologists on the other hand suggest that the individual has more than one intelligence level. Some propose two and others propose eight. They all agree that the average intelligent human has all the two or eight as the case may be.
The difference occurs if an individual misses one or more of these intelligences. The language intelligence for instance presents a great challenge for those who do not have it since they have poor communication skills. This theory challenges the IQ approach that proposed a scale on which an individual’s intelligence may be weighed.
From the perspective and stand of the syllabi or ministerial curriculum guidelines, the students are treated to have an equal level if intelligence in as far as cognitive and interpretive intelligence is concerned. The teacher’s duty is to regulate the operation and use of these intelligences by the students in the class room setup.
The curriculum the other hand supplements these efforts by increasing awareness of the varying approaches methods and styles of learning that are open to the players in the sector that provide an adequate background and learning experience in a more reflective teaching method. Reflective practice is held to mean the ability of the student to interpret the class knowledge acquired in the teaching process to develop tentative solutions to the problems in society (Gardner, 1999).
In the interpretative understanding of the multiple intelligence theory and approach the prominent objective of the education and learning institution is an understanding of the knowledge being transferred. The student should be able to apply the little bits of knowledge in the subjects they are interested in to the modern day situations
The child is likely to find the mainstream class lesson approach boring and uninteresting. The teacher therefore has a duty to stimulate and motivate the focus of individualized talents and skills into the Childs learning menu to ensure that in as much as they learn all other subjects they develop an interest in a single line of interest. This allows the student to see the value of the learning process.
The double intelligence approach is of little use in providing a tentative solution to the problem of diversity in student’s interests in society. It however offers an explanation for the diversities in the children’s interests that may not necessarily be congratulated and recognized by the rigid education curriculum.
It also plays a very important role in offering a perspective for curriculum formulation of the curriculum and the adjustment of the curriculum to embrace the situation as it is. Education systems have a complex interactive relationship with the environment and society.
This is bond to have a great bearing on the individual student’s interest and focus. In the same measure the society is expected to influence the trends in the educational policy and commitment. The curriculum is a rigid mechanism that seeks to control the volatile and aggressively changing classroom creating a necessary lack of fit. This can however be embraced by adopting a more flexible approach to assessment of children in the context of the existing societal influence.
Creativity
From a Childs rights perspective, whatever prevents children from education is essentially and solely the teachers’ social and professional responsibility. Teaching and education in a strict sense does not only mean the technical exercise within a classroom. It includes an interactive and involving engagement process that requires the teacher should make an attempt at reaching out to children in the community indiscriminately technically as part of their responsibility as the general umbrella of adults and citizens.
Even more compelling research indicates that it is through this kind of outreach the the best brains have been natured and motivated to produce high potential results. The curriculum as it is a present a rather conservative stands that is rigid to chance and creative thinking. The buck therefore stops with the teacher in sustaining a high level of interest in the subject.
As it is there are several other factors besides the teachers input that fuel or extinguish creativity in the class room scene. A teenager who bears a great interest in science may lose that interest if they do not have the courage to stand by such an interest. The society seems to have a ready and set trend that a student is supposed to follow to succeed in the educational environment. Deviation from this prescribed line attracts a great deal of ridicule and reproach.
The teenager who has an interest in science has to convince the parents, the brother, the class teacher and even his counselor that they are actually willing to pursue the field. The society’s setup is such that the child has to convince all these individuals to succeed in receiving their support in the quest for the creative interest (Gartin et al, 2002).
Characteristically the teacher is the final authority in as far as the relevance and viability of the Childs intentions. The teacher is considered as an expert in the field and therefore is relied on by the other members of the social divide. A great cause of dropout in many schools is the lack of interest in the subjects that are offered in the institution.
This could mean that the child has a specific creative interest in a particular subject that is not either not offered in the institution or has been discouraged from pursuing the subject (Tomlinson, 1996). Half the time a child will not mind undertaking other courses as long as they receive the necessary assistance and support in their subject of interest.
The historical contention in research and practice has suggested that performance is the most appropriate and viable predictor of future performance. This position however is not all inclusive since there are times when it fails seriously. Aside from the performance measure there is a need to evaluate the individual’s interest and self image in the determination of the chances of success of the individual in future.
Conclusion
The objective of this paper was to establish the connection if any between the teachings practices and the diversity in the teaching practices adopted by the various learning institutions.
To put the research question into perspective the paper has engaged four challenges that fall in the line of the teaching practice in the modern day education scene. In the process it has also engaged the length of participation that the learning institution should commit its staff in the face of diversity and the effective delivery of knowledge to the individual challenged children.
There exists a great connection between the teaching practice and the method of instruction in the classroom and the performance and receptiveness of a challenged child to education (Vaugn, Bos and Schumm 2003). There i.e. also an invalidly irrelevance relationship between language specifically the English language and the success of the challenged child. The inclusion approach is a feasible method of education that is both economical but also effective in the preparation of the child to the situation in society beyond the school life.
Inadvertently there is a great obligation that rests on the teacher and instructor in ensuring that the children with special needs receive proper instruction in whichever setup that they may be. The proponents of the exclusion approach who are mainly parents also need to evaluate the macro benefits of inclusion as opposed to the invisible micro benefits of the same.
References
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Campbell, C., Campbell, S., Collicott, J., Perner, D. & Stone, J. (1988). Adapting regular class curriculum for integrated special needs students. Education New Brunswick Journal, 3, 17-20.
Collicott, J. (1991). Implementing multi-level instruction: Strategies for classroom teachers. In G. Porter and D. Richler (Eds.), Changing Canadian Schools. North York, Ont.: The Roeher Institute.
Darling-Hammond, L. & Falk, B. (1997). Supporting teaching and learning for all students: Policies for authentic assessment systems. In A. Lin Goodwin (Ed.), Assessment for Equity and Inclusion: Embracing All Our Children (51-76). New York: Routledge.
Forest, M & Pearpoint, J. (1992). With a little help from my friends [Film]. (Columbus, OH: Merrill/Mac-Millan).
Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York:Basic Books.
Gardner, H. (1999). Intelligence reframed: Multiple intelligence for the 21st century.New York: Basic Books.
Gartin, B. C., Murdick, N. L., Imbeau, M. & Perner, D. E. (2002). How to use differentiated instruction with students with mental retardation and developmental disabilities in the general education classroom.Arlington, VA: The Division on Developmental Disabilities of the Council for Exceptional Children.
Tomlinson, C. A. (1996). What is differentiated instruction? From an interview with Leslie J. Kiernan. Web.
Tomlinson, C. A. (1999). The differentiated classroom: Responding to the needs of all learners. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Tomlinson, C. A. (2001). How to differentiate instruction in mixed-ability classrooms (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Vaugn, S., Bos, C. S. & Schumm, J. S. (2003). Teaching exceptional, diverse, and at-risk students in the general education classroom (3nd ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Promoting educational change is a challenging task that requires the use of appropriate drivers. The adoption of internal accountability as the foundation for enhancing the performance of learners must be viewed as an essential strategy that a teacher must consider. The application of the identified approach will require recognizing the significance of social factors as crucial drivers that define the motivation of learners. Furthermore, the emphasis on expanding the learners’ capacity will have to be interpreted as the primary step toward improving their performance (Fullan, 2016).
The principles of leadership leverage should be viewed as the key tools for helping students explore their capacities and use their advantages to attain new and improved results. Furthermore, the principles of continuity must be introduced to the learning environment so that the target audience could engage in the active and uninhibited knowledge acquisition process. As a result, the phenomenon known as “systemness” (Fullan, 2016, p. 47) can be observed in the learning environment. Compelling learners to get their priorities straight, the specified concept is bound to help build the foundation for consistent improvement and successful learning (Fullan, 2016).
Reaction
I believe that the focus on systemness and the enhancement of internal accountability as the primary quality that will encourage learners to adopt the suggested behaviors is a legitimate strategy that is bound to contribute to a massive improvement in students’ academic performance.
That being said, the approach needs further elaboration. For instance, tools for promoting lifelong learning as the academic philosophy that learners must develop should have been discussed in the article as an essential addition to the strategy for academic success. Moreover, the issue of leadership could use more elaboration, including the description of the approach that would provide enough flexibility and at the same time allow building the model that all learners could follow to meet the set standards.
Nevertheless, the overall focus on the importance of fostering internal accountability as the foundation for encouraging learners to develop the necessary academic skills seems reasonable. The article focuses on how a teacher can provide students with appropriate directions, specifying that building knowledge should be given much higher priority than criticizing students as the means of encouraging them to develop the necessary knowledge and skills. Therefore, it enables educators to design the approaches that will help them retain their flexibility, offer learners enough room for developing academic independence, and at the same time guiding them toward success.
While the approach rooted in systemness may have its flaws, its strengths, nevertheless, indicate that it has potential as a teaching strategy. Therefore, it needs to be included in the list of teaching frameworks so that students could develop internal accountability and, thus, focus on acquiring and training the necessary skills. Consequently, a strong emphasis must be placed on building internal accountability in students.
Implementation
When considering the tools that can be used to enhance internal accountability development, one should consider using the transformational leadership framework mentioned above. Providing learners with a positive behavior model that they can follow, the specified strategy compels them to accept the recommended attitudes. Additionally, scaffolding may have to be used to support ESL learners and students with special needs. It should be noted, though, that supervision and change management must be incorporated into the framework. Thus, possible problems that may occur during the implementation phase can be spotted and addressed immediately.
Reference
Fullan, M. (2016). The new meaning of educational change (5th ed.). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
