Unmasking the Special Education Shortage with Dr. Kimber Wilkerson

This is Busted Pencils, fully-ledded education talk.

Here are your hosts, Dr. Tim Slecker and Dr. Johnny Lupinacci,

educated educators talking education.

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educated educators talking education.

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Doing all right.

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Johnny, great guest, great show tonight.

We have covered, though, this topic.

We're getting a little bit more in depth.

Hey, news out there to the world.

There's a teacher shortage right now.

Um, just in case anybody hasn't been paying attention.

And that would be you, my neighbor,

who we're talking to, my neighbor.

There's a teacher shortage, however, Johnny.

Who knew?

Who knew?

Who knew?

But before we get to our guest,

I know producer Anya has queued up a piece.

We're going to listen to a little segment here.

Anya, let's let that roll, please.

Seven and a half million American students

are roughly 15% of them have disabilities

that qualify them for a special instruction,

what's known as individual education plans.

But teachers trained in this critical area

are in short supply.

At the beginning of the current school year,

70% of school surveys said they had openings

for special education teachers.

We asked special education teachers and administrators

to tell us how the shortage is affecting them.

You're spread thin, you know,

and you're working with a student on a lesson

to meet their academic goals,

but you're also thinking about the student behind you

who's working on maybe feeding

or they're getting their medications

and you're thinking,

how can I support that student

when I'm working with another student?

There, there it is, Johnny.

Special education teacher shortage.

Well, let's get to our guest.

Our guest, she has broad expertise

in the preparation of teachers who work with students

with disabilities and providing instruction

to students with disabilities

to improve their long term academic

and social behavioral outcomes.

She is currently the director of teacher education

and certification officer for UW-Madison University,

Wisconsin-Madison.

Welcome to Busted Pencils, Dr. Kimber Wilkins at Wilkerson,

Kimber.

How are you?

I am doing well.

It's so nice to be here.

It's so nice to see you, man.

It's been a while.

You know, Johnny Kimber and I,

you know, used to in the Wisconsin,

you know, made some noise at the time.

Great.

Look great.

So, Kimber, that was from the piece

that was on, I think it was the National Public Radio

where they're talking about this.

Kimber, there's a teacher education shortage.

Lay it out for us.

Like, what's happening?

Why?

What's going on?

First response.

What do we do?

That's what's going to be the whole show.

So, you're not going to obviously answer all those questions.

But, Kim, how did we get to a special education teacher shortage?

Well, there has always been a special education teacher shortage.

So, you know, special education became, you know,

mandatory in public schools in the 70s.

And even from the beginning, there was not enough,

there were not enough teachers to fill the openings.

And there were certain kinds of, you know,

assignments within special education that had the most kind of

chronic shortages.

So, any job where people were going to work directly with kids with,

you know, significant needs,

kids with emotional behavioral kinds of challenges.

Those were positions that were sort of,

people were least likely to want, right?

They left them quickly.

So, there's always been this kind of every year in the fall.

Kind of this clawing around, trying to find people to fill these positions.

And then, you know, in the last 10 years, as there's been more of a,

you know, shortage.

And I put that in air quotes.

But as there have been less, you know, teachers interested in

staying in their jobs or less people entering the field,

that's kind of hit special education even harder, right?

So, it was the, it was the position that people were less interested

in from the beginning.

And then, you know, just hit harder within all of this.

I like the way that, not like,

but there's always been a shortage of special education teachers.

And you point out, though, too, because it's hard work.

And all teaching, you know, in Johnny and I are going to say,

all teachings, hard work.

But special education, it's hard work.

And people potentially looked and said, yeah, you know,

and I'll be out, I saw that as a potential opportunity for me

when I was learning, you're learning to be a teacher.

And I said, no, that's, I can't, I admitted.

I can't do that.

That's not my, my, my passion.

That's not where I see my ability to do my best work.

But boy, I can see people who get in there and go like,

they need to be there.

They're the best.

And you just think about, you know, these are our children who,

you know, they have the, the significant needs,

the, the ability, there's always been a shortage.

But here we are now faced with, let's, let's be honest,

it's crisis, isn't it, Kimber?

I'd say it feels that way in many schools and districts, yes.

You know, okay.

So when they're, go ahead, you want to jump on?

Well, you know, I was just going to say this issue of,

I do think there's, in some ways,

especially I always has a PR problem.

And that might extend to the general society and the way we think

about disability.

You know, that people think, see something as being very challenging

instead of thinking, well, this is just the spectrum of way people

present in life.

And, you know, we don't necessarily have to treat people with

differences all that differently, you know.

But of course, there is specialized knowledge.

And of course, there are, you know, skills and, you know,

things that people need to know about the law.

So I'm not suggesting that it doesn't take some kind of specialized

knowledge.

And I'm not also not suggesting that there might be some people

with, you know, certain personalities or, you know,

ways of approaching difference that might make them better

for the job.

But I do think sometimes like I say,

it's, I feel like it's almost like a PR problem for disability,

combined with a PR problem or being a teacher, right.

So, well, there's so much in that the way, you know,

say it's just okay, special education.

And I could, you know, right now I can see my neighbor going,

oh, those kids, right.

I mean, but yeah, I don't know who's going to work with those kids.

Or I remember those kids are, you know, hey, I used to hang out

with one of those kids.

Johnny, did you have any of those kids in your classrooms?

Absolutely.

But I mean, I've taught both in special education classroom

and then in what we called at the time mainstreamed.

But, you know, coming back to this, I think, you know,

you're both talking about this crisis on top of a crisis.

And it's a large understanding of how we, in general approach,

be becoming a teacher, right.

And the certain dispositions in the certain ways, you know,

from go, we also within even our own programs,

Tim, we talked about this a lot, right.

We separated out special education and education and regular education

as though there's like this mystical different thing that happens

and Dr. Wilson talked to this, you know,

there are certainly things that special educators,

I even hate that term, right.

Except they are absolutely our superstar educators, right.

But the idea that we've set up this separation

or this exclusionary way of understanding what's required

of being a great teacher.

And fortunately for myself, I mean, again, it's a PR problem,

again, it's an internal messaging problem.

I didn't realize that some of the best teachers that would mentor me

as a new teacher and as even a veteran teacher always learning

were special educators.

Were folks who were receiving a little bit,

I don't even want to say more, but a different kind of focus

from experts who were teaching them to be teachers through a lens.

I wish we all had.

And Dr. Wilson brings us this tremendous ability to discern

and embrace and value difference.

I truly believe that and I hate these term special education

that really good special educators and special education programs

make the best teachers.

And it's not easy, but they do a great job

because the capacity, the handle that we have learners

with different needs, that some we can see those different needs,

some we have to learn about them, but we have to have flexibility

and capacity to understand those differences and to value them

and to value that there is a person learning in that classroom.

There is always a person first learning and that, you know,

we've somehow again, like we've picked on schools for a long time,

started it out in a way that doesn't quite exactly make sense

for all that we know about how we live,

how we ought to live together in communities and families.

And that's why I know the terms are really problematic,

but I really enjoy teaching.

It was kind of called a mainstream program

because we had the supports.

We had special educators and regular educators.

We had good educators working together.

We had supports that made our classroom communities

more like the communities we were realistically

not only living in, but wanted to be living in,

where we embraced one another as members of our classroom community

with those differences.

I wonder if this is, though, too.

Maybe a little bit of terminology here.

Kimber, IEP.

And John, you talk about, you know, differences in students.

IEP stands for what?

Individualized education program.

Essentially, this is a document that lays out

what this individual kid needs that is going to be different

or distinct or additional to what every other student,

whether you call that regular or you call that general,

whatever you call that classroom of students, typical.

So if a student needs something additional,

an adaptation, a modification, a change,

they need some special services,

they need access to a speech language pathologist,

they need access to adaptive equipment,

you know, all different kinds of things they might need.

And those are laid out in that document

that individualized education program.

Well, in the way you said it to,

I think for people to understand the spectrum

or the continuum of recognizing,

you know, what is special education?

Well, it could be an intellectual issue,

it can be physical, it can be physical,

and intellectual at the same time.

But recognizing what we said is that there are differences

and that some children have a little bit more of an emphasis,

I'd say, on some of those differences

that requires teachers with a specialized knowledge

to be able to look at, work with,

develop that individual education plan

because that individual has those needs

a little bit above and beyond the classroom.

And so we are talking special education teachers.

No one can be.

If every page was stored for the night,

you say,

what do I still have some need?

How much?

Uh, must the pencils fully let it education talk,

educated educators talking,

education, our guest, Dr. Kimber Wilkerson

from the University of Wisconsin Madison,

special education, individual education plans.

We have talked on this show for the last few years

about the teacher shortage.

And I say, Kimber, and you knew this too,

that I don't call it a shortage.

We have a teacher exodus.

We have an exodus.

We have a problem.

Special education teachers are talking about this during the break.

Kimber, how?

If I become a special education teacher,

because we said,

what are some of the causes of the shortage?

Um, special education teachers stay in the field.

What are the challenges to staying?

I graduate.

I got my special education degree.

I go out and I start practicing.

How long do I stay in the field?

Yeah.

I mean, that, that's a,

that's a great question.

And that, that number.

Uh, the answer has decreased over time.

Right.

In recent years, it has decreased.

So special educators,

it's the sort of the average number of years that someone stays in the profession.

Has, uh, always been slightly lower than it is for general educators.

And, um, it's also slightly lower for teachers of color.

Um, but as we have, you know, in the last five years,

let's say that the,

the average length of stay for special educators has, has decreased even more.

So we see a lot of people who, they go to school, they get their degree,

they start in the field, and then after two years, they are ready to be done.

Um, they are, unfortunately, because of the shortage.

So whatever you attribute that to, and it's probably attributed to many things, right?

You know, the, the, the, the lack of,

uh, autonomy that teachers experience, the erosion of their benefits and pay,

um, the erosion of public respect for the teaching profession,

all kinds of things in addition to whatever was there before for special education.

But now when you are in a school setting for a special educator,

um, you would be assigned a caseload.

So you have a certain number of students with disabilities,

who you are, uh, responsible for making sure they have the things that they need.

Um, sometimes some special educators work with the kids in a separate classroom.

Right? Some special educators pull kids out of classrooms and work with them for,

let's say, reading, work with them for math, study skills, things like that, and send them back.

And sometimes they, uh, co-teach with a general educator.

And so they're working together in a classroom, and that special educator is,

you know, making sure the needs of those kids with disabilities in that room are met.

So whatever it is, like their day to day work,

how they interact with kids and other professionals can vary greatly,

depending on the model that a school uses.

But, um, they have a caseload.

So those are the kids that they write their IEPs, the individualized education programs.

Yep, they meet with the families.

They might track and monitor how, how they'll set with collaboratively with parents and other teachers set goals for the kid.

And they'll kind of take data and make see how the kid is progressing and see if anything needs to change.

Um, they'll collaborate, you know, check in with the other service providers.

A lot of times kids work with, they might see a social worker or a school psychologist or a speech language person or an occupational therapist.

So there's a lot of other professionals who might interact with the kid as well.

And so sometimes that special educator is like the case manager, like the, you know, they're the person who is the.

Connects with all those other professionals and kind of tracks everything.

So they have a lot of work to do.

Plus they have this.

They're teaching, you know, yeah, that's what I was going to say.

So the way you point that picture is is to realize that I think everybody has a vision of their teacher and what their teacher did growing up and they remember.

And some people may even quote remember the special education teacher or the special education room.

But what you're talking about Kimber, too, is and not when I was a fifth grade teacher, I had lots of other extra responsibilities too.

But the fact is is that I didn't have a caseload of other students on top of the teaching responsibilities.

And so pointing that out, you'd say, you know, so the workload of a special educator is different.

And it could potentially then create this, you know, sense of saying, wow, this is a lot of work.

Now, if we're looking though to say, how do we incentivize people to stay in the field longer?

I know somebody saying go, well, you know, let's do something about it.

Let's do it.

You though late, late fourth, a whole bunch of reasons.

Let's talk about one, though, and I wonder how this, because for me, this is a key issue.

What do you mean by job autonomy?

How is that an issue with the special education teacher?

I mean, why do they need autonomy?

Don't they just follow the script?

I don't think there's a script.

But I do think that, you know, as teachers are, feel like they have more kind of creativity in terms of, you know, more room to come up with individual, you know, accommodations for a kid, meaning solutions.

Like if a kid is struggling with something in the classroom, then the special teachers job is to kind of work with the general educator and come up with

things that tweaks they might need to make so that the kid can be successful.

And one thing that, you know, this is, I'll come a circle to your autonomy point, but one of the problems with the shortage is that teachers, the caseload of those teachers has increased.

So it used to be that a teacher would have 12, 8, 15 students on their caseload.

And now, if you work at a school where there used to be three special educators, and now there's two.

Now, instead of you each having a caseload of 10, you each have a caseload of 15.

And now let's say you're the only special educator in the building, and you have a caseload of 30.

And I see this happen, you know, we have our graduates from our program at EW Madison, who are, I think, well prepared, you know, like committed, and they'll go out to a school.

And I have just like literally just this week, talked to someone who got her master's degree, was very excited to be a special educator and is in her first year of teaching.

And she was notified sort of in the middle of recess duty one day that her caseload was being that one of the teachers had left.

You know, this was this was January and that because of that, the other remaining teachers were going to have to take over that person's caseload.

And in fact, they changed her caseload completely and put her in a different classroom. So she was very kind of crushed because she worked really hard to establish relationships and, you know, and now that she was just being told like on a Wednesday afternoon that starting tomorrow on Thursday, you have a different caseload.

And you have a bigger caseload. So it's that kind of stuff is, you know, demoralizing and it makes people feel like they don't have control over their work environment and they're, you know, they can work really hard and then things, you know, things keep changing and shifting and for special educators that increase in caseload size means that you can give less attention to kids.

I think one of the reasons people go into special education or a thing that they enjoy is you get those individual relationships, like I listed all those things you have to do for an IP.

But that means you're getting to know that kid, you're getting to know their family, you're like checking in with that person, you're advocating for that person, like you have a relationship and the bigger your caseload and the more it changes.

That that relationship piece is, you know, compromised and that one of the things that you took as a joy in your job is now being removed. So I think that's one of the, you know, real

unfortunate artifacts of less teachers is that it just keeps, you know, it's this cyclical thing and it makes it even harder.

It just keeps building the caseload continues to increase special education teacher teacher shortage our guest Dr. Kimber Wilkerson University Wisconsin Madison.

Got some questions. Give us call 844-967-2789. Give us a call when we get back.

Yeah, go ahead and dance if you want. It's plus but pencils fully let it education talk. That's what we're doing. If you're in there watching the livestream, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, you can see, yeah, you know, Johnny and Tim.

They're okay to look at to even some time around.

They're dancing. Oh, educated educators talking education. Our guest Dr. Kimber Wilkerson University of Wisconsin Madison.

The special education teacher shortage the numbers 844-967-2789. You know, right now you're special education teacher out there listening. Call us. Let us know.

You know, what is going on in the field? We, you know, we need to hear from you. Make that put out there.

But Kimber, as we come at this, you know, people can okay, so what do we do about it? You know, what do we do about it? And I want to give you a situation that and you tell me if this is a what we should do about it.

Let's figure out and let's find people who want to do this and then tell them by decree that they are an emergency licensed special education teacher.

Send them into special education settings and then tell them while you're working learn to be a special education teacher.

How does that work out? You can tell my tone of voice what I think.

Yeah. And you know, when there's a shortage, one way that teachers are placed is someone gets an emergency license, right?

Right. And that person doesn't have the preparation, but they go into the position and they get as a special educator up to three years to get that fully licensed.

The danger, of course, is that if someone's going to get burned out, that's going to happen even faster if they go into a job that requires a lot of, you know, high degree of skill.

And if they go in under prepared, that's just going to lead them to feel, you know, distraught even faster.

And of course, there's a, you know, a drawback for the students who are students and families who have been sort of assigned to this educator who doesn't know all the rights that students have doesn't know the kinds of whole breadth of services that they might be able to render.

So it just means that that no matter how kind of committed that educator is, that emergency certified educator is, they're not going to have all of the, you know, knowledge and skills to be able to most effectively serve that student.

And I would say that students with disabilities, given, you know, the like higher likelihood of experiencing four outcomes that they, they need to have access to the most well prepared teachers, not the most under prepared teachers.

Okay, I got to ask this though, when's the last time you got on an airplane with an emergency certified pilot?

Yeah, I am.

I hope last time you went for surgery with an emergency certified surgeon, you know, Johnny, get jump in there.

And I always, I always provide a little bit of a perspective sometimes and I agree with you on this overall, I really agree like, hey, the solution is not let's, let's use this crisis that's manufactured in a sense, but it's real.

Kids are suffering teachers are suffering special educators are spread tremendously thin and already stressed.

And the hardest thing that we talked about when you're, when you know how to do a job well and you know you can't do it because the structure and the support around you is beyond that of being able to do your best.

It is really almost impossible for educators, especially great educators to do that day in and day out and not really suffer and like it's a, it's a demoralization.

Right, but I'll provide the perspective and I wish this was something more that was more part of this conversation is as former parapro, pro educator in a classroom.

This is my pathway to becoming a teachers in a special ed school, I like this is what I want to do and they were like, well, you actually have to go to school, you have a whole lot of work ahead.

But in the meantime, I was, I was working in a really great classroom as a parent educator and and I can imagine and I've had amazing.

Parent educators and some of them even better than the teachers I was teaching within a school, I can imagine some cases where.

Like an emergency provisional.

Like like playbook like hey, I could call an audible and I really need an adult who's really capable and on track this to maybe be in a in a learn to be certified kind of context.

There's some important flexibility, but it puts a lot of trust in the system and in the school leaders and then the capacity of the school and the district to support great educators becoming teachers.

Right, and so sometimes I think like that special provisional thing is like, oh man, we have a huge shortage and this is going to help us because we have three amazing pair educators we've talked about this before, Tim.

The path of becoming a teacher is prohibitive, they can't leave their work, their family, their location to do a traditional teacher prep program.

And so there are some creative ways that said, I don't want to use that one case to be like, this is the rationale and reason why we should just lower the requirements.

And, but I do think you're bringing up a good point and I will say that in my last several years, I've had the opportunity to work with some programs that are working directly to support people on provisional license, people who are pair educators going into special education.

Programs, sometimes those are programs that are sort of highly resourced, I have one right now that's funded by a teacher quality partnership grant and they can give people a living stipend so you can spend a full year getting paid and doing a full year residency taking classes getting certified and at the end of it, you become teacher record.

So it's well resourced and that's best case scenario there are other places where people are struggling to you know and they are kind of like well we're going to this person has shown a commitment to you know like working with kids with disabilities they're interested their career changer it's hard for them to stop work for you have no salary for two years you know get loans.

So they are doing these things putting people into emergency certified positions and then helping them along the way.

I don't think it's ideal right like ideal is a teacher who has the preparation the certification I think that's gives them sort of the best strongest grounding to stay and you know to nourish them it's hard to be a full time teacher in a stressful job and go to school full time.

So all those things but I do think I have seen some programs where you know the pathway if people are really committed and they have to have support though like the emergency cert teachers sometimes they have someone right next door who's an expert and then other times they're just floundering and they're in a school where there are no experts because everybody else is new too.

Yeah and that's Johnny you know that that's where I was going is is that you know it's like show up yeah yeah I'll be in emergency certified special educator and then they go in there and you know first of all it's just like okay they weren't prepared they don't have the time and like Kimbers pointing out too you know they are going to this is they they are going to be put in a position to work with children who have the most needs and yet we're going to put people.

To put people who have the least training and I just the emergency certified you're saying John provisional are their pathways for committed individuals to get there that have the support systems in place yeah I'm for that it's just I was really I'm just get every time there's a shortage in somebody says well you know teaching everybody knows how to do it just let anybody do it you know why do we even need a teaching license and that you know that's kind of where I'm going to do it.

I'm coming at that from that point of view is gone you look you actually exacerbate the problem by doing that because and I saw this it would pretty extensively it one of the past places I was at to see that the number of emergency certified people who in that three year term to get their license about close to 90% never finished and got there anyway and so you looked at it and saw this as well.

This is going this is in a solution this just adds to the continued demoralization because they're then teaching alongside incredibly strong special educators who continue to see in Kimberly say if this is true or not they then see as we see emergency less and I say less than certified showing up doesn't it push down and demoralize the special education teachers that are there.

Yes and also having open vacant positions yes as well and you know to some extent having a you know a never ending supply of brand new teachers does to I mean they're different they're different.

Turn is bad turn is bad and if you you aren't able to sometimes there'll be schools that are almost in crisis the turn is so bad that any new person who comes in wants to leave so you know that is a challenge and how you how you stem that you know how you stop that I feel like you have to support give more supports to those new educators however they got there you know when they're new I think sometimes

I think sometimes especially in a district that feels a little Christy see there's a tendency to just want to be like oh that person has their license now or they have an emergency license or whatever they showed up quick thrown in the deep and you know like because we need help instead of saying can we like let them have a smaller case load can we make sure someone's checking in with them can make sure they have planning time because there's such a you know because people are so feel so resource restricted in schools they they don't they're not like

they're not like thinking in a caring way about nurturing new professionals and I wish we could somehow wrap our minds around that because I keep seeing as as you know I'd like as that you're an educator preparation we keep preparing them and sending them out and what I hate is when I hear them call in year one and say I can't do this you know like so even if it's the education preparation programs themselves that go out and provide that additional support somebody should be doing it because

it just feels like you know it's so highly problematic to put them out there and then it almost just burn through them as if they are you know they're all replaceable so

Johnny I see you there oh yeah there's no fast path to being a great teacher we talk about it all the time especially from that angle of being blue collar scholars it's hard work to be a teacher it's an apprenticeship in a sense it's a developing a craft

a master craft it starts sometimes even before you're in a program to learn those really important things but it continues well into your career and supports around that just like so many of the trades

you have to have so many hours really mastering the craft you know I think that's really important to remember that that's part of it and just to be thrown in any classroom

let alone classrooms in schools where there are shortages and lack of supports in general for all students our special educators suffered just a tremendous amount of demoralization

because they see that how important this and how great it could be that I think was always one of the most frustrating things

is like we know better why can't we do this differently and and my special education colleagues were just phenomenal at knowing this and and having a toolbox of so many different pedagogical strategies

that quite frankly if we want to call that general education or regular education most of us becoming teachers didn't learn and it was like whoa whoa hold up

these are amazing things that work in classrooms and really great situations you know we understood this kind of through a tunnel vision of what it meant to be a teacher

and and so it's more work it's worthwhile work we need more great teachers most of the people I've I've taught with who went through train like proper programs to become special educators are the best teachers in our school districts hands down

right so we need more of them we need them supported and it's it's a no-brainer to me and to most folks in schools

so it's really frustrating because why aren't we doing more to support music to my ears yes

well Kimber that I mean that's all we're trying to do here with the busted pencils every night now that's why we're five days away

because we want this message out there because well you said you know and this is you know how did we get to this point

that we you know a teacher shortage a special education teacher shortage all of the things that are out there

you know people shouldn't we pay people yes we should pay people more shouldn't we provide more support yes we should provide more support

shouldn't we provide more opportunities for those people who want to become special educators the ability to become those people with the supports yeah

that's what it means to support a community around a public school and a public education is to recognize

that we have a commitment and a responsibility as a community the idea that you wherever you're listening right now

have a shortage of teachers special education teachers that's a problem

Dr. Kimber Wilkerson University Wisconsin Madison thanks for busting pencils with us tonight

thank you for your text

you're listening to the shop w-a-u-k walkie-shaw home for the tonal ball show

must pencils fully let it education talk educated educators talking education eight

four four nine six seven two seven eight nine eight four four nine six seven two

seven eight nine if you would like to call special education teachers if you're

out there we want to hear from you great guest Dr. Kimber Wilkerson University

Wisconsin Madison special education teacher Johnny the shortage of special

education teachers lots of information there I mean Dr. Wilkerson you know we

got to have more of this on because you know we've talked about special education or we've

talked about the teacher shortage in general but to realize too to say like and I have to say

our most vulnerable students the ones who have the most needs are the ones that are suffering the

most in this situation right and you know at time I think it's a big big bigger issue especially

when we're talking about this of what schools why schools have been the way they are and why we

continue to do things in in like bad habit patterns and not breaking those cycles and saying hey we

know this doesn't work by and large for diverse learners and when I say that like we all learn

really differently right and and that's even even all the way through to the level who's becoming

a teacher we've modeled so much of this after a stereotype of a particular kind of teaching that's

based on our primary socialization of what we experienced or saw in schools or had sort of a

socialization to what a great teacher was I know what teachers do not watch them a whole life

well it's one of the few unless you were sort of raised in a in a business or in a trade or

something it's one of the few jobs that you've been on the job experiencing and that's what I

mean when I bring up that term primary socialization those habits that are that become

near superhighways in our brain the habits of mind that come to how we do things

are are sort of etched in over time by our primary socialization our experience on the job

which almost all of us becoming teachers have like 20 years of on the job you know

socialization for better for worse and because we've done things in schools the same way by and

large mostly in almost every school around this country and increasingly around the world really

we we have some real habits of mind around what it means to be a teacher who can be a teacher

how teachers sound what they say what we do during the day those habits and patterns and what we

know is that those habits and patterns don't work for a whole lot of learners right and so then

we've categorized like we could go on and on about this but where we said hey here's an idea

let's throw all the kids born around the same time in a room together you know 20 some of them

with somebody who's like older than them right so a bunch of a bunch of kids born on the same time

this this is got to be the way to do it this is got to work right and so that's that's in general

like a cursory like here's how we you know decide who's going into kindergarten who's going into

first grade and like each year you move with that group so that group socializes together and

moves through and every once in a while you swap out and switch up the adult right and so

you know we've learned that while that you know by large works and I'm throwing up scare quotes

know that it doesn't work great for all learners and we can do things differently

that have the flexibility and the capacity to recognize different learners and this is something when

we start to talk about school change this is something our special educators are leaders in

because they already do so much of that right Dr Wilkerson came on here tonight and talked about

IEP's individual education programs right and so that acknowledges hey we have a person here

who learns but learns with some different needs and these essentially are really important skills

for teachers they're great arguments for why every classroom should maybe have like 18 learners

in it because I can learn the different ways my students need supports and math and reading

in social studies right I can learn how they learn to be better to listeners differently I can also

have capacity that my peers may teach differently than I do right I have a loud voice right

my voice carries I don't yell but I'm pretty loud so it's kind of almost like yell talking all the

time and that's kind of familiar for students a teacher could also be soft spoken and highly

effective right so we have to be developing our capacity to understand difference both in how our

students learn and how our teachers teach and what we know Tim and I hate to be the like

is we just increasingly keep saying hey it needs to look this way and here's what it is it needs

to sound this way and here's how it sounds and kids here's the activities you're going to do

and it's all the same right when we didn't even get into that part too because I was kind of

getting there with with with with Kimber but the idea though too of you know the autonomy part

that we talked about me and I say a lot of that autonomy is being stripped away too it's because

you know every teacher now is being told if you do get to the realm of being teacher the fact

that you go in there to make decisions you find out very quickly there's not a whole lot of

decision making allowed for you and then as we start to see more and more that you know scripted

programmatic and you know and and special educators have lots of those techniques and they

understand lots of different ways but to then even potentially feel like and don't

individualize do this do that the whole it's a mess no wonder people were leaving teaching

I just know and you brought it up Tim you said you wouldn't want an emergency surgeon or emergency

pilot you know there is a baseline of what it means to be a be a great doctor and and I'll just

keep it real simple you take a hypocratic oath you know arm right and so this is essentially

teachers doing this and you're saying most teachers even though it's not written in and maybe

it ought to be right like I take this oath to take this knowledge that I have this experience

developing a craft to be a great teacher and I'm going to use it to do no harm and then you're

thrown into a situation where it feels like you're doing harm and what happens is really good

people in that situation say I'm sorry I can't continue to do this right and that's probably in

most cases a clarion call that we got to do things differently in our schools it's to be you know

this is what I said come on my neighbor you're listening to the show this is unacceptable

well this is unacceptable the idea out there is you know we we have the ability to create the conditions

where teachers thrive special education teachers wood shop teachers although we call a tech

head now you know cooking teachers elementary teachers we have the capacity to fix the teacher

shortage and that just means leaning into and realizing how incredibly important these people are

to this point where we step up as a community and say this are our future these are our kids these

are our communities these teachers matter we're going to make sure that we keep teachers in place

because they are the best for all of our kids oh yes that's what's back tomorrow