This week will see the first day for the school year in many communities. Time to ask teachers this question:
Do you feel prepared?
Periodically we get a survey of teachers about this question, and typically a fairly large number of teachers say, “No, I don’t– or didn’t– feel prepared when I first stepped into a class room.”
This is most typically offered as evidence that teacher preparation programs are stinky and need to be overhauled or replaced. I’m never going to declare that no teacher preparation programs are stinky (a few, in fact, are extraordinarily stinky), but I do think the survey results have an alternate meaning.
I had 39 first days of school in my career, and I never felt fully prepared for any of them.