Greg Fairbanks is a senior staff at UNITE (Urban Needs in Teacher Education) and I've had the pleasure of meeting and working with him and the rest of the UNITE staff this past year. UNITE's mission "focuses on enhancing the preparation of future teachers with knowledge, skills, and experiences to promote success upon immediate arrival in a K-12 classroom throughout our nation’s most underprivileged and underrepresented schools in effort to strive towards lowering the national attrition rate."
Greg's Ted Talk really puts things in perspective about the reality of teacher dropouts. I've already had three teachers leave my school this past year. I'm also sure that there are still a few more that are just sticking it out until the end of the year and will not be seen again next year. It's cold, but it's the truth.
Teachers become teachers for a reason and that's to teach. Like Greg said, I have family and friends ask me what my plans for later are or am I planning on moving up the ladder to administration. I usually always nod and say yeah thinking about it, but honestly no I'm not. And just like Greg said this is it. It ends right here for me. This is my career. I'm not saying people don't respect what I do, but it's sad when they don't see teaching as a life long career. Apparently it's not "good enough" to be a just a teacher?
Going off this Ted Talk teacher dropout rate also affects the students. Starting fresh is hard. Trust me I have seen my students experience it at least two times this past year. It's difficult. The teacher is usually the only consistency that most of these kids have in their lives and when that starts changing, well they began to lose faith. The last thing we need is for our students to lose faith.
I mean 50% of teachers dropout of the profession meaning they no longer want to be teachers.
50.
-Ms. P
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