Joshua Emmott
Walter: You mean to share techniques, Tracy? Tracy: Techniques and actual activities. Tarim: I’m glad we’re talking about culture. An intellectual, pro-teaching culture is very endemic to this place. And I’ve visited schools where material didn’t matter, teaching didn’t matter. We’re lucky even to be having this conversation, because teaching can be really hardscrabble when values are askew. Lisa: How do we identify teaching that’s not up to snuff, and how do we address it? Walter: I assume if a head of department were to hear negative commentary about a teacher, he would address it. Carly: That is what happens. We have the first-year, the three-year evaluation and subsequent ones, and we depend on department chairs spending a fair amount of time in classrooms.
Jenn Eng
Lisa: Does our evaluation system work? Carly: I think so. We lay out expectations each year, and if they aren’t met, people move on. Elizabeth: The proactive new teacher will get the feedback she needs to improve; we do need good ways to help people who want to stay at Milton. Jenn: How do you get a teacher to have a dynamic understanding of what good teaching is, and how do you get good teachers to intrinsically want to be better teachers? Carly: I think we hold the bar pretty high here. If teachers don’t have the personal motivation to learn to do well, then they probably shouldn’t be here. We have departmental communities, and department chairs need to be encouraging, teaching and loving the people in their departments for improvement to happen. And loving can mean saying, “Do it a different way.”
Gregg Reilly
Gregg: We need to evaluate department heads’ evaluation processes. Tracy: Training can help people improve, but a good teacher has a certain amount of just plain “with-it-ness.” Without it, all the training in the world won’t make you a good teacher. Gregg: And a great teacher in one setting may not be a great teacher in all settings. Walter: I really believe that. Lisa: What are a few things that we know we need to do to keep Milton packed with top-notch teachers? Tracy: We need to plan time for us to learn from each other. Kim: Attend classes across disciplines— experience being a student again. Carly: That’s so valuable. A couple of sabbaticals ago, I studied for a year and I came back knowing more about teaching by a huge factor than I did when I left. Lisa Baker, English Department
Tracy Crews
Kim Samson
Tarim Chung
Milton Magazine
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