As a non-tenured teacher, I am very careful whose toes I might be stepping on as I voice my opinions regarding topics for discussion past my immediate classroom design. I am currently in my tenure year, thus leading to an even more sheltered Mr. Coffed than ever before. For this reason, I would not consider myself to be meeting my full potential in taking on the role of a science educator leader. This is the saddest and most unproductive part of the tenure process. New teachers are told to “keep their mouths shut” for the first three years of their career as to not upset the “wrong people” and therefore not be granted tenure. This is a messed up process. Although new teachers may lack the experience that administrators or veteran teachers have, they enter a school with the most up-to-date teaching strategies in their arsenal of tricks, but are consequently told to shelter how much or when they can share them. I feel very comfortable with my science department and we are quite the collaborative group, so to share these ideas for instruction with them is quite easy for me. To share information or suggestions for improving instruction past this department, however, is not a comfortable thing for me to do at this time. In order to sneak in a few suggestions, I rather frequently forward some of my ideas to our principal, who often reviews them and provides some feedback. I have yet to see her use these ideas, however, and therefore feel as though they are just brushed by the wayside. Effecting large-scale change in my school will be quite difficult without the support of administration. If they were to jump on board with some of my suggestions, maybe more teachers would begin to stray from their old ways of teaching and enter a new form that presents high-quality instructional strategies.
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