Volunteer Math & Science Teachers

by David Safier

(TASL) Arizona’s Department of Ed has come up with a wonderful way to solve the math/science teacher shortage: volunteer teachers.

There’s really only one problem with the wonderful new plan. It won’t work.

Here’s how it’s supposed to work. Scientists and engineers will volunteer (that’s right, no pay) to teach one math or science class in a public school. They’ll get 36 hours of training, they’ll spend the first semester working with a licensed teacher, then they’ll work the second semester on their own.

I’m sure the people who volunteer to teach will be good souls who will get an altruistic buzz from the thought of doing something worthwhile, kind of like what you feel when you decide to volunteer once a week at a soup kitchen. But they have no idea what they’re getting themselves into. When they walk into the classroom, they’ll find themselves in the semi-hysterical state of every first year teacher. They’ll go to sleep worried about how they’ll teach the next day and wake up the next morning in a state of minor (or major) panic. When the day’s class is over, they’ll spend countless hours either preparing for the next day or worrying about it.

Their employers will lose hours of work time, unless the volunteers choose to work extra hours. And the loss won’t only be counted in hours and minutes. It will also be counted in prep time these people will be doing when they’re supposed to be working.

Most of the volunteers will only teach for a year, if they last a year, that is. Since they’ll only be on their own second semester, that means the school will get a total of a semester’s work out of them. If the normal teacher has six classes a day, that means each volunteer will be the equivalent of 1/12 of a teacher. It will take twelve volunteers to equal one teacher. The first year, the state plans to have a total of 8 volunteer teachers, though they’ve only managed to round up 4 so far. That means, at most, we’ll have a pickup of 2/3 of a math/science teacher statewide.

How many hours of planning and effort are going into that 2/3 teacher?

I have nothing against people teaching without teaching credentials, especially if they’re skilled in their fields. Lots of people have the ability to teach. All they need is a bit of guidance at the beginning (36 hours is a reasonable number) and some mentoring when they begin. But this program is just silly. They’ll never find enough volunteers to make it worthwhile, and those volunteers will quickly tire of working their tails off for no pay. They won’t stick around.

I expect to get those “you’re such a cynic” comments from this post. Honest, I’m not being a cynic. I’m just being realistic. Most teachers will tell you their first year of teaching was the hardest professional year of their lives. It takes 2-5 years to get the knack for teaching, and even then it’s tough. I taught thirty-plus years. I was pretty successful. It never stopped being tough.

To counter those who call me a cynic who just likes to shoot down other people’s ideas but has none of his own, here is my plan to lessen our teacher shortage. RAISE TEACHERS’ SALARIES SO MORE PEOPLE ARE ATTRACTED TO THE PROFESSION! CUT CLASS SIZES SO TEACHERS HAVE A CHANCE TO REACH EVERY STUDENT! GIVE TEACHERS THE BOOKS AND MATERIALS THEY NEED!

Sorry for shouting, but it’s just so obvious.