Good teachers in America are so unhappy with lazy unmotivated teachers like you and me. That becomes abundantly clear in Caroline Lewis’s new book, “Just Back Off and Let Us Teach.”
Lewis, a teacher and administrator, has taken all the lessons learned from her career and from other teachers and condensed them into her first book. The result is a primer on education reform and thoughtful suggestions for those who want to advocate for better education in America.
Lewis believes that the ineffective teachers in our schools know who they are and would really like to be released from their plight. An effective response is to identify teachers who should look for other jobs, offer them career advice and help them find a job that is a better fit for them.
A key position Lewis takes is that we need to recruit more and retain effective teachers and weed out bad teachers. As a model of success the author points to Finland that he values teachers and pays them the highest salaries, attracting the brightest and best to the profession. She suggests that a good step for the nation to take is to stop wasting money on federal education reform bills and reinvest those funds in teacher salaries.
And real reform in education cannot take place until the nation advances in the war on poverty. Children raised in poverty must have the opportunity to succeed in our schools, she emphasizes.
I was intrigued by this book, and I am confident that the approach suggested by Lewis can work, if we have the courage and inspiration to honestly try it. Every teacher and citizen who believes in education will want to read “Stand Back and Let Us Teach.”