A "good teacher" is not necessarily a good teacher everywhere with everyone. In other words, teachers who are very effective with white middle class native English speaking students may not experience the same success with Hispanic students. Therefore, rather than seek teacher candidates who fit a certain general profile to work in schools with a high Hispanic population, it would make more sense to select and train those individuals who are most appropriate for this particular population.
Knowing this should cause us to rethink what is meant by highly qualified. That term is relative--depending on the situation. Plus, the best and brightest as determined by the scores on assessment tests given to teacher candidates as well as their grades are not good predictors of success with the Hispanic student population.
We obviously need to do some rethinking if we are going to better serve our Hispanic learners.
No comments:
Post a Comment