Teachers framing ideas around children

Gimme, gimme, gimme... for the children. Obviously, I don't support that mindset. In recent years, the teachers’ unions have openly stated that they have had success by framing their interests around students.

This can be seen in the recent push for a student-centric approach to education. Teachers want smaller class sizes, so they frame smaller class sizes around students. They want more money for themselves, so they argue about how increasing their pay benefits students. One thing that all these student-centric concepts have in common is that they always start with the teachers.

Another example of this framing has been over what they call freedom to teach. That terminology alone should show that they are starting with the teachers rather than the children. Although teachers have started discussing the freedom to learn, this is essentially a reframing of their ideas for the freedom to teach.

The freedom to teach and the freedom to learn are actually conflicting viewpoints. If you strengthen the freedom to teach, you are increasing the control teachers have over the learning process. By contrast, the freedom to learn requires diminished power of teachers to control and restrict the process. That's a big part of the reason that I want to keep teachers from getting away with their arguments about the freedom to learn.

Unlike teachers who claim everything for themselves is really "for the children," my views tend to actually start with the children. I am clearly supportive of a learner-centric approach to education. I'm willing to put the best interests of the learner above the best interests of the teacher. I will always put the freedom to learn over the freedom to teach. I will prioritize what I believe is truly for the children over what teachers dishonestly claim is for the children.