Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Mentoring and Differentiated Compensation

This is a minor nitpick, but I think it is worth pointing out that when you're talking about differentiating teacher roles and, in particular, how it relates to compensation, you don't really need to pay teachers a higher salary to take on leadership and mentoring roles in most cases. If you're asking them to work more hours, sure, pay them more.

But, for example, to switch one period a day from teaching 25 12-year olds to mentoring one or two grown-ups is probably its own reward. Unless you really don't like mentoring grown-ups, in which case you probably just shouldn't be doing it.

Being a (good) principal is way harder than being a teacher, with heavier responsibilities, but being an experienced teacher participating in the leadership and development of a school is not harder than teaching kids all day uninterrupted. It is, in fact, much better for your mental health and happiness.

2 comments:

Jenny said...

This makes perfect sense at the middle/high school levels. How do we make it work at elementary school? It's harder for me to pass my first graders off for part of the day since our day isn't broken into periods. (I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm genuinely curious about your thoughts.)

Tom Hoffman said...

Oh, you can always assume I'm only thinking and writing about middle and high schools. I don't know much about elementary.