Everyone craves recognition; it’s one of the strongest human drives. It’s so strong that Napoleon once said, “It’s amazing what a man will do for a piece of colored ribbon.” Why is that so? Because that piece of colored ribbon is a public recognition of something outstanding that the person has done.
There are parts of society where recognition is common, even in education we find a lot of recognition going on… for the students at least. But wait a minute, what about the teachers? Who recognizes excellence in teachers? Oh, many schools have the faculty vote on the “teacher of the year,” but that’s just one teacher, and more often than not it’s a popularity contest.
As in many other fields of human endeavor, every school has a few excellent teachers, a few horrible teachers, and a whole bunch of average teachers. Is that serving our children well? Wouldn’t it be better if we could motivate more of those average teachers to become excellent teachers?
The only way to motivate average teachers to become excellent teachers is by giving them some sort of recognition for any act of excellence that they do. I don’t mean just picking one teacher at the end of the year; nor do I mean making every teacher jump through hoops for two years in order to get a bonus. No, what I’m talking about is an ongoing program of recognition, where somebody is patting them on the back for doing a good job.
If the school districts aren’t going to recognize the teachers’ contributions, maybe the parent-teacher organization needs to do it. After all, that’s where the parents have some representation in the school. As parents, they can go out to businesses in the community, find prizes, and arrange to award them to teachers for their excellence. Let’s motivate our teachers… before it’s too late.