The following is an entry from The Baltimore Sun's education blog, www.baltimoresun.com/insideed, and selected comments from readers, on the selection of Polytechnic Institute's Nicholas Greer as Baltimore Teacher of the year.
The blog
It's clear that Greer is an excellent teacher ("the best teacher I've had yet," said student Denzel Hamilton, 14). He teaches Ingenuity biology, honors bio, and Ingenuity science and computers. He also coaches Poly's boys soccer team, mentors a UMBC intern and chairs the School Family Council at Poly.
But I have to pose the same question as I did last year: Why weren't there more candidates for the award? Greer was selected from among 13 applicants, about twice as many as last year (when there were seven, but two disqualified) and three times as many as the years before that. The application process was streamlined a bit this year but is still extensive. A teacher must be nominated by a principal or colleague, and people just don't seem to be taking the time. Schools CEO Dr. Andres Alonso says he wants to start a Teacher of the Year award at each of the city's nearly 200 schools, so then in the future the citywide winner would be selected from that pool.
Sara Neufeld
The response
Going on a limb here, but I frankly think that the reason there are so few nominations is that many city principals and administrators don't celebrate their teachers in such a way that awards like this would become popular forums for those administrators to express their appreciation for their staff.
Some of us are looked down upon, scorned, scolded and generally told that we need to do this better and that more. We are threatened with [improvement plans], told we need better management and degraded in ways that show a lack of respect for those of us in the classroom.
Administrators and principals only show up in the classroom for disciplinary problems or formal observations. Its impossible to ascertain who is a great teacher when you show up, in baseball vernacular, for the "league minimum."
David Ortiz
On the other side of the spectrum from David Ortiz's comment, in a great school with good administrators you're going to have lots of outstanding teachers. How is a principal supposed to pick a single one without generating lots of hurt feelings? I think Mr. Greer's statement on the video about there being a lot of great teachers in this building showed that there is a sense of teamwork that makes it hard to pick out an individual.
