I was sent this article this morning from Minnesota Public Radio titled New teacher layoffs may have broader implict on Minnesota education.
The article explores the unsettling effects of the hemorrhaging of novice teachers: unstable classrooms, the break up of teaching teams, a severing of passing on knowledge from experience teachers, and a massive (and scary) shortage of teachers within the next decade.
As per that impending shortage, the article notes, “Nationally, teaching is a growth industry. The U.S. Department of Labor reports that teaching will produce more jobs than most other fields between now and 2016. But the growth is occurring in states like Nevada, Texas, Arizona and Georgia.”
But who is going to fill those jobs? Are the gifted teachers being let go going to come back down the road? Are schools going to be able to attract high caliber young teachers? Would YOU want to start your career right now?
I had a great meeting this week with Sarah Sladek who is the president of Limelight Generations and the author two books “The New Recruit” and Rockstars Incorporated. Sarah is a thought leader nationally about how organizations and businesses need to adjust to and be cognizant of how younger generations view careers and the workplace.
In the course of our conversation, we talked at length about how poorly positioned most schools are to attract and retain the best of our young educators. Unless schools thoughtfully grapple with these issues, we will not only be facing a numerical shortage in teachers; we will also face an even more daunting problem of failing to fill these vacancies with the right kind of people. It’s not a hunt for a warm body we’re after. We’re really after bright, creative, entrepreneurial, and critically thinking individuals.
If schools don’t start a global overhaul of how they think about talent recruitment and retention (think Google or Apple) the future isn’t too rosy.
Of course, this change is entirely possible. There are amazing schools doing amazing work with amazing leadership. If there isn’t a healthy emulation going on throughout the system, then we’re going to fall so far behind the learning curve that when the REAL problem shows up in 6 to 10 years, we’ll be even further behind that that moment might suggest.
From my own perspective, unless schools start creating attractive, thoughtful, creative, and empowering workplaces, we’re doomed from the get go. The time is NOW (if not yesterday) for the conversation around schools as workplaces to ramp up exponentially.
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