6 Solutions for Combatting Teacher Shortages (and Not Lowering Standards for Teachers)

Available for Interviews:  Nadine Levitt

Nadine Levitt is an education advocate, speaker, and the CEO & Founder of WURRLYedu, an educational technology platform. Nadine specializes in the social-emotional curriculum (SEL), and she is also the author of the children’s book, My Mama Says Inside Me Lives a Village. 

What Nadine Levitt can say in an interview about why
Lowering standards for teachers is NOT the best solution for combatting teacher shortages:

    • Ed Week recently reported that States are relaxing teacher certification rules to combat teacher shortages, pointing to an alarming trend of teachers leaving the profession.
    • But lowering standards for entry is clearly not the best idea if we are trying to attract the best people for the job. Teachers and school leaders are crucially important in our economy and the ongoing innovation of our country, so perhaps we should: 

    1. Upskill our teachers for the emotional processing needed in the job. Once they are overwhelmed they can no longer problem solve, so giving them skills to interrupt the bigger emotions fueling the overwhelm is crucial!
    2. Look at providing greater support and improving the cultures for teachers that are currently working (as in lowering teacher attrition). Inspiring teachers and school leaders can shift mindsets, deepen relationships, and strengthen their sense of purpose!
    3. Investigate what teacher mentor programs work best and create a formal framework around them. For example, a Teacher Assistants program could work, where aspiring teachers can assist more experienced, talented teachers who can act as mentors as they work on completing their certifications. 
    4. Offer greater support for the development of aspiring teachers wanting to enter the market so they can achieve the needed standards, 
    5. Investigate whether the teacher certification requirements can be optimized to best develop the real skills needed in a classroom setting – this may mean raising the standards not lowering them (but also doing away with requirements that are completely superfluous to teaching and educational leadership). This could also accelerate the learning process.
    6. Making it easy for teachers to return to classrooms from retirement without any risk of losing their pension rights.
    • At Inspired Educ8ion, we are looking to raise the value of teachers, by celebrating, honoring, and developing their skill sets, so that our current teachers are in the best frame of mind when they teach (thereby optimizing their performance and hopefully impacting their job satisfaction and sense of purpose), and we attract the best aspiring teachers to enter the market with the same sense of optimism and sense of value as they deserve.

 

Interview: Nadine Levitt

Nadine Levitt is a Swiss-born, German, Kiwi, and American thought leader, speaker, and author who is passionate about education, especially focusing on child emotional wellness, and social and emotional skill development using the Arts, and EdTech.

In 2015 she founded the technology company WURRLY, which also makes WURRLYedu—a leading music education solution being used in schools across 22 states. Nadine has authored two children´s books for social and emotional learning (Inside Me Lives a Village and Inside Me Lives a Superhero), initially developed as a tool to use with her own kids, to help them develop positive self-awareness, self-regulation skills, confidence, empathy, creativity, and self-expression. This quickly grew into a school program, with the development of a supporting curriculum and classroom resources, and toys and other children’s products that foster a healthy relationship with emotions.

As an education thought leader, Nadine Levitt gives keynote speeches around the world on the subjects of music education, social and emotional learning, and technology in classrooms.

My Mama Says Inside Me Lives A Village: Nadine Levitt ...          My Mama Says Inside Me Lives A Superhero

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