Hello Everyone!
Thank you for tuning into the Realistic Efficient Pedagogy Podcast, Lesson #2.
After listening to the previous episode, we made a few improvements to our recording setup to get rid of some of the background noise and (we hope) provide better sound quality!
The podcast is hosted by Mr. and Mrs. Sarver and today we are going to talk about a clause in most educator contracts - Other Duties as Assigned.
We also need to iterate that neither Mr. or Mrs. Sarver are legal counsel and the episodes are based on our own opinions and experiences as educators in Texas.
Warm-up:
Mr. and Mrs. Sarver bring some positivity by sharing some of the great things that educators experience with their students.
Whole Group Instruction:
Mr. and Mrs. Sarver talk about where the phrase originated.
Hosts provide information for teachers to know when dealing with the Other duties as assigned clause using definitions and explanations from Law Insider at lawinsider.com and the Association of Texas Professional Educators at atpe.org.
There are differences in what schools consider other duties as assigned. These can be put into the two categories of traditional teaching duties and local expectations. There are things that the principal, superintendent, and/or school board can deem local expectations. These would also fall under the other duties as assigned clause.
Both hosts bring some personal experiences of the clause being used and different wording used by administrators to give a duty under the before mentioned clause.
Group Work:
Mr. and Mrs. Sarver discuss what the clause has become, such as, the amount of times extra directives are given to teachers and how the clause has become weaponized against teachers to add more to their daily plate.
They also talk about how education has become less efficient and how the amount of things adding up on the teacher's duty schedule is hurting educators and student learning.
Individual Work:
Mrs. Sarver talks about a possible solution for other duties as assigned. She believes that the first step in dealing with this issue is to have conversations around problems and also building systems and procedures that keep the lack of teacher time in mind.
Mr. Sarver, as an administrator, believes the clause is necessary to have since things will always come up in school and there are directives that must be followed no matter the situation. However, he describes ways to use the clause only for rare instances and that other uses will cause a lack of teacher morale and feelings of being disrespected.
Exit Ticket:
Every lesson ends with an inspirational quote. This lesson's quote was chosen by Mr. Sarver and is from Dominique Pire's Nobel speech from 1958:
"Let us not speak of tolerance. This negative word implies grudging concessions by smug consciences. Rather, let us speak of mutual understanding and mutual respect."
The first step to bringing reform to education is that all parties must understand that we are dealing with humans in all aspects of what we do. When we lose the respect of any one group involved in education, we have failed in our purpose.
Please leave us a review on your podcasting platform or on our website at realisticpedagogy.org. We look forward to hearing any feedback you have on what we are doing and how we can improve and what you guys want to see.
Thank you for all your support thus far!
