First Meeting with My Mentor

On Wednesday, September 18th I went to meet my mentor Dr. Joe Felan at his office. there we talked about several topics about teaching including; the role of politics in education, what can be done to increase the amount of teachers and how to we keep current teachers, difference between high school teaching and higher level teaching, etc. When discussing the role of politics in education, I learned that Dr. Felan, at one point ran to be on the school board, and stated that he believed that as a society politics has to accepted in education and that as a community we must be actively participating. In that meeting I also mentioned the teacher shortage in our state and the incentive that some teachers see in moving elsewhere. In the Little Rock School District a teacher starts off with 36,000, while in other areas of the Little Rock Metro Area a teacher could make 41,000. In Texas, specifically the Garland Independent School District, a teacher starts off with 50,000+, mostly due to the petrol and natural gas industry in Texas. Dr. Felan suggested to lower the teacher shortage in Arkansas to increase starting wages and to quell any concerns of the best teachers to give existing a better working environment. He also described that as a college professor he has a lot of autonomy when it comes to dictating how the material is taught for that day, i.e, if he feels like showing videos all day or giving lectures all day then he has that freedom to do so unlike in some high schools where everything has to be done in a certain way. He talked to me about the fact that likes the fact that as a professor has that freedom to teach as he pleases without having someone looking over his shoulder watching his every move.