Proposed prerequisites for education majors

[Kerry]

The majority of teachers¹ are overweight; they have yet to effectively apply what they were introduced to during high school—specifically, during biology, physiology, health, gym, and nutrition classes—classes that, to be effective, should require demonstrable mastery rather than grades. It could be said that these less-than-healthy wannabe teachers have thwarted their own teachers; teachers who thwart their own teachers karmically beget thwarting students.

Overweight teachers drag thoughts of guilt, shame, and embarrassment into all communications with everyone (such thoughts serve as barriers to communicating subject matter). They communicate non-verbally that what's being presented K-12 doesn't work when it comes to health. More accurately, that subject matter is being presented but not communicated; consequently, a teacher's (Do as I say) hypocrisy has life-long lasting effects on everyone's health.

Schools with unhealthy teachers are missing a principal with the basic leadership-communication skills of a military Corporal.²  Most principals have yet to develop the kinds of skills that consistently cause (inspire) others to recreate their stated intentions.³  I.e. Various daily and weekly reports required of teachers to be consistently handed in completed and on time; when a principal supports this level of integrity (supporting agreements) it generates the kinds of communications that cause students to learn.

Proposed prerequisites:

Proposed prerequisite #1  I recommend that all education majors consistently demonstrate by example (throughout their undergraduate years) that they have control of their health and, that they agree to maintain control when they become employed as educators.⁴ They would agree that if their weight increased by an agreed-upon percentage it would communicate to everyone that they are no longer capable/willing of modeling healthy living for students, and that they will be taking a vacation until they have regained control of their health for a period of six months in a row.

Proposed prerequisite #2  All education majors must complete a Leadership Training Program (LTP) so as to directly experience the correlation between personal integrity and all results, for themselves and all with whom they relate—for life.
 
¹ The same applies to physical/mental health-care professionals and public servants/leaders. An overweight police officer (uniform buttons stretched over a potbelly) automatically triggers immediate negative judgments—rather than (in the same time frame) inspiring respect. The same "judgment" phenomenon takes place with students, but it happens unconsciously; later in life such students just don't vote for raises for teachers—and, they don't know why. What was the specific (date and teacher) interaction during K-12 that triggered appreciation but not admirable deserving respect? Read: The Teacher's Pay Conversations Project.

² Principals and teachers mirror the leadership communication-skills of their university Speech-Communication Instructors and Professors, the very same educators whose graduates, as high school teachers, have been causing (yes causing) 25% of the nation's college freshman to require remedial composition and comprehension courses to learn what their teachers failed to communicate. 

³ Most principals were not willing to insist upon, during the interview for the job of Principal, the option of immediately re-assigning a "problem" teacher. Worse, few principals have a leadership-communication-skills coach on speed-dial—this is due in part because principals know that if a teacher is performing poorly it has something to do with the principal's leadership-management skills. Teachers, like students, perform poorly when they are not in-communication with anyone.

⁴ Teachers at the beginning of each school year would declare their healthy weight, say, for a female, 130 lbs. She would agree that if she added more than, say, 10% to her ideal weight, she would be taking a vacation the following semester until she has regained control (for six months in a row) of her desired student-inspiring weight-health. Teachers nationwide would agree to maintain the weight they say is most healthy for them.

Note 1: Most military and police departments have similar physical condition requirements.

Note 2: A principal with overweight teachers has not completed a Leadership-Training Program. Such a principal has yet to learn how to have all reports turned in completed and on time; a leader inspires both integrity and health.

Note 3: I'm unaware of any university or college that requires (or even offers) a Leadership Training Program for teachers. —Kerry 

Note 4: A Leadership Training Program curriculum consists of one three-hour class each week, every semester, for all four years (such a program consists of frequent participation by a student's parents).

Note 5: The majority of health-care office receptionists are over-weight. They have an excellent understanding of what it takes to maintain health but have not learned to manifest their own health; their hypocrisy doesn't inspire health.

Note 6:  Overweight parents and overweight teachers cause over-weight students.

Note 7: Notice that the excellent programs such as "No Child Left Behind," "Common Core," "Race to the Top," or "Every Student Succeeds," have not worked; this is due mainly because they are implemented using the decades-old Adversarial Communication Model.

Read about the effects of obesity on children.

Parent objects to "fat" teacher.

Last edited 12/21/23