You Can’t Buy a Silver Bullet

I was explaining how my first grade team does lesson planning for literacy. We use our combined knowledge and experience of 16 years to choose the best lessons to meet the objectives to meet the standards. We have brain access (and real access) to so many literacy curricula and resources.

And I was told: (the following is paraphrased)”Well, other teachers in other grade levels also have experience. And they think they are making the best lessons. If our kids aren’t achieving as much as they should be, then we really aren’t doing our best. How do we know that your experiences and knowledge are rigorous?”

So her solution is to buy a scripted curriculum. That of course doesn’t have to be used as scripted. But nonetheless is presented as the magic bullet for teacher’s experiences and knowledge that might not be rigorous.

Here is my “in retrospect response:”

Teachers are always doing our best. To expect more than our best is to expect godliness. And depending on the day or the year in our teaching career, our best might not be the best for a student. But we are human. And we can only reach our potential at that moment in time. But we teachers are also reflective and ambitious. We work hard to grow professionally and help our students develop and achieve their goals- the paths to achievement looking different for different students. Teaching, like other professions, has a learning curve. And for students’ sakes, I hope there isn’t a peak. So maybe it’s not a learning curve. It’s a learning line. I believe that good teachers have a learning line, an x=y line. With more knowledge and more experience we get better. Know more ways to help kids access and construct knowledge.

Professor Culbert recently wrote in The New York Times Room For Debate that “The way to make stars out of teachers is to let teachers be stars, to let them be as innovative as they can be, to let them find the path that works best for them and their students. If they are allowed to search for the best answers, they’ll find them.”

That seems quite the opposite of the “let’s buy a scripted curriculum” solution. And yet the “let’s buy a scripted curriculum” seems to be the silver bullet for student achievement.

Why?

I was at the Conference for Teaching and Learning sponsored by WNET a few weekends ago.  Elizabeth Demarest spoke about how the “concept of achievement should drive assessment.” And yet currently assessment is driving  our concept of achievement. Curricula are bought because they are proven to raise test scores, the current concept of achievement. In a few years another reading or writing curriculum will come out revised, and considered more rigorous. Or more likely another standardized test will come out also more rigorous. Wait. That sounds an awful lot like teaching. Improved with time. Rigor is not standard. And neither is the concept of achievement. There is certainly a standard or a bar to maintain and the common core standards address that.

But, personally I am offended when an external curriculum is automatically considered more rigorous than my team’s 16 years (and growing!) of knowledge and skill and exposure to many of these curricula.

And many times these curricula are bought to address the reality of high teacher turnover. To give beginning teachers some thing to work with rather than re-inventing the wheel. And believe me. No teacher likes to reinvent the wheel. We love to steal great ideas and mold them in a way that they work in our classrooms, sometimes looking differently with different groups of students. Can you only imagine the power of the ideas and activities of these curricula in the hands of experienced teachers?

So-sure. Buy the curriculum. Let it be a tool that me and my colleagues mold to help our students achieve (in all the different ways they do so.) But recognize that you are not eliminating a learning curve. That you are not jumping to a “peak.” That you are not buying a silver bullet.

A Must Read:

Culbert’s opinion on The New York Times Room for Debate

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/03/27/how-to-raise-the-status-of-teachers/give-teachers-autonomy

In response to Obama’s State of the Union…

and to the people (i.e. Michelle Rhee) who have responded to him.

Rhetoric. President Obama’s words on education last night were beautiful and clear.

But they were obvious.

-That teachers need to be respected.

-That students need to be held to high expectations.

-That teachers are important in a student’s life and that all students deserve great teachers.

Ten, even five, years ago-these words would have been calls to action. New, galvanizing ideas. But the campaign to change the view of the teacher in the public’s eye is over. We have accepted this call to action. It is all over magazines and the news media. We know that teachers are important. Ever since I began teaching five years ago I have been thanked endlessly for the work that I do. I am admired and respected.

So the question then is…how do we reach this vision that we have accepted?

Many people have offered answers. They all claim to be right. The solution our leaders pick is a reflection of their view on education and schooling in our country. It is not necessarily a reflection of what is absolutely right. Because-is there an absolute right?

For example, Michelle Rhee wants to pay teachers for their performance. Let me tell you why I disagree.

I will first state a perspective I am coming from. I have been told, by supervisors, other teachers, and all kinds of data, that I can be an effective teacher. But do not ever tell me it is all because of me. My students succeed because their teacher is part of a highly effective team. My students grow in reading because 3 of them work daily with B.K, the brilliant and reflective reading recovery teacher. My lessons are stronger and more engaging because I plan with K. R. and K.D, two of the best teachers I have ever worked with. I watch these women teach and I become better. My students love math and get better in it because A.C is, well, my colleague calls her a “child whisperer.” I watch her teach for five minutes and my practice improves. My students are held to high expectations in a safe and welcoming environment because C.S. and R.J. hold them to these expectations in the hallway and do whatever they can so that I can watch other teachers and develop myself.

So if you want to pay me, you better find a way to pay all of my teammates that I have just mentioned. You will have to find out using some statistical method the value and percent contributed by each teammate to each student’s growth. And pay us accordingly. Then I accept your solution.

In fact, professional learning communities are valued in education research and in schools. Yet you know want to pay ME for MY students’ success? Shouldn’t the lingo be OUR students’ success?

How is it that in so many other ways our country values collaboration, except in classrooms? In the business world we encourage people to work and strategize together. People usually work in teams. No lawyer that I know does a case all by herself. She works with the other lawyers and paralegals in her law firm. As a doctoral student at an Ivy League school, we had mandatory discussion groups. Because our professors knew that our ideas were richer when thrown around with others. Athletes on team sports must work together. Yes, each one of them must be proficient, but they are better because they have their strengths combined.

As teachers, we create classroom communities premised on the notion of working together and working as a team. We work hard to teach children to work together, in pairs, in groups. We teach children the value of knowing other cultures and other kinds of people because our differences are strengths. Numerous teachers across the country have  posters hanging in their rooms that read “There is no I in TEAM.” I make one adendum: There is no I in TEAM, except when it comes to your teachers’ effectiveness and when it comes to you taking a test.

Our government can’t measure collaboration. So instead they choose to measure something they can-an individual teacher’s effectiveness based on her student’s test scores and/or other achievement data. But that doesn’t mean it’s right. And it doesn’t mean it will increase student performance. But I guess it also doesn’t mean it won’t.

And it is the same with student testing. Our government tests students because that is the only way it can “scientifically” hold teachers accountable. The only way we can “scientifically” see growth. And while I absolutely do believe that testing gives us valuable information and that proficiency on a test is important (although we can see how even “proficiency” is a subjective term dictated by politicians in re-election years) testing doesn’t improve education. In fact, it doesn’t even force teachers and educators to improve.

And why is measuring the answer? Will that really hold the thousands and thousands of teachers and parents and children and school systems in this decentralized nation more accountable? And furthermore, will measuring actually make students better educated?

Strong, diverse curriculum would. Teachers who stay in the classroom and gain experience and knowledge and who have time to revise their thinking and teaching would. Teacher education programs and schools that gradually release teachers into the community with heavy support and mentorship would. Owning the fact that teaching is a cyclical and reflective process, in which we get better with time and revision. Like a good piece of writing. That there will occasionally be a Harper Lee- coming in with one big bang and fizzling away – or a Jonathan Safran Foer- sitting down and writing a great book in one quick write. But most of us won’t be. And that’s okay. We won’t be perfect. We will make mistakes. We will not connect with every single child. We will help most children grow leaps and bounds. And some will leave us as missed opportunities.

But we will have come to work and tried our best every day. And we will have grown for it. And we will be better teachers the next day, the next week, the next year because we have.

When a School is Stuck in the Middle

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” -W.B. Yeats

“Intelligence plus character-that is the true goal of education.” -Martin Luther King, Jr.

There is growing tension becoming obvious to the teachers in my school, both lower and upper school. Our school leadership and teaching team  is stuck between two values. Most of the teachers value project-based learning. We value having classroom discussions in which students explain their thinking and agree/disagree with each other in order to come to an understanding. We value character education. Stopping to take the time and brainstorm ways to work as a team or to express your anger in non-violent ways. But sometimes we are told, there is no time. No time to work on projects or the discussion takes up too much time. Because on the other end, we value The Test. And when time is ticking for all standards to be covered, maybe it is okay to turn to dumping knowledge time. Even if the knowledge won’t stick long beyond the test.

Some would argue that these two value systems are not exclusive. That in education, as in life, our decisions do not need to be either/or. The reality is that test scores are cultural, economic, social, you name it- capital. Test scores are capital. To deprive children of this capital is also not helpful. But this capital is also culturally constructed. We, educators and particularly our leaders in power, have the opportunity to place value and power on something else. Or we can change our tests to capture the kind of learning and knowledge that we actually do value. There was an article in The New York Times magazine over New Years about how AP tests are changing. That there will be less multiple choice and more short answer and questions that require critical thinking rather than rote memorization. Perhaps we need to change our state testing to do the same. Or perhaps our standards need to ask for quality and depth over quantity across the grade levels. I need to read the core curriculum and see what is happening.

I don’t know what the future of my school will be. Will they give in to standardization? Or will they fight to be a school that says we take the test and we will do well but we value education in a more holistic way? Will we report the number of students who love learning? Will we be the kind of school that helps change the conversation on education?

Students are people, not robots

I have almost finished reading Love and Logic. The book was a fascinating read. The concept is great. I went back to class on Monday thinking that I would use this approach more in my classroom this term. More empathy. More choices. More logical consequences that are coming from kids themselves. Helping kids change their behavior.

Luckily, our dean of culture plopped herself down in my classroom. She has a very different style than mine. And some of the kids respond to her. I always enjoy observing her and picking up some teaching moves.

I’ve been struggling in my own head with this love and logic/choices approach and a consequence system approach. I was painfully aware of this philosophical struggle with every word I spoke yesterday. And when I approached our dean of culture about this debate in my head, this is what she told me:

“Every child is different and needs different things. Choices may work for some of them, but for others it might not.”

That’s exactly what I needed to hear. Again, it’s not about my philosophy, but about me giving each child what he or she needs to learn. What has happened to Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences? In our race to the top, have we also standardized ways that kids must show knowledge and talent? And yet, if our world values a standardized test (such as test scores to get into colleges, get scholarships) then how do we expect our schools to value intelligence shown in ways beyond standardized tests?

And it’s not just about discipline/classroom management. My teaching, my tools, should change based on the children that I have. I worked in a school that valued important and beneficial ideas about teaching literacy, ideas that I believed in. But when these ideas translated into a script, or rather into an approach that we held so fast to, we did a disservice to the children at that school.

I feel liberated this year. Overjoyed to be a teacher where students are seen as children, each individual, and where instruction and discipline are based on what children need and how they learn.

 

Perspective Check

I teach first grade again this year. This is my fourth year teaching first grade.

The other day, my colleague ( another first grade teacher) and I were talking about her almost two-year-old daughter. She was saying how she was teaching her daughter the letters in her own name.

We both commented on how ridiculous this sounded.

And I added, “I didn’t learn to read until kindergarten and I ended up doing more than fine.”

And then my colleague commented, “But my daughter already has strikes against her. She’s a black girl. And her mother had difficulty learning to read.”

“She has strikes against her. She’s a black girl.”

And it became so clear in that moment where I was speaking from. Yes, maybe for me, a white, Jewish girl in a middle class neighborhood, I could learn to read in kindergarten and never be behind. But to hear from my colleague, not from a statistic or an article, that being a black female already puts you at a disadvantage reminded me of my advantage and privilege. Whatever class privilege I never thought I had, I was reminded in that moment that I always have being white.

I was also reminded that I teach other people’s children (to borrow the title of Lisa Delpit’s famous book.) And that their children’s education is about their children. Not necessarily about what philosophy I hold to or based on what educational experience I have had.

I’ve also been thinking about how this experience relates to and intersects with the varied quality of teaching and schools across different demographics in this country.

A different framework for looking at Teacher Education and the implications for Teacher Quality and Accountability

The following is a paper (in the form of a letter to the editor that has been invaded by APA) I wrote for one of my introductory research and theory classes for the doctoral program. After reading an article from the TC Press today by Jason Margolis (2010), ” Why Teacher Quality is a Local Issue (And Why Race to the Top is a Misguided Flop)” I’m thinking about adding a layer to my thinking. While I do have a firm vision of what teacher education should look like, I am increasingly concerned with the implications and consequences related to it. There will always be variety in what and how teachers are taught. The danger is in definitively tying a teacher classified as “quality” to one of these specific ways. I’d like to draw a parallel to high-stakes testing. Testing in and of itself is not an inherently bad thing. However, the punitive measures for students, teacher, and schools is dangerous. In a similar way, defining quality is not a bad thing. However, the punitive measures (firing, decreased pay) for teachers who do not meet this global definition is dangerous. First of all, Margolis (2010) states that our government does not even have a definition of quality teaching, only a semi-vision of what it doesn’t look like. Furthermore, he warns against having a globalized, “top”, one size fits all. From interpretive and socio-cultural perspectives he writes, ” A quality teacher is not the same in Los Angeles, California as in Bar Harbor, Maine; is not the same on the west side of Los Angeles as the east side; is not the same in a middle school on 35th St. as an elementary school on 128th St.; is not the same in that middle school’s Rm. 353 as Rm. 355; and is not the same in Rm. 355 on Monday as it was on Friday” (Margolis, 2010). While our leaders’ intentions are good, their choices continue to be misguided. And we must make them see this.

See Margolis, J. (2010). Why teacher quality is a local issue (And why race to the top is a misguided flop). Teachers College Record.

My paper——————————

I excused myself from the classroom, walked outside the school, and let my tears out. I called my dad, and in between the sobs complained about the classroom teacher. “I can’t deal with the way she treats those students. She doesn’t maintain dignity when giving consequences. And I see no evidence of her trying to invest them.” Last year, as a masters candidate in literacy education, I ran out of the room crying because I couldn’t handle the way that my collaborating teacher treated her students.

This year, as a 5^th grade teacher in the South Bronx, I find myself treating my students in a similar way. What worked in my first grade classrooms in Phoenix, Arizona for three years does not work in my current classroom. With experience training teachers through Teach For America as well as four years as a classroom teacher, I have various “best practices” in my teaching toolkit. I have pulled them out. Positive rewards. Check. Consequences that are clear, logical, and maintain dignity. Practiced classroom routines. Written classroom routines down to refer to all year. Made goal sheets with them to track their progress. Given body breaks through dance parties. Invited kids to come up for recess to play games and make art. Gone to their after school shows at the community center. Check. Check. Check. Yet these “best practices” don’t all work for me in my current classroom.

Context matters. As a practicing teacher, I recognize and value the variety of experiences that children and teachers bring to school. Researchers continue to provide studies that conceptualize teachers and students not as blank slates, but as culturally and historically inscribed bodies. Moll, Amanti, Neff, and Gonzalez’s (1992) “funds of knowledge” framework helped shift thinking about students as deprived to thinking about students as filled with ways of knowing and doing.  In her work on pre-service teacher education, Goodwin (2010) considers a teacher’s personal knowledge an integral component of the “knowledge domains for teaching” (p. 22). One such example of the personal knowledge domain is Dingus’s (2008) research on the socialization of African American women into the teaching profession. She suggests that family notions of the profession can influence African American teachers’ understanding of what it means to be a teacher.

I experience daily the intersection of my (the teacher) knowledge and skills with those of my students. As teachers we are constantly negotiating, both with students and amongst our own various ways of knowing. We negotiate our personal knowledge of teaching with the ideas learned in our teacher education program with the mandates of our school and district (Schultz, Jones Walker & Chikkatur, 2008). We negotiate and manage “conflicting expectations” in our moment-to-moment choices and interactions. (Lampert, 1985, p. 192). I believe that to become effective teachers we need to learn how to negotiate. Therefore, I view teacher education as a learning problem, meaning that I believe effective teacher education focuses on learning to negotiate beliefs and practices within different contexts (Cochran-Smith & Fries, 2004).

However, Green, (2010) in her article “Building a Better Teacher,” conceptualizes teacher education as the transmission of “best practices” regardless of context. She views it as a training problem rather than a learning problem (Cochran-Smith & Fries, 2004). In doing so, she privileges a process-product way of thinking about teacher education (Cochran-Smith & Fries). She assumes that there a set of “best practices,” some best processes that will result in the product of effective teachers and thereby, student achievement. She relies on a positivist notion of science and research to construct the image of teacher education as “teacher training.” Let us consider the vocabulary Green uses throughout her article: “building,” “taxonomy,” “training regime,” “practicing different techniques in classroom simulations,” “mechanics of teaching,” and “secret steps.” All of these words evoke the image of teaching as a scientific training process, in which teachers and students are objects on an assembly line who have no knowledge, feeling, or experiences.

In fact, Green (2010) presents a decontextualized view of both teachers and children in her article. The lives of children and their teachers are never discussed. Besides the mention of some children, like Sean and his mathematical observation, I argue that the children in Green’s story of schooling and teacher training are irrelevant. They exist to receive the information of the well-trained teachers. I envision a teacher standing in front of a class of student dolls using one of Lemrov’s techniques and still being considered effective. And despite placing the teacher at the center, Green does not perceive teachers themselves as socially constructed. Rather, she writes, “All the techniques are meant to be adaptable by anyone” (Green, 2010, p. 9). If those techniques don’t work for me in my context, what does that make me? In today’s age, this decontextualized, process-product frame of thinking about teacher education creates a rhetoric of teacher bashing against those educators who don’t use those techniques. And where does that leave people like me- one word- fired.

Green (2010) gives in to this notion, perpetuated by Obama, Duncan, and the media that there are “best practices” for teaching; that there is one best way to teach. No matter who you are. No matter where you teach. No matter what students you have. Her article perpetuates this current thinking of teacher education as a training problem, where we as teachers are essentially products on an assembly line, subjected to the whims of anyone who considers himself an “expert” on teaching. There is a burgeoning outcry amongst teachers about our treatment as assembly line products. I leave you with the words of one New York City public school teacher.

Isn’t it possible that teachers have different voices, just as writers have different voices? Just because I love Joseph Heller, does every fiction writer in the world have to emulate him? Isn’t there a possibility that, since teachers have different personalities, we might be able to reach kids in different ways? (Goldstein, 2010).

References

Cochran-Smith, M. & Fries, K.  (2004).  Researching teacher education in changing times:

politics and paradigms.  In Cochran-Smith, M. & Zeichner, K. (Eds.) Studying teacher

education:  The report of the AERA panel on research and teacher education.

Washington, D.C.:  American Educational Research Association.

Dingus, J. E. (2008).  ‘Our family business was education’:  Professional socialization among intergenerational African-American teaching families.  International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 21(6), 605-626.

Goldstein, A. (2010). One way (part one). Retrieved April 5, 2010, from http://gothamschools.org/2010/04/05/one-way-part-one/#more-35738.

Goodwin, L. (2010). Globalization and the preparation of quality teachers: rethinking knowledge

domains of teaching. Teaching Education, 21(1), 19-32.

Green, M. (2010). Building a better teacher. [Electronic version]. New York Times Magazine.

Lampert, M.  (1985). How do teachers manage to teach? Perspectives on problems in

practice.  Harvard Educational Review, 55, 178-194.

Moll, L., Amanti, C., Neff, D., & Gonzalez, N. (1992).  Funds of knowledge for teaching:  Using qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. Theory into Practice, 31(2), 132-141.

Schultz, Jones-Walker, &Chikkatur (2008). Listening to students, negotiating beliefs: Preparing

teachers for urban classrooms. Curriculum Inquiry, 38(2), 155-187.

Reconciling the Real with the Real: Thoughts on what Makes Schools Function

Well, a new school year is approaching. I have officially started at my new school in Brooklyn. I will be teaching first grade again. Yes!

And while I won’t be reconciling the real and the ideal in a 5th grade classroom specifically, I will continue to grapple with the questions I posed about curriculum and schools in my first post. Much of my thinking right now is around synthesizing the different experiences I have had in different schools.

In already two days of in-service, I sense that my school is a functioning place for children and their teachers. A much more functioning place than my school last year. Both are run by dedicated leaders who have their hearts in the right place about children, who value not just test scores but critical thinking and social justice. Both schools have good to excellent teachers.  Both have literacy curriculums to guide teachers daily planning. So how come they are so different?

A few thoughts:

1. This school, a charter school, has a 3 day in-service for teachers new to the school. And then a five day week for all teachers before kids arrive. My last school, an NYC DOE school, had one day before the first day of school. All we did was talk about literacy and writing. (I’ll get to the dichotomy that I have heard referred to a lot between DOE and charter schools in New York City in my next post.)

2. In just two days, this school has not yet talked in depth about a literacy curriculum. Rather we have spent full days getting to know the school’s mission and operating values, getting to know each other, the neighborhood, and the different people who make the school run. We have received a handbook about what is expected in classrooms throughout the school and learned how to use the attendance system and email system. We have talked a little bit about planning on the daily and unit level and about what a proficient teachers looks like in our school according to a rubric. We read an article about efficacy and a growth mindset vs. a fixed mindset and had a discussion and gallery walk on the topic. We had a dialogue about teaching and education and our school.

In one day at my Bronx school last year (I’ll call it that to give it a label to refer to) we spent 1.5 to 2 hours talking about ways for students to brainstorm ideas for a personal narrative. Now don’t get me wrong. That’s important. But by the end of the school year, I had no clue who some of the people in the building were, who to go to for specific questions, or what anything looked like in any other classroom.

BUT…

I feel like having a strong literacy curriculum doesn’t make a well-run school. While scopes and sequences are an essential part of a well run school where students achieve, schools need a lot more. They need leaders who don’t just have visions but who have ways to get there. Who have operating values and systems put into place for both instruction and operations. Who have schoolwide expectations. Who have ideas and concepts that align throughout the school from grade to grade and from teacher to teacher. Who have DEANS OF SCHOOL CULTURE! (and an outlined vision for what the school culture should look and sound like for both teachers and students)

I feel that there is an idea being pushed in the New York City schools that if you have an aligned literacy program, you will have a well-run school. That having a school wide literacy curriculum will make or break the school. That reading and writing workshop are the key lever. Well, my Bronx school last year had a school wide literacy program. And that school was broken. Well then what is the key lever? It’s a lot of things. Look back at this post and read what I have described is going on at my Brooklyn school this year. In a few words: vision, values, schoolwide systems and operations.

Today I talked with my friend who teaches in a successful charter school in Dallas. She called because she is struggling with one of her 8th grade classes and she thought I’d understand. Because I do. I struggled immensely with a fifth grade class this year. We commiserated about students who don’t follow the rules no matter what and who don’t want to do the work unless bothered to do so (and even then some don’t.)

We reminisced about how we had both been told we were excellent and effective teachers in the past. We both wonder about this year, “What went wrong? What did or did we not do?”

There are too many differences between our stories to sort out, but I acknowledge that they matter. Because context does matter.

But for a moment, I’m intrigued by the similarities. Here are two effective teachers who struggled. She told me that she has always been told “to hold up the mirror.” We do that. We constantly reflect, looking backward but reaching forward. When do we need to ask our students and their families to hold the mirrors up to themselves? When do we ask our school community and leadership team to hold the mirror up to themselves?

I feel that we do a disservice to teachers when we set them up to be saviors. To be heros. To be martyrs. We are part of a team. And we can be good on our own, but we can be great (and even more- consistently great) when there’s an effective team.

I asked my friend if anyone on her school team thanked her and gave her appreciation for stepping up and teaching this 8th grade class when their original teacher left. She said, “no.” And that’s another thing. I’ve heard from many teachers that they aren’t praised enough, thanked enough, shown appreciation in some way. In an ideal world, or maybe in a robot world without emotion, we wouldn’t need that. Giving back would be appreciation enough. But it’s not. We all need shout-outs. All need to be thanked and appreciated. Especially teachers. And especially by their school teams.

Lastly, our experiences remind me about accountability. Again, we are asking teachers to be accountable. And that’s great. But we cannot deny that students, especially 5th grade and up students, are individuals themselves. They also need to be accountable. At this age, they are self-centered and question authority. How can we force/motivate every single one of them? Is that realistic? Or are we setting teachers up to see themselves as superheros?

If you shoot for the moon and fall, at least you land upon the stars. But then it has to be okay to land upon the stars every once in a while.

Trusting and Respecting Teachers

In their article, “Why Great Teachers Matter to Low-Income Students,” Klein, Lomax, and Murguia argue that schools, particularly teachers, are at the center of both closing the achievement gap and overcoming poverty in the United States.

Their article perpetuates the teacher-bashing rhetoric that consumes popular understanding of schooling in this country.

I am a teacher. I have taught first grade dual language classes in south-central Phoenix and currently teach 5^th grade in the Mott Haven neighborhood of the South Bronx, one of the poorest counties in the United States. Some years my students have grown between one and two grade levels in reading. This year I struggle to motivate my students in reaching academic goals. I encounter their disinterest in a curriculum that isn’t relevant to their lives.  I am reminded, through their anger and violent outbursts, that their lives are hard. This school year has been a humbling experience. I have learned that I am not a superhero, not a savior. I am but one more part of their community. And still everyday I come to school with the mindset that I am 100% responsible for my students’ achievement.

However, Klein et al. believes that if teachers recognize our own humility, recognize that we are but one part of “the village that it takes to raise a child,” we will make excuses when we are not successful. We are not trusted to understand both the limitations and power of our job.

And this is only one example of the way that teachers continue to be distrusted and disrespected. Historically, teachers have not been considered experts in our field. Since the early 1900’s, researchers and administrators, particularly men, have made choices about what is best for schools and for the children in them. Now lawyers and businessmen, some with no teaching experience, have taken over the decision-making process. When we appoint lawyers and businessmen to lead our educational system, we disregard the specified knowledge, skills, and vast experiences that teachers have. In what other professions do the leaders come from without rather than from within? How many K-12 teachers have been president of the American Medical Association? Doctors conductors of major symphonies?

Perhaps the comparison seems silly to some. But if we are to professionalize the teaching field, we need to give voice to those in the field- teachers. And businessmen, lawyers, policymakers, all of us need to listen. Listen to those who have taught in different contexts and to those who have garnered wisdom and insight from years (more than two) of teaching experience. To professionalize the field of teaching, we need to give teachers respect and trust.

Mr. Klein, Mr. Lomax, and Ms. Murguia ask if we have the courage to take on the status quo.

I do have the courage to do what’s right for students. And that’s because I have the courage to advocate for teachers.

Take the teacher off of the pedestal: We’re only as strong as our team

I was at a conference with other teachers who worked in the Bronx this weekend. Here are some of the stories I heard.

Story A

“My colleague took away a student’s cell phone. That girl later poured Drano in the teacher’s coffee cup. The teacher got violently ill and wound up in the hospital. She was afraid to come back to school and would take days off. Eventually she quit. Her principal asked her, ‘Why are you taking all of these days off.’ The student was never given a consequence.”

Story B

“It was a Wednesday around 5:30. I was leaving school and got mugged. They took all my stuff and roughed me up a little. My parents came down to help me, and so I took Thursday and Friday off. When I got back to school on Monday my principal asked me, ‘So, how was your long weekend.’”

Day in and day out, I listen to teacher bashing rhetoric in the media. That we need to be held more accountable. That we are the greatest factor in student achievement. That student failure is our fault. But we teachers do not live in a bubble. We are part of school teams, products of schooling ourselves, and products of teacher preparation programs. We navigate and negotiate competing demands and philosophies. And yet, when the conversation around education reform occurs it looks at teachers. You cannot remove us from our contexts. You cannot isolate teachers. We need support in many ways. And how can we be most successful in an environment that is not supportive?