I am worried. I try to stay rooted in the present, but I worry about teaching in the future. I think I have finally hit the point when if someone asks me “Would you recommended for me to become a teacher?” I would say no.
As I teach, highly civilized human beings are making rules, trying to control me.
George Orwell
I have been teaching for 21 years. I am an exponentially a more powerful teacher now than I was just five years ago. In those 21 years I have tried just about everything from in-row worksheet based classrooms, to no-rules projects, from lists and lists of rules on the walls, to no rules ever mentioned, from detentions that would last for 16 days, to no coercive actions to alter behaviors, to treating the kids like inmates, to treating them like my own kids. I have seen and done almost everything. My wisdom is great, and I am proud to finally be able to say that publicly. While my wisdom might be great, it is currently “not worth a continental.” There are so many new “rules” coming into school that are trying to control me, trying to make me do what everyone else is doing. At a time when innovation is held high as a business standard, it is looked down upon in schools. The new rules are trying to create a common experience for all, to create a common knowledge, to create a common standard to which all students must adhere and abide by in order to be considered successful. These rules made by a few flow down from the highest places to regiment me and my students in the classroom.
The inscription on a wall at the Franklin Deleno Roosevelt memorial:
“They [who] seek to establish a system of education based on the regimentation of all students by a handful of administrators call this a new order. It is not new and it is not order.”
This new order scares me. There seems to be a march towards telling me what to teach, when to teach it, how to teach it, and how to assess it. Many deny this is the path we are marching towards. They say it will never happen. I know teachers that have been chastised for mentioning it. But I am worried. My own school’s mission statement mentions getting students to “pursue their personal best.” The problem is, I will only be able to get them to pursue their “personal best” on topics, skills, using techniques, and on a time table that the system will choose for them…and me. Not what they are personally best in, but only to be the best under someone else’s rules, in someone else’s game.
The inscription on the southeast wall of the Jefferson Memorial reads:
I am not an advocate for frequent changes in education. But changes in school must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, schools must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a student to use only a paper and pen which fitted his teacher when a boy, as civilized school to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.
The more we try to establish a single experience for all students, and a single expectation for all students, the more heavily laden our system will become with rules and regulations that are made by highly civilized and highly “educated” people at the top. The more years I teach, the more those highly civilized and educated people have less and less experience in the classroom (X). The rules that are made at the top are hard to change. They stay with us for years. It is like a company developing a new product and committing to produce it for 20 years despite changes in the marketplace. Our system’s vision statement, like those of many other school systems, states that it “will distinguish itself with innovative teaching.” Going back to the latin root, innovatus, meaning ”to renew or change,” schools seem to think to innovate is something you do once every twenty years. Innovate is something I want to do daily. Innovate is something I want to do hourly. Innovate is something I cannot do when held back by rules that don’t want innovation, but standardization. Innovate is not something I can do in a system that germinates followers, and does not tolerate leaders.
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”
Steve Jobs
This is not a “o woe is me” post, it is not a cry for help, or a white flag. It is more of a subtle battle cry to myself. My wisdom is worth “more than a Continental.” There are many teachers whose ideas and innovations are worth “more than a Continental.” I hoped that this post would spark an idea, force me to come up with some kind of action…and so after snacking while staring at the previous sentence I think I have something. I have attended and spoken at the progressive conferences like Educon, and hip unconferences like Edcamps and Podcamps, and have done the same at traditional conferences like NELMS and CCSS. These attract one or two people per school. They gather together innovative voices from a state or larger region, but what do they do to unify voices in a single school district? In many cases these conferences are intimidating for most people to attend. I can only think of one colleague who has attended a conference outside of mandatory PD in my district. So my thought is this, what if an Edcamp/Educon style conference was set-up just for my district? Set-up full of friendly faces. Set-up to establish links between like-minded people who are not Twitterers, Linkedins, and bloggers. Set-up to encourage first timers to step-up and share, to step-up and have conversations.
Arlo Guthrie once sang about how people think one person with an idea is just sick. No one listens to two people. If three people have an idea, well now you have a movement. But if 50 people, yes 50 people get together with the same idea, well then you have an organization. The current set-up in our schools separates innovative thoughts. Each individual who has the inkling of a creative thought often feels sick and left alone. This in-system conference would in no way be a rebellion, it would be an organization of teachers who seek to remain, or “become” innovative despite the harsh realities of our job and the rules that we work under. I hope that I can frame it in a way that comes across as supportive of our own school administrators and system administrators. So in one year, on April 28, 2012, I hope to have a “conference” with teachers and administrators in my system where we can come together not to be spoken to like we don’t know anything, but to share and hopefully walk away feeling empowered to innovate. Again, “conferencing” not in a rebellious sense, but in a supportive way. And in that sharing become a group of people who all believe that our knowledge, our experience, our wisdom, our ideas, are worth “more than a Continental.”
Step one…find out who is the chair of the PD committee…
It’s a good idea, but not an easy one. We had small pieces of this in my last school but the key may be to get teachers to share in this way through out the year. We had a PD on the book 15 Fixes and it was primarily small group discussion and I thought it was wonderful. We also had a book study a couple of years ago and each teacher took turns sharing examples of how they teach vocabulary in their classroom. It was nice too but not really discussion driven. The best to me would be year long opportunities to discuss and collaborate.
My logistic questions for you is “Is your day would be optional or part of mandatory district PD? Is there a way to make the day a kick off of a bigger strategy to have conversations through out the year?”
I hope you are able to get admin on board and make this happen.
I would love to keep it separate from the district mandates. If it becomes part of the district PD than it must cover our SMART goals. I mention finding the PD committee chair at the end of the post because I would want to tell them my idea to see if they would buy in, and also I don’t want to appear as though I am offering an alternative to their PD, but simply an independent addition. I really don’t see this as PD, but just simply linking like-minded people. I know a couple years ago we were in a meeting and we were asked to decide on something. As we walked out and throughout the next day it was found out that many people disagreed with the decision but no one spoke up because everyone thought they were alone in their thinking. I get that under the current rules that our district PD must cover certain things. I am not looking to change the rules, or how current PD is conducted, but rather promote innovation with the current rules intact.
I know that years ago under different district admin an idea for getting teachers together to share ideas was shot down. I think the current admin (school/district) is more open minded and hopefully will support it. We shall see…
I think the blogosphere and twitter are very powerful tools for professional development. However, I recognize that they don’t work for everyone (or even a significant percentage of folks). In fact, I doubt that any form of professional development works for everyone.
I say all that to say that I think your idea for local day of sharing and learning together is a wonderful one.
I focused on this final, brief bit of your post, but the entire thing was very thought-provoking. Your revisions to the quotes was especially powerful. Good luck with all the thoughts here.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I have been following this blog for a few month snow and appreciate your insight into teaching.
1. Thanks for sharing the common craft style project in an earlier post. It was one of those ideas that I came across just when I needed it. thank you also for sharing the process and other links – very useful as I crafted the project for my students. Just so happens, my students are filming today. The process has been enlightening and I look forward to be able to sharing my students products with a wide audience.
2. Our school just completed our 2nd in-house conference – as you described above. I have also been to numerous wonderful conferences, but none better than these that were presented by my colleagues. I encourage you to get after that PD coordinator to set it up.