Teacher Truth

OH NO-THE MATH AND READING SCORES HAVE DROPPED SINCE LAST YEAR!! DANGER, DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!!!

September 1986-My first day, of my first contract teaching year. We were blowing bubbles. Why? Because I wanted these sweet souls to love school, to want to come back tomorrow and most importantly to know that they had a teacher who valued each of them. Oh no!! Where is the objective written? Don’t worry-I had it all written out in my plan book as a Science lesson, because it was in fact, Science(using various instruments to create change and evaluating which instrument/tool was best for the task), and it was Social Studies (creating a caring community),and it was Language Arts (encouraging the give and take of conversation, expanding vocabulary) and it was Math (How can we measure the bubbles? What tools do we need? Recording our findings, building our math vocabulary)…yeah, it was all there. Oh yes, and it was FUN!!!!!!!! And that, dear friends, was my primary objective.

You see, relationship is first in the dance of teaching. I must learn to get to know you and I must make it so you can get to know me and trust me. I understand that will take time. OH NO BUT THE MATH AND READING SCORES HAVE DROPPED SINCE LAST YEAR!! DANGER, DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!!!

Calm down, people. Calm down. How do we learn things? Do we learn, I mean REALLY learn by cramming, by shoving, by increasing the time to practice things that are hard for us? Or, do we learn by a balance of activities, of methods, of ways of learning, and ways of responding. Is it only the extroverts who have the answers? Is it the test makers who have the answers? Have we asked the teachers/teaching staff, “What are your thoughts on the curriculum, the student interest, if you had your way, how would you structure the curriculum and the time in your day for maximum student engagement, in order to build a caring community of learners reaching high, dreaming high and learning in the best environment we can provide for them and with them?

What????? Ask the people doing the teaching??? In all the years I taught, I had one principal who asked me, “Mary, what do you need so that each of your students can succeed at their own pace and in their own way?” The other years, people who weren’t even in the school made all those decisions and quite frankly, many of those decisions were (how shall we put this) ass-backwards. Truth. And then, when “things” didn’t work, the blame was always on the teacher.

If you want to know how to “fix” the schools, ask the teachers, ask the paraeducators (assistants), ask the cafeteria workers, ask the secretaries, ask the custodians, …in short, ask the people in the trenches. And THEN, compile all that they told you and try it.

I always thought, that instead of “remediation” being more practice in what comes hard to you, balancing that with daily time to do what you (as the student) enjoy and are really good at…not as a “reward” but as part of their day. Not at the end of their day, but in the middle, like the yummy in the middle of a sandwich. Why not?

Am I ranting here? No…I am truth telling, because I have nothing to lose-no one is “evaluating” me. You want change and movement forward? Then, you have to CHANGE AND MOVE FORWARD!! Not chastise people. Blame and shame serve two purposes-they cause self loathing and avoidance. And those two things my friend, are NOT part of the recipe for success. Have I opened a can of worms? I hope so. Let’s go to the garden and let them go free. What are your thoughts on what I have said…all that I ask is that you “Be Nice”. You can disagree, but please, do so in a way that we can have civil discord. I welcome discussion!