The edublogs have been brimming with advice for the President-elect in the last few days, but teacher blogger Bill Ferriter’s stands out. ”I’m a teacher and I’m tired,” he writes. More than the relentless demands of the job, he’s exhausted by the crisis mentality that attends teaching. Educating all of our children requires “something more than sounding warning bells and asking teachers to pull up their boot straps time and again,” he writes.
Subtly, the message is being sent that if teachers would work harder, America’s “educational crisis” could be solved. If only all teachers were “highly qualified,” we’d lead the world again. If only all teachers held “advanced degrees in the subjects they were teaching,” we wouldn’t fall behind China, Japan and India in engineers and scientists. If only we could recruit “our best and our brightest” to our nation’s classrooms, no child would be left behind. The responsibility for addressing each of these issues inevitably ends up on the shoulders of teachers.
While I may not agree with every one of Ferriter’s prescriptions, it’s hard to disagree with his broader theme. We’re not going to get anywhere as long as teachers are expected to bear the load alone.
Hey Robert,
Thanks a ton for the nod. Glad that my post resonated with you. For me, the idea that we can fix schools “if only those teachers would work harder” is narrow minded and has been a barrier to serious improvement efforts.
Not to mention that it chases teachers out of the profession—who wants to work in a gig where you make next to nothing AND get criticized for every failure?
Rock on,
Bill
Comment by Bill Ferriter — November 6, 2008 @ 11:34 am
Hi Bill,
I couldn’t agree more. It can feel at times like no good deed goes unpunished.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately, and I think all roads lead to getting accountability right. I think every decent teacher understands that accountability is right and appropriate, but the way we’re doing it now — The Test as alpha and omega — just ain’t cutting it. It feels like the old joke about looking for lost keys under the streetlight because the light’s better there. And the impact on classroom practice is too profound to be ignored–or abided.
So how do we get this right? How do we put in place an objective accountability system that sheds light, not heat? How do we keep schools from doing too many things and none of them well?
Robert
Comment by Robert Pondiscio — November 6, 2008 @ 11:44 am
I’ve thought for a long time that the basic premise of NCLB was that all the source of all the problems in education was that schools weren’t trying hard enough. Almost all the sanctions imposed on low-performing schools seem centered around this idea.
Then when it becomes clear that schools with low achievement are concentrated in the inner city, and that minority students and students with disabilities have lower achievement, it’s a small jump to the mindset that teachers of these students don’t try as hard because of the “soft bigotry of low expectations.”
One of those nice, non-falsifiable (but most likely false) explanations.
Comment by Rachel — November 6, 2008 @ 9:14 pm
It’s not just NCLB. It’s the entire class of educational pundits trying to make their name.
It’s the babble of jargon introduced by experts marketing books, programs, conferences etc.
It’s the increasing domination of education policy by politicians, whose function is not to improve schools but to get votes.
It’s the religion of progress and change that is based on theories of power more than on theories of truth.
Comment by mlu — November 6, 2008 @ 10:27 pm
Why do we always ignore the elephants in the room?
- Discipline policies that give teachers and administrators almost no recourse in dealing with students who are disrupting the education of others.
- Parents who expect their children to be raised by schools.
- Parents and students who are permitted to take offense when working and thinking are required of them.
- Pedagogical fads that remove the teacher (adult) from the position of educator and relegate them to the position of “facilitator” and mini-lesson modeler.
- Project based learning, which works incredibly with motivated and disciplined children, being used as the blanket solution for kids who have not mastered the art of writing a complete sentence.
- Preaching the blessings of Core Knowledge while balking at full class instruction and discussion.
- Pretending that if each kid could just find the right “dedicated” master teacher, who gave them the right “leveled” book, on the right “inspirational” topic they would be fighting to get on the school bus each morning.
- The nonsensical doctrine of differentiation that keeps teachers up into the wee hours of the morning and gives the kids the ability learn even less then we did. When is the last time your boss differentiated your instruction or asked you to use rap or interpretive dance to present in a meeting? Good thing job applications and requirements are differentiated outside of the fantasy land called public education.
The solution to problem of low student scores is not a super race of highly qualified, motivated, talented, building hopping, and acronym spouting teachers. The solution is a pragmatic understanding of reality that allows us as a society to demand just as much of our parents and students as we do of our teachers. This is real “collaborative team teaching.” When one enters a school in which education is respected, educators are valued and children are seen as the incredible sponges of knowledge they are; creativity, variety, debate and education run rampant in the halls. Sadly the only thing running rampant today are the children because we will not step forward as a society and give them the tools they need to transform themselves and our world.
Or, maybe I’m just like Winnie the Pooh. Maybe my Heffalumps were never in the room to begin with.
Comment by Jim — November 8, 2008 @ 2:14 pm
Wow. What a tour de force. I can say with confidence that you are going to cause many, many sore necks. The inevitable result of all those teachers nodding vigorously in agreement with you.
Comment by Robert Pondiscio — November 8, 2008 @ 2:37 pm
Ay. My neck is sore already! Thanks Jim!
Comment by Diana Senechal — November 8, 2008 @ 4:57 pm
I found Jim’s post especially intriguing, particularly the assertion that we, “demand just as much of our parents and students as we do of our teachers.” There was a time in my life when I would have been offended. Not because it affects me personally, but because I had too much empathy for struggling parents, and I have witnessed and perhaps even ignorantly been a culprit of the “soft bigotry of low expectations.”
The world has changed, rapidly. Parents and students must become actively engaged in the education process by any means necessary. Hence, I ask all students in our school, even kindergartners what they want to do professionally when they grow up. I feel they need to begin, at very early ages, to ponder where they want their lives to go. They need to have a personal vision, and parents must support them.
If what President Elect Obama asserted is true, change is coming and parents will be strongly encouraged to assume responsibility for their children’s destinies. We cannot, must not do it alone.
Recently, I met with a parent to discuss her son’s behavior in school. She informed that the same troubling behaviors are exhibited at home. As the meeting progressed, I learned she is clinically depressed and struggling to wake up every day and keep their lives going. (She and the children do work with social service agencies and receive counseling.) She further stated that she wants her children to be successful, to which I responded the only way they will be is if you support them and model for them what you hope they will become.
That is the sacrificial role of a parent. You make the choice to create them, so you take the responsibility and support them in every way.
Comment by Ed Ruminator — November 8, 2008 @ 10:03 pm
As you say Ed, the role of the parent is incurred at the moment of the creative choice. Teachers themselves choose to become imbeded in the formative years of our citizenry and therefore also bear a measure of responsibility. It is logically unsound however to suggest that teachers are to be given sole credit or blame for success of their students. To give blame or credit to educators who hold less and less authoritative, pedigogical, moral sway over their charges is counterintuitive. If we put decrease in teacher influence alongside the incredible explosion of technology and entertainment that is currently vying for students’ attention on every level, it is amazing that student grades have not completely fallen off.
Children need, for the most part, to be guided by an adult who believes that there is something to be guided to. They need to find within themselves the abilities and passions that can only be refined through discipline and hard work. How will our children steer a course through the future rushing rainbow river of multitasking (as exciting and beautiful as it is chaotic and frightening) if we keep pointing fingers? As the waters of change comes up around our ankles, threatening to upset us, they are drowning in the rising current of informational, moral, entertainment, etc. choices. Why do we refuse throw them the life rings that worked for so many of us? Things like rules and expectations, imparted in the unique and loving ways by parents, communities and educators. Structure and caring are what shore up our society and allow deep creativity and potential to blossom. We will always have those among us that can operate and thrive in the chaos. They are valuable but they are unique. To demand that students and teachers chart their own course in such an atmosphere is tantamount to throwing a two month old babies into a pool in the hopes they will intuit their way to the surface, the ladder and the pool deck.
(Forgive the ridiculous amount of mixed metaphor, hope it at least gives you a chuckle)
Comment by Jim — November 9, 2008 @ 7:40 am
Have you read “How Disruptive Students Escalate Hostility and Disorder and How Teachers Can Avoid it” Hill M. Walker, Elizabeth Ramsey, Frank Gresham.
I’m trying to let go of the anger at these students and this dysfuntional system. Each day is a war zone with drama.
You are able to verbalize beautifully how unfriendly this system is to teacher and student alike.
Comment by darlene — March 10, 2009 @ 11:04 pm