Wearing teachers out

I have said before that I'm not sure which of the following four-word phrases is the most dangerous to public schools:

"I'm just a teacher."

or

"This too shall pass."

Right now, I'm leaning toward, "This too shall pass," because the only people that have to change their minds for the first one to go away are some teachers.  But, for the latter to fade, lots and lots of politicians, from the US Senate to the local school board, and lots and lots of administrators and "consultants" and text book companies and, well, it goes on and on, have to stop what they're doing.  (Note, I didn't say change their minds -- some of these know what they're doing isn't good for schools, but it's good for them.)  Anyway, this post from a junior high teacher gets at what I'm saying:

The political climate regarding teaching is starting to wear on me.

Last year I threw out almost every thing I'd ever created to teach from the red textbook from Holt. I kept to the schedule, even when it made no sense. I spent at least one class period a week on spelling, because that's the area administration decided upon which we would focus. More than halfway through the year, the English chair decided we would adopt the Sheri Henderson way of teaching writing, and we had no say in that decision. So, yet again, I threw out something (this time, something not even well-tried) for the newest "solution."

I'm beat.

This young woman is in her 9th year.  She has likely just reached the top of her game as a teacher and, instead of taking advantage of that, her superiors are jerking her around as if they WANT her to decide, "This too shall pass," and quit trying to think for herself. 

Of course, if it were possible that the next text book or pedagogical strategy or classroom management scheme would be THE ONE!, then this might make sense.  But, there is no THE ONE!  There is no programmatic solution to helping all students learn at higher levels than we expected of all but the very elite just a few decades ago.  Rather, it takes connections -- human connections -- between teachers and students.  It takes connections to get students to engage with the work that's required to learn and grow at top capacity.  And those connections get tossed when the next bright idea comes along and makes more teachers start to think, "This too shall pass."

Note to school boards:  If your administrators aren't spending there time supporting teachers in teaching the way they think is best -- in calling teachers to higher levels of excellence based on the teachers' strengths -- then your adminstrators are part of the problem.  Think about that the next time they assure you they are going to train those teachers into doing a better job.

Comments

[thebizofknowledge]

I'm sure that millions of teachers, including myself, could relate to the frustration that emanates from this post. We've all faced similar administrative decisions that we knew would not work but were forced to adhere to, ignoring our own instincts and setting aside our own skills in the classroom.

[brad hoge]

I couldn't agree more. I left teaching because I had to dumb down my curriculum to accomodate less prepared teachers teaching the same subject (8th grade earth science). The explanation was that it wasn't fair for my students to get a better education than those in the other classrooms (I'm paraphrasing, but that's the gist of it). Mandating what each teacher must teach hurts all students because it deprives them of the talents of their individual teachers and it hides the shortcomings of incompetent teachers.

We must trust teachers! We must support their best efforts, and we must allow for diversity of educational approaches. It is only through variation in teaching that we can identify the optimal strategies. And, though what is optimal for one teacher is not optimal for another, by allowing variation we will see an adaptive landscape emerge.

It strikes me as odd that "conservative" policies place the onus of competition at the school level rather than at the level of the individual teacher.

[Coach Brown]

This is an excellent post!

You can't believe how discouraging when things are going well, and then the politics attempts to rip the heart out of good instruction.