Everybody’s talkin’ ’bout the new sound. Funny, but it’s still rock ‘n roll to me.

Man, I have a lot coming up this week.  I’m glad I planned ahead.

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

What do you mean, I shouldn’t have done that?

“It’s not effective.”

What’s the matter with planning ahead?

“Can’t you tell that you’re not paying attention to your students’ needs?”

So should I poll every one of them at the beginning of class to make sure that the lesson that we only have 45 minutes for is customized to all 25 of them?

“Welcome to the age of innovation.  Honestly, where have you been?  You can’t be expected to be a good teacher if you don’t put all of your time and effort into using innovative technology to give your students forward-thinking, out-of-the-box classroom experiences that are authentic.”

Hm. Everybody talks about innovation but I kind of see the same stuff I’ve always seen.  I mean, half the stuff I have seen that’s all flashy and new is all stuff I can do with a piece of chalk and some discussion in my class.

“Oh, don’t get me started about your classroom.”

What’s the matter with the classroom?

“Can’t you tell that you are clinging to an outdated industrial factory-model mode of teaching that is designed to enslave students in order to create nothing but compliance to a standardized test-based regime?”

Uh, should I get more bean bags or something?

“Look, just get rid of the outdated rows and make sure that none of your students are facing you but are grouped so they can always be interacting with one another in order to minimize your presence in the room.”

Yeah, everybody talks about the fact that students don’t need teachers because they can learn on their own, but it seems that I’m still held responsible when they don’t.

But then again, that’s “everybody” and when has “everybody” been right?  Listening to people on Twitter is the same conversation we’ve always had:  there’s some new method, but simply reading a book or an article won’t give you the full impact or effect because the people teaching teachers don’t know anything about being teachers.  Although they seem to be too aimed at pontificating toward teachers.

So maybe what you’re saying is that I should throw out my furniture, give everyone an iPad and leave the classroom altogether?

“You know, you could really be an Innovative Educator if you just give it half a chance.  And don’t waste your money on 1:1.  You’ll get more out of BYOD.”

1:1, BYOD, authentic assessment, innovative, out of the box … is teaching part of this?  I mean, people I work this were around way before that stuff.

“Yes, but they’re wrong.”

What’s the matter with my colleagues?

“Don’t you know that they’re out of touch.”

So I should simply go ahead and try to be the most knowledgeable and up-front person in my department?

“Well, you know that teachers don’t have a monopoly on knowledge.  Don’t you know that all you are there to do is be a guide on the side?”

Maybe I should just stop listening to you so I can clear my head, get my confidence back, and go ahead … and teach.

 

 

Pollyanna and the Dog and Pony Show

So on a chat yesterday about getting over the mid-year slump, one of the suggestions made was that a way to combat the exhaustion and near-burnout (or in my case full-on burnout) that comes during the middle of the school year is to be positive, to make sure that we don’t show that we’re frustrated or exhausted, to share what works with others and to point out to others the achievements of your colleagues.

At a glance, those sound fine.  After all, when you’re exhausted, frustrated, and overall fried, crying in your coffee isn’t going to help get work done, right?  And if we support each other and show each other off, we’ll come together as a team, right?  And we’ll all remember that this is all about the kids and the kids are wonderful and puppy dogs and ice cream and rainbow sprinkle sparkle sparkle sparkle moonshine snowflakes, right?

Let’s break down why teachers get into this mid-year slump around January-February and then talk about these “solutions” and why they’re not really solutions.  Why are we … or at least why am I feeling a little fried right around now.  

Confessions of an Achievement Junkie

photo credit: thebarrowboy via photopin cc

[A quick note: I originally posted this entry on June 6, 2011, on my old blog. I've been thinking about this one a lot lately, and since the blog has been taken down, I wanted to repost it (with some minor edits) today.]

About a year and a half ago, I came across the article “How Important are Grades to You?” by Marcella Purnama in the Melbourne-based Meld Magazine. In the article, she challenges the notion that knowledge and good grades go hand in hand and criticizes the fact that we have become obsessed with the evaluation part of education and therefore have lost the plot.  She even goes as far as to quote Erica Goldson’s 2010 valedictory speech, and picks up the part that most people who were enamored of that speech picked up on, the “I was a good slave, you’re all slaves, death to the system!” part.  It’s not that necessary for me to repeat that there aren’t that many teachers out there who worship at the altar of evaluation and standardized testing; in fact, most of the people I know seem to accept testing as part of the job and strive for their students to get good test scores because … well, I don’t know about you but I don’t feel like standing on an unemployment line.

But when you get to the heart of the matter and take something like standardized testing out of the equation, I honestly get frustrated by my students’ Pavlovian need for a grade on every little assignment to the point where they will not read an article or engage in a discussion if there no type of credit attached.  ”Is this for a grade?” is the second-most asked student question (the first, of course, is “Can I go to the bathroom?”).  But at the same time, grades are obviously necessary on some level.  I know that knowledge is a formidable goal in itself and one should be happy that he or she achieved said knowledge, no matter if the grade is an A+ or a C-.  Purnama seems to have a pretty balanced view of things and I think she realizes this; however, she ends her piece by saying:

University was never meant to be a pressure cooker. We come to learn new things, not just for the getting of good grades or jobs. More than that, we learn because we are passionate about what we are studying. It’s all about seeing the bigger picture. Good grades aren’t the guarantee for success in life.

And like I said, this is true to an extent.   Just because you got good grades in high school doesn’t mean that you’re going to automatically ascend to the presidency and if you pull a D in 9th grade English you’re not doomed to destitution or a life of crime.  You know, just like winning a senior award or a scholarship doesn’t make you any better than the person who didn’t.  I sit through a senior awards ceremony every year, just like most high school teachers who have to babysit a throng of underclassmen in a gym.  And if we’re not complaining about having to babysit, we’re complaining about how long the awards ceremony is, or how the same kids seem to win every award (of course, I’m always the first person to point out that very often they’re the only ones to apply for the scholarships they win).  Somewhere along the line, usually when we get into hour three of the ceremony (seriously, they’re like an Oscars telecast), someone pipes up that there’s no point in these awards because in the long run, they’re all insignificant anyway.

I’m sure there are plenty of people who agree with that sentiment.  Obviously, being the person who is given the perfect attendance award in high school doesn’t mean that you’re set for life.  I know someone who was awarded the perfect attendance award in high school and then wound up flunking out of college because he never went to class.  And I know people who spent a significant amount of high school “in absentia” who are successful in their jobs as police officers, lawyers, soldiers, or whatever passion they followed.   Of course, that all goes without saying because if you think that who you are at 18 defines who you will be for the next 70 years, you’re either naive or stupid.   Maybe both.

The heartbreaking reality of our situation

There were teachers frustrated because they were not allowed to require deadlines for homework or essays even when their students had proved they were capable of meeting such standards. I saw lawyers and parents fighting for accommodations because they wanted to prove a point—not because the children involved needed or even used them. I saw so many adults whose primary concern was other than the education or the well-being of children, and so many lawyers and politicians who cared nothing about learning, that I broke. I was disgusted. I gave up the extra responsibility of the student-support team in hopes that I would regain my love for teaching.

 

This is from a commentary in Education Week entitled “Why I Left Teaching.”    I don’t have much to say about it except go read it, especially if you’re one of those people who loves to constantly post or tweet about how teachers are all stuck in our own pasts or we use archaic methods or whatever passive-aggressive teacher bashing is trendy this week.  It is heartbreaking piece and if you don’t feel at least some empathy while reading it, then you  really haven’t been in a classroom lately.

Commencement Speaker to Class of 2012: Drop Dead

No, commencement is life’s great ceremonial beginning, with its own attendant and highly appropriate symbolism. Fitting, for example, for this auspicious rite of passage, is where we find ourselves this afternoon, the venue. Normally, I avoid clichés like the plague, wouldn’t touch them with a ten-foot pole, but here we are on a literal level playing field. That matters. That says something. And your ceremonial costume… shapeless, uniform, one-size-fits-all. Whether male or female, tall or short, scholar or slacker, spray-tanned prom queen or intergalactic X-Box assassin, each of you is dressed, you’ll notice, exactly the same. And your diploma… but for your name, exactly the same.

All of this is as it should be, because none of you is special.

You are not special. You are not exceptional.

The headline says “Commencement speaker blasts students,” and at a glance it seems that David McCullough, Jr.’s speech at Wellesley High School in Massachussetts was doing so, spending the first half of his commencement address pointing out how not unique the members of the class of 2012 are.

It’s the type of sentiment that teacher-hating bloggers out there snatch up and butter before Hoovering it like a certain orange tabby does lasagna.

But the whole speech is actually brilliant, the kind that should be passed on and on because it is empowering and reading it here on my last day of school (with nobody in the building), I definitely had a “Hells yeah!” reaction.

You can read it at the Washington Post:  “Commencement Speaker Blasts Students” (WaPo’s The Answer Sheet Blog, 6/8/12)

5 Days, 5 Things #1: Teachers Have Lives

The view looking south from the top of Carter Mountain in Charlottesville, Virginia.

So, it’s Teacher Appreciation Week and in lieu of both inspirational pap and unrelenting snark, I thought I’d share some “observations” or “truths” (or whatever you’d like to call them) about teachers.

I remember one time when I was in a junior in high school, my dad happened to have to do the grocery shopping on a Saturday and I went with him (because I really had nothing better to do).  As we were making our way through the produce section of Waldbaum’s, I looked to my left and saw Mrs. Taber, who had been my sophomore-year English teacher.  I said hello, but was definitely surprised to see her at the same supermarket where we were shopping.

“You know I have a life outside of school,” she cracked.

I’m not sure if I actually replied to that, but of course I knew that because my father was a teacher himself.  I probably had forgotten that quite a number of my teachers lived in or near the town in which they taught because my father’s school district was a good 15-20 minutes away.  It never surprised me that teachers could have lives, and even though it was a little weird to run into them at the movies or at the video store or supermarket, it was no more weird than running into someone I work with or a friend or classmate at a place where I didn’t expect them to be.

As I spent what was a pretty busy weekend with my family, I thought of this.  I didn’t necessarily run into anyone, but I did have a lot of fun and more or less did very little in the way of work (I graded a few leftover assignments that needed to be put in the gradebook for progress reports).  We spent Saturday up at Carter Mountain Orchard for their “Spring Fling.”  It was an overcast day on top of the mountain where the orchard is located, but my son still had a chance to decorate apple cider donuts, paint a flower pot, and get his face painted.  Plus, there was kettle corn and pie.  And pie is awesome.

Then, we got to do something which the geek dad in me absolutely loved–go to Free Comic Book Day at our LCS, Atlas Comics.  Which, by the way, was crowded but fun and Brett got to pick up some Avengers and Spider-Man as well as a SpongeBob SquarePants comic.  Sunday was what I think has been #1,000 in a run of kids’ birthday parties we’ve had to attend lately.

Why do I post such inanity?  Well, because sometimes in the midst of our rather hectic schedules, and our constant need to feel like we always need to be “on” in order to stay relevant and ahead of the game (even to justify our existence in a way), it’s easy to forget those things in life that don’t have anything to do with the job at all.  Yes, I know we’re “public servants” (and some people would put emphasis on the word “servants” there) and I know that plenty of people consider teaching not a job but a “calling,” but I do enjoy that I have interests and a life that is outside of the walls of my classroom and school, that doesn’t intersect with the lives of my co-workers or students, and that everyone doesn’t necessarily always need to know about.  Granted, nobody really wants to know about my boring-assed life, but I don’t think that’s the point of what I’m writing anyway.

I love that the interests of my fellow educators and I are diverse and eclectic, and I love that we choose very often to have lives away from our building.  It keeps us sane and is a reminder of what sometimes really is worth it in life.