Why Teach?

Being interested in literature for a great majority of my life, I’ve often connected with the wisdom of great writers from the past.   One of the first literary novels I can remember reading is Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens.  In this book he wrote that “The sun,--the bright sun, that brings back, not light alone, but new life, and hope, and freshness to man--burst upon the crowded city in clear and radiant glory. Through costly-coloured glass and paper-mended window, through cathedral dome and rotten crevice, it shed its equal ray.”  From early on in life, by reading and identifying with statements such as this, I learned that money has no real, intrinsic value and that there is much more to life.  I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do with my life, but I was sure that I wasn’t going to chase dollars but rather hold value in relationships, doing solid work, and helping others.  It was these early principles that guided me down the long, winding path to become an educator. 

The first few years in teaching are more stressful, cumbersome, and fatiguing than anyone can imagine.  There is no magic formula, no advice, and no college curriculum than can serve to prepare teachers for what they are about to encounter.  At any given moment in the classroom teachers are met with apathy, hostility, despair, confusion, absurdity, and any other number of things.  The only way through is by doing.  Experience is the only path to liberation and inspiration is hard to find.   Some anecdotal evidence of such difficulties facing teachers comes from a recent interaction I had with an old friend at a holiday event.  Before becoming a teacher this year, he served as a soldier in Afghanistan and was also a ten-year veteran of the police force.  When I asked how his first year of teaching was going, he said, “Of all the things I’ve ever hated, I’ve never hated anything as much as I hate teaching.” 

Now, with over a decade of classroom experience behind me, I have found the best way to succeed in the classroom is to be genuine.  When the students see this, they perform.  When students know that you are a real person who passionately brings enthusiasm and concern to the classroom day after day, in spite of an endless barrage of disconnected and aimless reforms and mandates, they sincerely attempt to succeed.  And it is in these attempts where inspiration lies. 

Without that inspiration, I would’ve left the profession years ago, mirroring the feelings of my first year teacher friend.  It’s not the pay.  It’s not the respect.   And it’s not the opportunity for advancement that inspires teachers to grind it out in the classroom day after day.  It’s the successes of the kids we work with that inspires and drives us.

More concretely, I’m inspired by Ashley, a current senior who I taught in 11^th grade who came up to me in the hallway several weeks ago smiling and jumping up and down with joy.  “Mr. Fagan.  Do you remember how bad I did on that pre-test you gave for ACT skills last year?  Well, with all of the practice and review and work you gave us last year, I just got my results back and my composite score was a 30!  Thank you so much for all that you did to help me!”  That inspires me.

I’m inspired by the students who arrive in my speech class terrified of talking in front of a group of people.  I’ve had students cry during their first speech.  I had a student run out of the classroom and hide because she was so scared.  And every year there are others who want to make immediate guidance appointments to get their schedules changed while I reassure them that it won’t always be this hard and that at some point, they are going to have to face it.  And there isn’t a feeling that compares to seeing these same students grow, build poise, and confidence as the course develops.  By the end of the year, many of these students not only give 7-9 minute speeches, but they learn how to confidently command a room. 

I’m inspired when students in my first period make it to class 70 out of the first 90 days of school.  I’m inspired because in spite of the obstacles thrown in their way they arrive as often as they can.  They arrive when they can and work hard to succeed even when they are the sole morning care-takers of elementary aged siblings that have no other means to get to school because their mothers are working. 

I’m inspired when my honors students challenge themselves and take Advanced Placement courses in 12^th grade. 

I’m inspired when my students get accepted into the colleges of their choice.

I’m inspired on graduation night when I arrive for my assigned duty and see my students in their caps and gowns.  They run over to me.  They hug me.  They take pictures with me.  They let me know how much what we did together means to them.  And that means everything to me. 

I’m inspired when former students reach out to let me know that they are doing great things now. 

I’m inspired when I get a call from a former student now serving in Afghanistan while home on leave, asking to make plans to meet up before the holidays. 

I’m inspired when former students become teachers and say that they’ve chosen that path because of the influence I’ve had on them (and I’m also terrified by their career choices as I see what the future of our profession holds in store for them). 

I’m inspired when I’m invited to the weddings of former students. 

I’m inspired when I receive baby pictures of their children.

I’m inspired when I receive Christmas cards in the mail from them. 

I’m inspired by my colleagues who come into work on a daily basis and do the work that matters in the face of adversity, animosity, disrespect, and an ever-changing environment because they too, know what it’s all about. 

In a profession when teacher voices are so often devalued and unheeded, there is so often very little to uplift and inspire.  The pay surely doesn’t inspire.  The rising costs of benefits, deductibles, and copays doesn’t inspire.   The lack of respect and autonomy doesn’t inspire.  The intentional debilitation of public schools and the invaluable services they provide does not inspire.

 If it weren’t for the kids and the daily interactions, laughs, tears, learning experiences, and small victories we experience together, there’d be no reason to teach at all. 

The GLAMorous World of Educational Reform

Currently, American public education may be in the beginning throes of extinction as it experiences unprecedented and calamitous reforms in regard to testing, teacher accountability, and curriculum reform.  Teachers are overburdened to the point of becoming incapable of doing not just all that is asked, but anything that is asked.  I imagine there was a time in education when teachers could plan, teach, assess, and interact with students.  Those days are long gone and beyond the reaches of memory for most teachers working today.

Testing has gotten so far out of control that a school district can have some sort of assessment going on just about any given day.  In Miami-Dade County the district uses 154 of the 180 days of student attendance for some sort of testing.  Even though any individual student may only be testing for a total of 8 hours on any state-mandated test in any given year, that student will also be given an assortment of district-issued assessments in order to address legislation that mandates interventions to get students up to speed.  Tests are not the exception, they are the norm. They occur continually and interfere with instruction to the point instruction becomes almost impossible at times.  

For example, during the first weeks of school a district typically has students take diagnostic tests in order to determine baseline scores and benchmarks in most core subjects.  As the year progresses, these students are then called back to test each quarter to gather data to identify areas of need and to see if progress toward mastery is being made.  In ed-speak this is called “progress-monitoring.”    In English classes, for example, districts mandate writing tests in addition to reading tests so students can be given some sort of mandated test more than 3 times in any given quarter, for a single core subject.   As the legislature lowered the penalties for the class size amendment, districts are cutting teacher positions and are filling classes to the brim with students.  Core classes are being reported to contain student counts over 30 and electives as big as 40.  Computer labs are not large enough to accommodate classes of such size so testing for any given class may be broken up over the course of two or three days.  What this ultimately means is that instruction can be impeded for up to 3 days while testing occurs, and a teacher cannot teach a class fully when at least a third of that class is not present.  If this happens three times per quarter, instruction is basically lost for up to 9 days per quarter, which amounts to more than 20 percent of instructional time.  This is not to mention the other resources lost to testing.  Usually it is the guidance counselors who end up administering these tests, so students are also losing essential guidance in addition to classroom instruction.  In short, schools are not providing the basic services they were designed to do.  They are intentionally being set up to fail (https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3286777759911046485#editor/target=post;postID=7551337420457621865;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=1;src=postname

Besides dealing with the interminable testing (not to mention having a portion of salary based upon student tests even if that teacher doesn’t teach a subject in which his/her students are being tested) teachers are also being forced to collaborate at unprecedented levels.  Many districts are forcing teachers to collaborate in Professional Learning Communities which meet for at least one hour per week.  Apparently management felt that teachers weren’t already doing this and therefore mandated it.  These PLCs occur in addition to faculty meetings, department meetings, district meetings, parent conferences, and weekly academy meetings.  The inherent problem with such excessive meeting is twofold: first, teachers are unavailable after school for tutoring and providing extra-help and second, teachers now have less time to plan and grade.  Between testing and meeting, teachers have very little time on the job to actually do the job, but ironically are held more personally accountable than ever before by holding a portion of the paycheck ransom to test scores. It’s a veritable educational catch 22 if you will.

Seemingly the rationale behind PLCs seems to be only that someone in upper-management had an all-expenses paid trip to observe a model-school and needs an end product to justify the expense or it’s that someone just simply read about a district in Singapore that has high test scores and figured “what the hell, let’s try this.”  The truth is upper administration really seems to have no real reason other than it seems to work in some other places.  “Let’s try it,” they say and if you question the merits of any new initiative you’re labeled out of touch, old-fashioned, and unwilling to change with the times.  In district level meetings they set the agendas and the “norms” of the meetings, keeping negative criticisms and any real thorough analysis of the new ideas at bay.   The new idea in education is always the best idea if you are in middle or upper management.   

But the problem with adopting such practices is that American districts don’t adhere to a full and complete adoption of foreign practices.  For instance, in Singapore and Shanghai, teachers spend 10 to 18 hours per week with students.  In America teachers spend 25 to 32 hours on average with students.   And by adopting the PLC collaboration model but not doing a single thing to lessen other burdens, management only creates more hindrances upon the teachers.    They don’t initiate real, substantive change.  They don’t really care about making real change because if they really wanted to it wouldn’t be done in such a half-assed manner.  They fling shit at the wall to see what sticks.  They piggyback on precursors by plagiarizing and imitating.  There is no actual concern about these ideas actually working because those who initiate will have moved on by the time they fail and the next movement comes along.  And even worse, recent research has shown that there IS ABSOLUTELY NO BENEFIT FROM DISTRICT MANDATED TEACHER TRAINING.  (http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/study-billions-of-dollars-in-annual-teacher-training-is-largely-a-waste/2015/08/03/c4e1f322-39ff-11e5-9c2d-ed991d848c48_story.html)

To an outsider, this issue is far more complicated than this verbose explication can ever clarify and address so perhaps a simple analogy might be more apropos.   Sometimes the new shiny thing isn’t always the best thing and my point can probably be clarified most simply with some images related to American popular music.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  Sometimes, images can leave you speechless.  Somewhere back in the late 1980s a few rock and roll bands involved in the West Coast music scene began garnering attention and filling clubs. The full clubs soon translated to records sales and the dollars began flowing into the record labels.  Soon record label management signed everyone and everything they could market and exploit.  Established, credible acts with reputations built upon artistic merit and tenure in the industry were even forced by management to move in the direction of the new, alluring tide.  Veterans of the industry KISS, Ozzy Osbourne and Alice Cooper were not immune.

It doesn’t take too much to get the point. Grown men in bands, some with previous artistic integrity, had been forced by the free market and executive desire to exploit the next, new, fresh idea.  Looking at these pictures should illustrate just how asinine this is.  And doing the same in education should be looked upon in just the same fashion.  You can’t hide behind a bad idea and use children as your shield.  I cannot count the times I’ve heard management say that each new directive and initiative is for the children.  And if you resist a new idea because you realize it’s not going to be effective you’re labeled as being selfish and uncaring.  But it’s not about the children; it’s about politics, career advancement, and money.  Teaching isn’t a mystery and it doesn’t take any modern miracle or reform to help.  We need some common sense, some latitude, and some funding.  It’s a very simple formula. And if you REALLY want to reform education, you address poverty in America because that’s the number one factor when looking to the cause of student failures.  You can’t put a turd of an idea in a shiny jacket and make it glamorous.  Some people prefer the lipstick on a pig idiom but I think calling these ideas turds is more suitable since they are all stinkers.  PLCS, Merit Pay, Wall to Wall Academies, technology in the classroom, Florida’s Best and Brightest Scholarship, word walls, Race to the Top, No Child Left Behind, FCAT parties and carnivals, classroom libraries, Marquez, Marzano, Criss, and Foundations….all of it is just simply plain crap with no substance to it, pure drivel without intent…. but dressed up in a glitzy jacket with hair that will set your pants on fire.