My 300 Epiphany

March 2, 2017June 23, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

{Reposted From Days Gone By At No Extra Charge To You}

Several years ago, in what seems like a very different place and time, I had a horrible school year. Some of you know how it can go – I was trying new things, and they weren’t working. Or, if they were, they weren’t being supported, and had to be abandoned, whatever prior promises. The stuff that used to work wasn’t working either, and the student rapport to which I was accustomed just wasn’t there – at least not to the extent on which I’d grown reliant.

Then the parent calls started. I’m not a teacher who gets that many upset parents, or – if I do – has trouble resolving them.

Usually.

But that year… that year they just DID NOT LIKE ME.

It took on a life of its own as little cliques began talking to each other, and as students became aware I was anathema to mom and dad, oh god it just spiraled. In retrospect, I should have found better ways to anticipate, nip, resolve – but I didn’t, and it grew.

Introducing… Courtney. Of course her name wasn’t really Courtney, but for purposes of this blog she’s Courtney. Her real name was Alisha, but I’d never use it – it would be unprofessional.**

Courtney was popular and pretty and a straight ‘A’ student. Her father coached and her mother taught at another building. All of my superiors knew and loved her parents – and her mother hated me with the fire of a thousand suns.

Neither Courtney nor her primary progenitor cared for the way I taught, the skills in which I found value, or the policies I implemented. By Labor Day they more or less resented the oxygen I was breathing which would have been better inhaled by worthier beings.

Courtney often left school just before my class to go with dad to athletic events – which is, you know, fine in and of itself. But that’s when I really stepped in it. I followed the school policy guide regarding missed days and make-up work – a procedure which, as it turned out, was completely unacceptable. The entire Courtney family was soon convinced I had it in for their daughter, and mom began copying people way above my pay grade on every email – of which there were many.

Now, you might think the inclusion of the people who write and approve the policies would bring some sanity to the discussion. You know, if they ever replied, or acknowledged, or joined the conversation in any way – even when I begged.

Which they didn’t, although I did. So it didn’t.

I’d never felt so… angry? Wounded? Humiliated? Worse, I felt foolish for being so blindsided. I’m hardly an idealist – what made me feel immune from the realities of bureaucracy and cronyism?

I was young enough to still cling to a FEW ideals and principles – should I give in so easily when I didn’t think it was best for classroom dynamics and expectations, best for me, or even best for Courtney? Did we want to teach her that sufficient complaining could solve any problem?

It probably didn’t help that I was myself outraged on a weekly – sometimes daily – basis by some district policy or building decision or the other. I didn’t see the irony at the time, of course – and it probably wouldn’t have helped if I had.

Everything I tried to do to improve the situation just made things worse and embarrassed me further. In hindsight, I probably could have done better – but I just kept rolling down that hill of broken glass. On fire. Without shoes.

By summer I was looking for other employment. At the very least I wanted another building (different administrators), maybe even another district. I had a good shot at a curriculum coordinator position in a district closer to home, but… I mean, I still wanted to be in the classroom…

That was the summer the movie 300 came out. For those of you who haven’t seen it, it’s a rather elastic take on the Spartans at Thermopylae. It’s not a great movie by any definition, but it’s very entertaining. I was home alone for a few weeks (my wife has a real job) and Netflixed it.

And in the two hours I spent immersed in some very bizarre choices regarding nudity and testosterone-laden CGI violence, I had an epiphany. A paradigm shift, if you will. One whose impact has lasted for a number of years.

I was trying to fix things – the student, the parents, the situation. More than that, I was trying to fix the system, the district, the underlying assumptions and realities of public education. I wanted – I NEEDED – agreement, support, understanding, validation, and action by others to make this happen. I could understand resistance, but not inertia, or apathy, or complete denial of things which were to me so glaringly clear.

I knew odds were slim and the task was great and the fields were ripe for harvest, but I still carried a faith from my evangelical days that we could win.

We could save them. We could change the system. We could make a measurable difference. If only a few key people would ‘get it’, would listen, would cooperate… we could win.

None of those things were delusions of the Spartans as they prepared to face the Persian hoards storming their shores. They positioned themselves at the narrowest pass between the oceans and their homeland, and determined to hold it as long as possible – but with little illusion what that would mean.

“Come back with your shield, or on it.” The parting words of a good Spartan mother to her son, or wife to her husband, as he left for battle. One did not flee under any circumstances. The glory of the moment was far more important, and the price of failure too high.

The Spartans didn’t do much well in terms of variety, but they were tough sons-of-bee-hatches. It was always a good day to die.

I found myself running through edu-quivalents of the more dramatic phrases uttered at Thermopylae – reshaping the content while attempting to maintain the testosterone:

(Annoying Persians) – “We will fill the air with arrows of bureaucratic nonsense!”
(Classroom Teachers) – “Then we will teach… in the SHADE!”

Yeah, it didn’t sound much better in my head, but I kept trying.

(The Hoards of Ignorance) – “Lay down your lesson plans!”
(Classroom Teachers) – “Come and GET THEM!”

So that part didn’t work. At all. Even then. But the larger paradigm shift did stick.

It wasn’t about winning. Winning would have been fine, and is often worth striving for, but that focus could often lead to frustration and poor strategy.

What mattered was the fight. Going down gloriously. Holding the pass for as long as you might, no matter the cost. Standing in the gap full of idealistic defiance for as long as you can before you are inevitably overrun.

Don’t get sidetracked by history, or home, or hope – focus on this pass, this moment, the tiny pieces of success. Claim them and don’t let go.

Well, until the part where you’re slaughtered in futility. But not until then at least.

Most of my students – even the high maintenance examples like Courtney – lack literal swords, but the battle is a draining one. The variety of pressures from within and without have been covered extensively by those far more gifted than myself.

And yeah, teaching can be a noble profession and all that. I mean, we don’t do it for the money or the glory or the clarity of expectations from above. We do it because on some naïve, idealistic, melodramatic level, we want to change the world.

I don’t think of it that way anymore. I have found great freedom and comfort, actually – and I share this without cynicism or sarcasm – in the fact that I’m pretty sure we’re going to lose.

The bureaucrats have more bullsh*t than we have shovels, and the hordes of ignorance are legion. Those who are with us are far, far fewer than those who are against us, and whether you use Common Core math or give up and figure it the old way, we are totally and completely screwed.

But it is a good day to teach.

OK, yeah, that phrase didn’t work either, but that’s the thing – I’m going to just keep at it because I don’t have a better plan. This is it. This is the better plan.

I’ve shared this with a few people in person, and with a few important exceptions they don’t find it encouraging AT ALL. Several have found it rather the opposite, actually – and I apologize if that’s its impact on you, my Eleven Faithful Followers, here and now.

But try, just for a moment, to taste the glory of wildly doing what you do best without recourse to future progress or past circumstances. Imagine knowing you’re not alone, and that if you’re going down, you’re going down doing all you know how to do – insufficiently, to be sure, but leaving it all in the fields.

Teach like a rock star, a badass, or whatever other silly name you choose – because it all comes out the same.

Of course, maybe – and I hesitate to even consider – maybe our collapse will buy enough time for someone else far behind us to gather their – no, never mind. No time for such distractions. Here they come.

And I, for one, feel great.

**In case you’re worried, of course her name’s not Alisha, either. I just said that to be funny, and perhaps a bit shocking. Her real name was Shannon.

Teach Like You

March 1, 2017June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

I’m a fairly narcissistic fellow. I don’t mean to be, it’s just that I’m vain and self-absorbed. At least I have the skills, style, and cojones to make it work for me. I make no apologies; every rose has it’s – oh, are you still here? I hadn’t noticed.

There’ve been a slew of books and workshops in recent years promising to help you teach like a pirate, like a rockstar, like a hero… I received something rather spammy recently promising to help me become a more exciting presenter and unlock a fabulous career leading teacher workshops. Just call Robert in Wisconsin at ###-###-####!

I’m not knocking any of these books or workshops. I haven’t read or attended any of them, but I see happy teachers carrying on about them on Twitter and such… they sound great.

Except the one with Robert in Wisconsin. WTF, Bob?

It’s just that I don’t want to be a pirate, or a rockstar, or a hero. I want my kids to learn a little history, ask some better questions, and maybe learn to like reading a little. And I want to do it as… me.

I’m pretty entertaining, and I have a degree. That should buy me some leeway, yes?

Of course, you don’t need to buy books or go to conferences to hear how you should be doing everything differently. There are no shortage of researchers scolding us for forcing our kids to recite from their McGuffey’s Readers and practice multiplication tables on their chalk slates, or whatever it is they think we do.

Seriously, if I read one more heavily-footnoted interview with yet another person who’s discovered that worksheets have limited effectiveness and some people are boring when they lecture, I may become violent. Can we steer some of the funding for these redundant studies into something more useful – maybe fresh blue ink for the mimeograph machine or another History Channel Documentary on VHS?

They’re not all bad, of course. Many make some fascinating observations and connections. They challenge us to reconsider some of our assumptions about kids and how they learn, or ourselves and how we teach.

I’m a huge fan of rethinking what we do in our classrooms. I make a decent living leading workshops and peddling my teaching philosophy, sometimes for edu-entities and sometimes just as lil’ ol’ me. We should ABSOLUTELY step out of our comfort zones from time to time. It’s unforgiveable to plan our class time around what we have saved from LAST year rather than what might work best with THESE kids THIS year.

And there are some GREAT teacher books! That ‘Weird Teacher’ one and that ‘Zen‘ fellow and even one by a TFA teacher recounting her entire first year in the most IMPOSSIBLE situation. Occasionally I’m even inspired by something shared by state edu-staff, or my own district superiors. Turns out there are a bunch of really smart, experienced educators around who love helping the rest of us impact our evasive darlings.

Sometimes their ideas are better than mine. And sometimes research is right about stuff. I have much to learn about some of my students and how they think, feel, and perceive – so here’s to training, challenging, changing, and reviving.

BUT (and I have a big ‘BUT’)…

I hereby declare my official hostility towards anyone who gets paid to tell teachers they’re doing it wrong. I don’t care if they’re researchers, reformers, authors, or bloggers – kiss my class agenda, edu-snobs.

My ethical obligation to regularly seek better ways to reach more kids more deeply does NOT validate your desire to lecture me or talk down to me or my comrades. Quite honestly, if your research and ideas and pedagogy are THAT great, you wouldn’t need to be so condescending about it – we’d run to you hungry for more.

Which, by the way, is pretty much what many of you keep telling the rest of us about OUR teaching methods – that if we were doing it right, we wouldn’t have to work so hard to coerce and browbeat our darlings into cooperation. Like you’re trying to do to us.

You see, sharing ideas, stories, successes and failures, speculation and goals, are what professional development and collaboration and edu-blogging are all about. Maybe this time I’m at the front of the room and next time you’re showing us something your kids created, but at no point is it about being better, or smarter, or anyone ‘fixing’ anyone else.

Because at the end of the day, teaching is as much art as science. It’s as much educated guesswork as strategy. Given that you’re you and I’m me and that quirky new girl is the quirky new girl, consistency may be limited.

More significantly, my kids are my kids and your kids are yours. We may be in different rooms, different districts, or even different states, confronting different cultural variables, working with different resources, building on very different backgrounds and expectations… we’re lucky we ‘speak the same language’ at all.

When I’m in my classroom, my number one ethical and professional obligation has absolutely nothing to do with your studies, your strategies, and sure as hell not your tests – mandated or not. I’ll certainly consider the input of my department and my building leadership, but even those should take a back seat to what I think and feel and believe will be best for MY kids, today, right now.

And you have the same obligation.

I hope you play along in my workshops and that you consider my thinking, just as I appreciate yours. I hope you’re open enough to risk and change and stepping outside comfort zones to evolve as an educator and a professional, even when you’re getting by just fine already.

But when it’s go time, follow your gut. Do what you know is best for you kids, now and down the road. Do it however you think will best work for them, from you. Don’t think about your evaluations, your VAM, your scores on this or that assessment, or even your career. If there’s testing to consider, then consider it – but not at the expense of what your gut tells you is best for your students.

We’ve become SO comfortable doing things we know are bad for our kids because they’re ‘required’. Maybe we’re afraid, or maybe we simply hide behind what everyone else is doing. Is this such a rewarding career in terms of money, power, and glory, that we’ll sacrificing the very things that made it matter to begin with in order to keep it secure? Must be a helluva extra duty stipend.

Teach like a rockstar if that works for you – or like that Freedom Writers lady or Marzano or To Sir, With Love. Challenge yourself and those around you to evolve, to up our game, and to WIN THEM ALL somehow.

But don’t you dare do anything that doesn’t ring true in your gut because I told you to, or because it’s required. Don’t you dare dismiss your inner strategist because what you’re envisioning might be stupid, or doesn’t align with something official, or might get you into trouble.

We’re trying to save kids in an unsaveable world. We’re trying to do the impossible with the insufficient. I’m not sure how many ‘right’ ways there are to attempt such madness. I’m confident the ‘wrong’ way is to try to do it as someone else.

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NOTE: This is a slightly revamped rerun of previously posted material.

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Obedience School

February 28, 2017June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 3 Comments

My daughter wanted a new backpack several years ago, and after several unfulfilling stops, we ended up at Target. The selection was a bit slim – it being a few weeks after school had started – but she found something that seemed like a good combination of practical and not-entirely-embarrassing, and we took it to the nearest register.

It didn’t have a tag, which was inconvenient, so the girl at the register called a guy from the back. He found similar backpacks of the same brand, but not an exact match. A third person was called, a manager of some sort, who finally explained to me that she couldn’t sell me the backpack because it lacked a tag and thus could not be scanned by the computer.

By now we’re 20 minutes into our effort to purchase this backpack, and my daughter likes this one – not the ones we saw at Academy, or the ones we examined at Wal-Mart, and not the selection at Dick’s.

Yes, there’s a major chain of sporting goods stores which chose to call itself “Dick’s.”

I offered to pay the highest of the various prices listed along that aisle. Worst case for the store, I pay the correct price. Chances are I’m paying more than it’s worth, but I’m happy, and they’d be rid of the one without the tag.

No.

The manager couldn’t, or wouldn’t, because there was no tag. I could not have it at any price because they couldn’t scan it.

Let’s step back for a moment and ponder the nature of Target. Its sole function is to sell people things they want, and in so doing make a reasonable profit after paying their employees and other overhead. To the best of my knowledge they don’t claim to do or be anything more or less. They guess what we might buy, procure it, tell us it’s pretty, and we flock.

But not this time. Compliance with the system trumped the primary function of the institution. They followed the rules, but lost the sale. Permanently.

The summer prior I’d had a similar problem with AT&T, who wouldn’t send me a phone I’d ordered. The website said they had it, the guy in the warehouse confirmed they had it, and even the manager I finally reached after 90 minutes of minion phone-tag hell acknowledged that it was on the shelf in front of her – but the computer wouldn’t let them send it to me because it showed they were out.

I remember losing my composure and at some point yelling that “THE COMPUTERS. ARE. NOT. IN. CHARGE!!!” before the vitriol and obscenities took over. Coherent English simply lacked the necessary elements to capture what I was feeling at that point. Most of it was a blur.

But whatever I ended up saying seems to have worked – a few days later, my phone showed up. Someone had to break the rules in order to fulfill the most basic function of the institution.

The problem is NOT that a few individuals at Target or AT&T are idiots – I doubt that’s the case. It’s systemic. In our ongoing efforts to legislate, codify, and policy away bad decisions and stupid behavior, we tie the hands of the people actually DOING useful stuff until they can do little BEYOND blindly following those policies.

I doubt anyone particularly wanted to deny me the joy of giving them money for their products. It’s far more likely they’d been trained to follow the rules at all cost, or face who-knows-what consequences. They did the defensible thing – even when diametrically opposed to their fundamental purpose – rather than the risky thing. They followed the rules by missing the point.

Why do those policies exist in the first place? Presumably, most began because someone did something stupid or dangerous without them.

You’ve probably noticed the tag on your hairdryer warning you not to use it in the shower, or the instructions in eleven languages not to let your kids play with large plastic bags. A recent commercial involved a post-apocalyptic warrior picking up a rhino by the horns and throwing it into the sky to knock down a helicopter. This scene is accompanied by small print warning us not to try this at home.

There’s a legal division somewhere covering someone’s corporate behind by advising me not to throw a rhino at a helicopter. We need a rule for that? Is there a label on the rhino?

A friend visiting his wife’s family in China a few years ago was surprised to notice while parking on the top level of a garage that there were no fences or other barriers to prevent someone falling. He asked about this, and was told with some bewilderment that anyone capable of driving a vehicle and parking it on the 15th story should be capable of not walking off the edge of a building.

We don’t assume that in America in the 21st century, and because we don’t, we can’t. We devote great energy and expense in our legislation, our business practices, and – yes – our public education, to make sure we raise an entire generation completely unable to make basic decisions or take risks or otherwise step out in ANY WAY. We begin, logically enough, by doing the same thing to their teachers.

We reward those who most closely mimic one another and culture at large, individually or in groups. We schedule conferences and base assessment not on great ideas but on how to best ensure uniformity.

The system doesn’t judge teachers or their students on what they do well, but on what items they miss. Inspire your kids all you like, but if you don’t simultaneously fulfill requirements 4a, 4b, 7, and 11 and have your learning objectives on the board when your administrator drops in for five minutes, you suck. We, in turn, tell our students to write with sincerity and passion, but if the MLA heading is on the top left instead of the top right, we can’t accept it, won’t read it, and you fail.

It’s all about the policies.

We dictate the curriculum EVERYONE should know, mandate the tests EVERYONE must pass, and – perhaps out of necessity – regulate their dress, their behavior, and anything else we can standardize. We legislate away their choices in lunch, daily schedule, personal giftings, or genuine interests. We process them in the hundreds and in the thousands and quite honestly we can’t tailor very much or it all falls apart.

If only we had more laws, more rules, more guidelines… utopia!

We can’t even blame administration. The public demands that those in charge be held accountable for the worst behaviors, the worst choices, the worst outcomes. The majority of our energy is consequently devoted to limiting the damage done by the bottom 5%, whatever the cost to the other 95%.

It’s not working, by the way – somehow no matter what we do, there’s always that bottom 5%.

In the process we’re crushing the initiative, the energy, and the ability to make sensible decisions based on the realities of the moment out of our best teachers and students. And the average teachers and students. And the slightly below.

We’re making policy based on worst-case scenarios and bottom-enders, at the expense of everyone and everything else.

Of course we’re left with a ‘real world’ whose populace seems so clueless, so helpless, so lacking in initiative or even concern. Of course I can’t buy the backpack without the right tag or get the phone on the shelf without having a complete meltdown. It’s what we’ve been fervently working towards for years.

I’d like to see us try something different, but it’s against – well, you get the idea.

This is a slightly reworked repeat of an older post – like when a band covers their own song years later. Unfortunately, you probably still can’t dance to it.

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Changing Course

February 24, 2017June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 4 Comments

Sometimes you have to admit you’re not where you should be. Not doing what you wish you were doing. Or, if you are, it’s not working.

Blue Cereal spent the better part of 2016 desperately trying to impact state elections in a way that would promote public education. The “teacher caucus,” other pro-thinking-and-learning candidates, rational budget policies, and even a few state questions – completely out of my element and in over my head, I joined those of you trying desperately to wake up the rest of the household as the arsonists poured their gasoline and compared fancy lighters.

And, as you know, we lost.

Bigly.

Like, embarrassing, what-were-you-even-thinking lost. “F*** You!” lost. Why-the-hell-would-we-give-up-one-iota-of-twisted-ignorance-and-willful-destruction-it’s-worked-so-well-for-us lost.

You may have picked up on my bitterness.

So I announced my intention to get out of Oklahoma. I no longer feel like part of the solution, but part of the problem. Every time we take a deep breath and go back into the classroom to make the best of it, we’re saying “Hey, you know what? Keep doing what you’re doing up there. There will be NO consequences. NO downside for you or your fiscal overlords. We’ll cover for you as best we can, as long as we can.”

And I couldn’t anymore.

I don’t have a job yet, but I’m now certified in Indiana (yeah, I know – long story) and only lack returning some sort of fingerprint kit to Ohio (again – story). I hope to be gone in June, shortly after the legislative session ends, the fifteenth revenue failure is announced, and – big shocker, here – it’s finally clear that YOU’RE NOT GETTING A RAISE BECAUSE THE “BETTER PLAN” IS FOR YOU TO SHUT UP AND KEEP ENABLING THE ABUSE OF YOUR KIDS BY THOSE IN POWER.

After a week or two of licking our wounds last November, I fully intended to get back to the stuff I actually like writing about. History stuff. Teaching stuff. Some political issues or current events, sure – but mostly the kinds of things that let us all believe for brief, delusional moments that something we’re doing might make a positive difference.

Unlike, say… political advocacy. Calling your state legislators. Educating the public. Voting.

*sigh*

Like I said – there’s still some bitterness. And apparently I’m “whiney.”

That’s OK. Maybe I am sometimes. I’m not always fair (although I try to be), or balanced, or rational, or calm. Hell, I’m not even always right – I’ve had to backtrack on several individuals and issues once I had more information.

But I do try to be genuine. Every opinion, every commentary, every stupid question I ask – totes for realsies. The pomp and snark and vanity – all legit. And my eternal, internal struggle between tortured self-loathing and being a pompous ass finds a perfect metaphor in Tornado Country.

When the 2017 legislative session started, I knew better than to pay attention. This was no longer my fight. But no one else was keeping up with the weekly onslaught of bills and discussions and votes and inanity. So I broke down and started detailing agendas for various committees that deal with edu-slation. I started pouring through the language, trying to make sense of statutes and amendments and the striking of titles. Posts like that take longer to write than just about any other kind, and the analytics say very few people even read them.

Obviously. Because election results.

Besides, they’re no fun to write. I’ve established a decent rapport with several legislators, but other than that the hours invested leave me with little more than a dirty feeling inside and a sense that I’ve sold out after swearing this stuff off on November 9th.

So it’s time to reboot. Again. That’s also OK – this was never about getting everything right the first time or pretending I have a coherent plan. I have enough style and damn sexy swagger that a few course corrections won’t stifle the overall mojo. Still, I thought the #11FF deserved some explanation – which is what this is.

For anyone who cares. Which you do. I love that about us.

For the next few weeks, I’ll be revisiting and reposting a few favorites of mine from past years, and trying to add a few more bits to other sections of the website. I’d also like to get back to shining light on the amazing edu-bloggery going on in #OklaEd and beyond – some of it heralded, much of it un.

Those of you who care what the Oklahoma Legislature is doing to your profession and your kids are likely already following OKEducationTruths, A View From The Edge, and Fourth Generation Teacher. You should also be reading For The Love, This Teacher Sings, and Teaching From Here. If OK Education Journal is back to stay, you should add them to that list as well.

Anyone who cares about education or anything else of lasting value in Oklahoma should be subscribed to the Tulsa World, and maybe even The Oklahoman, despite their abysmal editorial board. Also essential are Oklahoma Watch, OK Policy Institute, and The Frontier. These last three are free, but they need your financial support anyway. You’d be surprised how much internal warm-fuzzy you get supporting quality local journalism, so suck it up.

One last thing…

I may not be the only one who should be changing course. Many of you have contacted me privately to tell me about the jobs you’re pursuing outside of public education, or in the classroom but outside of the state. I applaud you for drawing those lines and saying “No more. I will not be an enabler of a system which is willfully, intentionally bad for kids immediately and for everyone else sooner than they realize.”

For the rest of you – the ones who are still teaching in Oklahoma – please understand that I do not judge you for following your calling or recognizing your commitments to family or logistics or whatever keeps you here. We do what we gotta do – I get it and I love you.

But please consider doing something, even if it seems crazy at the moment.

Go ahead and update your resume – you know, just in case something unexpected comes up. Take an hour or two over the weekend, then set aside a few days during Spring Break to pick a few states. Google their departments of education. Look for databases of job openings for which you may be at least partly qualified.

Talk to your spouse, or family, or besties, about options – you know, if you were to move. I’m not suggesting you turn in your keys with nowhere to go, just that you look at a few options. Just to be informed.

What would it take to get certified elsewhere? It might even be worth a few bucks to submit those forms, take those tests, just to know you have actual options come April. Don’t sell your house just yet – but maybe contact your realtor and ask what he or she thinks it’s worth these days.

It’s just preparation. Information. Foundation. In case you decide to change course. Keep in mind that kids in THOSE schools and THOSE states need a good teacher who knows their subject and cares about their lives ALSO. There’s no shortage of fields ripe for the harvest – you don’t have to stay on THIS plantation.

You’re not abandoning your calling if you do it somewhere else while forcing positive change here. And you’re not helping your kids by enabling the state to keep going the direction it’s going while you cover for them more and more each year, desperately wishing that THIS time you could explain to them why it matters or THIS time you’ll change them with your love or THIS time you’ll vote them out even though you know you won’t, you can’t, and that no matter how many signs you paint or how many chants you chant, the only real consequences being experienced are by you, and by your kids, because you’ll just keep trying to make it work so that they can just keep trying to make it not.

And they have all the money and power and popular support, because no one else sees it anymore except you and me, babe.

I’m still here, and I still adore you. But I’m changing course.

What about you?

Teachers Are Delusional

December 17, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

Teachers Are Delusional.

I don’t necessarily mean this in a bad way, although it does have a few downsides.

As you probably know, public education in general and teachers in particular were thoroughly rebuked in the recent state elections. SQ779 went down in flames after polling rather well only weeks before, largely due to the efforts of mysterious groups who appeared out of nowhere and began panicking on our behalf over the sad, if well-intentioned, error we were all clearly about to make.

They embraced the new, “reality-optional” approach so popular these days with an effective, two-pronged strategy. First, make up a bunch of stuff people could easily refute if they bothered to read the actual question but didn’t. Second, treat this 1% tax as a misguided starting point for growthful discussions rather than a desperate, if flawed, last-ditch effort to overcome a decade of one-party rule and overt hostility towards the idea that every kid deserves committed, effective educators dragging them towards enlightenment.

They promised a “better way,” which apparently involves disbanding and vanishing as soon as the votes were tallied.

Then again, I guess they didn’t say exactly who it was better for.

Smirking legislators quickly joined the chorus of assurances that of course they’d immediately be doing everything they possibly could to give teachers huge raises, first thing! For totes realsies this time! Why would we doubt them? They’re our government – they live to serve!

In their defense, legislators have no real reason to do anything about teacher pay or school funding in general. Incumbents responsible for draconian tax cuts and vocal belittling of all things government-financed were re-elected almost universally, often by landslide margins. They’d be silly to change course now – it’s working.

For them, I mean.

Stubborn advocates insist they’ll be calling their elected officials weekly, demanding they do something about school funding – which, let’s face it, is adorable! I can hear the conversation now: “If you don’t do something this session, next time we’re only re-electing you back into office by a twenty percent margin! And the time after that could dip as low as a fifteen! Also, you should come visit my class! I made muffins! We’re forming relationships!”

No doubt legis find this hopeful yapping amusing, if not exactly endearing – at least until tiny pedagogists pee on their leg in excitement.

Many teachers have already left, or changed professions. Many more are looking to go. We’ve always lost a percentage of edu-graduates to surrounding states, but now we’re having trouble keeping any of them. You know things are bad when we’re not as civic-minded as, say… Texas.

Texas. We’re not as focused on equity and the social contract and the value of modern education as TEXAS.

What’s more shocking, though, is how many teachers are staying. Doubling down. Resolving to do everything they can to make this the “best year yet”! Holding assemblies, bake sales, and smothering Donate.org with requests. Personally, I find this to be the worst sort of enabling – of protecting and encouraging bad behaviour. As several of my therapists over the years were fond of saying, “They won’t change until you stop making THEIR problems YOUR problems, and let THEIR problems be THEIR problems.”

Or maybe that was Dr. Phil. They all kinda blur together.

So why is it that teachers and other educators are so quick to believe that this time Lucy really will hold that football until it’s kicked? Why are we so quick to embrace the mantra that we can change our elected abusers with our love – and that if we’d only put a little more makeup on that bruise, maybe this time they’ll love us back?

It’s the nature of the profession. You can’t be a successful public school teacher for any length of time unless you embrace a certain amount of denial and delusion. You don’t expect musicians to be on time. You don’t expect surgeons to be humble and self-effacing. No way you can expect teachers to be bound by reality. They’d never last.

Why?

1. We spend our day chasing the idea that we’re somehow reaching 150 very different kids with very different backgrounds, needs, and abilities. We utilize our personal skill sets as best we can (while always on the lookout for better ideas), but in the end it’s just us flinging possibilities around and hoping some of them take.

Making this work requires a healthy dose of self-delusion. What’s really crazy is how often it does succeed, and so much better than it should.

2. We embrace curriculums and guidelines not usually of our own design, circumscribed by rules and procedures certainly not of our own making. We take whatever we’re assigned and decide it will be meaningful, and engaging, and good for kids – their druthers and ours be damned.

This isn’t as entirely misguided as it sounds. Most any subject or skill has merit, depth, and meaning if you dig enough – but it does require a certain degree of inner adjustment. Selling yourself and your kids on, say, the academic value and personal fulfilment of analyzing the Battle of Honey Springs takes a bit of imagination. It demands taming a few chimeras. And if you don’t believe it, they’ll never buy into it.

Although, if you think about it, that particular battle really did have some fascinating elements that –

You know what? Never mind.

3. Surviving in the world of public education requires an ability to go through the motions of countless state and district-mandated trainings, reports, and meetings about what you teach and how you teach it and what we’re calling it this year – all without ending up under your desk in a fetal position, clutching a shiv made out of dry erase markers, daring anyone to say “flipped classroom” to you ONE MORE TIME.

It requires embracing and adapting to ever-shifting evaluations of your kids and of what you do – a bedlam of rotating standards and priorities and trends and buzzwords. Usually without Dramamine.

You want to flourish in that alternate reality? Unleash the ignis fatuus.

4. Finally, a career in education requires looking beyond the tangible, the visible, the measureable, with an almost religious faith. Maybe fanaticism.

Of course the numbers matter. Of course the data has its uses. We’re delusional – not ignorant.

But if faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen, then teaching requires a great deal of it. If you ARE doing any good, you’re unlikely to see the most important results during the nine months those kids are yours. If you ARE making a difference, in that silly, idealistic way you signed up for back-in-the-day when choosing between this or veterinary school, you’ll never actually KNOW that for a fact.

It’s not that kind of difference.

So yeah, we’re a bit quick to believe, even when we know better. And I do get annoyed by the naiveté shown by those who so easily and repeatedly trust elected leadership, wealthy reformers, or anything cloaked in lofty ideals.

But that’s the trade-off, I guess. If we were realists, we’d all be selling shoes or doing your taxes or something.

So delusional it is.