I just came home from seeing Waiting for Superman (literally, I just got in the door) and though I know many people who have negative opinions of it, I liked it. At its worst, it reveals to unknowing viewers the tragedy that is our school system. At its best, it inspires viewers to want to do something about that tragedy.
The movie highlights several failing, "drop out factories" and offers up a few successful schools such as KIPP and Harlem Children Zone as suggestions for reform. And while I don't believe that charter schools are the solution, I think they are doing a lot of good work and hopefully will play a role ing leading us to a solution.
When I visited KIPP Gaston for a few days, I could feel that the school was different. Sure, there were some less than stellar teachers and less than enthused students, but the majority of the teachers were killing themselves over their jobs and that year, every student was accepted into a 4-year college. While I didn't agree with the idea of forcing students to apply to school, I love that they got the option of going to college and I hope that they gained perspective of their potential when they received their acceptance letters.
Most importantly, the movie added fuel to my new teacher fire. I am not a good teacher.
I don't suck, either, but saying "at least I don't suck" isn't going to help my students the least. Everyday that I fail to successfully teach my students, I am ultimately pushing them further back from reaching grade-level proficiency and widening that damn achievement gap. But what can I do? All I do is think about school (and admittedly, my lack of good sleep). Well, maybe I need to start doing more and thinking less.
So here are my thoughts in a bubble:
1. Bad teachers hurt not only their students, but the future of our world.
2. I don't want to be a bad teacher. I dread the idea of being one of the teachers who inspired me to teach in PG County.
3. For the most part, I am against tenure.
4. I think we need to start from the ground up. School-wide spring cleaning. Alternative governance or not, every teacher needs to reapply for their job. If you're a good teacher, it should be no sweat. You plan and teach a lesson well, you keep your job. Other school staff also needs to be reevaluated. So many schools suffer from a case of bad principal (who are good people who need another profession).
5. We don't need Superman. We need organization. PGCPS suffers from hoarding and chaotic disorganization. If you expect your students to be organized, prepared and well-planned for success, we must first model that. (I'm guilty.) Administration hardly ever seems as if they know what is going on, so how can teachers, and then, most importantly, students? It's the 9th week of school and students' schedules are still being worked out! Get it together, people. It seems as if our school is totally new and no systems for efficiency are in place.
6. This is going to take a while. Sometimes, well, often, it gets hard. I want to leave. I can't wait for two years to be up. But what is the point of me becoming a better teacher if I leave a place that truly needs better teachers? But at the same time, what is the point of me suffering in a suffocating school system? That is a rock and a hard place.
Let's dialogue about this.
ReplyDeleteWhat percentage of teachers out there are bad, do you think? How would you define bad and what measures would you use to evaluate teachers?
Why are you against tenure?
How do you reconcile some of the good work that some charters are doing with the impact they have on the public schools around them and the increasing inequality they create in our school system as a whole?
I agree with RE. You can't just throw out a few bromides and be done with it. WfS is a harmful movie - harmful not just to teachers but to the public as well because it presents a distorted picture of reality. It's like watching Apocalypse Now and thinking you know what Vietnam was like. It continues this argument that only the teacher matters and I think that anyone that really works in education - in the classroom, in the schools - knows that it will take more than just changing the teachers to correct the system. I came in as a DC Teaching Fellow and if my first year taught me anything it taught me that our public school failure is a societal failure. When society owns up to that, bites the bullet, and realizes that the change is going to take time, effort and money and cannot rely on quick, short-term fixes, then we will see a change in our school systems. But as long as people such as Rhee, Gates, and so many others, see the money that can be made by performing their boondoggle reform on the rest of society, then what the schools will become are funding organizations for educational consultants.
ReplyDeleteHi, RE, sorry I'm slow at responding!
ReplyDeleteIt seems like there are a lot of terrible teachers in PG County, but I would definitely say that there are more good and well-meaning teachers than bad teachers here. I'm not sure how we should evaluate teachers. Performance of students should definitely be included, but I don't think that's the only sign of a good teacher.
As for tenure, I guess I feel that if you are a good teacher, you (theoretically) shouldn't have to worry about job loss. Of the tenured teachers I have at my school, they just seem to make mediocre attempts at their job.
Finally, with charters, I don't think they're the solution at all. I think the fact that they get more freedom is great, though. Sometimes I feel so stifled by the "system." I think charters have an opportunity to try new things more frequently and if they can garner positive data, their methods can be shared with the greater public school population. Right now, I feel that PG County is a deeply broken system and if some charters can escape the public school disease that we're carrying, good for those teachers and kids.
@Lodesterre: I totally agree with you that there are no quick fixes and that teachers cannot be the only focus of fixing the system. I also agree, deeply, that public school failure is a societal failure. It's one big, hot mess. I appreciated WfS for making the general public more aware of the issue and I didn't feel that it was very rough on teachers. I'm not sure what the solution is, but I do know it will take some time and some fallbacks to get there.
Valid points indeed. The points you make are the same reasons I decided to move to DC.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I fear the loss of due process rights now because I've seen so many misguided administrators who clearly have no business running school telling teachers how to educate students based on what they learned in corporate-minded test-prep teacher programs that I believe to be antithetical to creating valuable learning experiences in the classrooms.
If due process rights are only granted after three years (as is the case in every district I've ever taught in), then isn't it the responsibility of administrators to ensure that teachers who shouldn't be teaching aren't granted them? I wonder if the first place to begin reforming teaching practice isn't with improving the quality of administrators. I fear that too often those in administrative positions (especially in high profile districts with lots of political consequences) are those people sprinting to make a name for themselves. I have serious concerns about any school that has a principal who's under the age of 30. In my experience, as a 27-year-old, this inner-city school business is outrageously complicated. And as someone who considers themselves to be more capable than the average individual, I feel constantly at a loss for how to improve schools and systems I've worked in. What I do know, however, is that I gain valuable perspective year after year, and if that perspective is worth anything, it should be granted (at the very least) a proper due process before it's fired by an inexperienced microwave administrator who knows more contemporary ed jargon than they do about what really works in really tough environments.
How would you reconcile my experience with yours? I wonder if there's middle ground.
Thanks for responding.