On the Shoulders of Giants

Protecting Our Artistic License

Even though there is an obvious logic to it, I’ve been trying to work out for myself exactly why I think teachers need to be involved in education policy. I am moved by the Open Letter to NBCT’s (even though I’m not one) in the recent Teacher Solutions report, because of its call, by teachers, for teachers to question the direction our profession is taking us, and “to find our voices and hone our core messages.” (p.9 of Executive Summary) Teachers have historically been denied a voice in policy matters, expected to passively accept and transmit whatever directives come our way. But teaching is anything but a passive act. The traditional means of enacting education policy—standardized and hierarchical--contradicts the very nature of real teaching.

Much as we want to simplify it and mold it into something else, teaching is at least 50% art. The other 50% is probably science, and somewhere in there we need to add psychology/counseling...(This breakdown is certainly up for debate.) But I want to take some time to look at teaching as a creative act. That is what drew me into the profession and what keeps me here—the essential process into which I pour my heart and soul as I design learning experiences in response to the gifts and needs of my students.

Yes, teaching involves skills, conceptual understandings, and bases of knowledge, too. These are like the canvas, brush techniques, different qualities of paint, and technical exercises in perspective and scale, light and shadow (the things we seemingly can control). But the colors and shapes themselves would have to be the students, their variety and subtlety immeasurable, the way they interact, blend and contrast, never twice the same. The experience of the whole class—learning in concert, reaching new levels of understanding, balancing differences, highs and lows, within the confines of time and space—is the artistic work that teachers create over and over, differently each time, in their own unique ways.

Policy makers will probably never understand this and prefer to avoid thinking about it, because recognizing the art of teaching would make their jobs much more complicated. Imagine writing “policy” for every professional sculptor in New York, for example. (Good luck!)

What makes policy for art difficult? Compare it with science: the validity of a scientific model depends on whether or not it can be replicated elsewhere. Good art, however, can never be replicated. The outcome depends on the particular interaction of the artist, his or her experiences, vision, materials, the time, and the place. Teaching is much the same way.

In our quest to accurately measure student learning, there is pressure within the teaching profession and outside it to view our work as purely scientific, where there are certain truths, patterns and rules (or characteristics of effective teaching) that do not depend on the specific individuals involved. But these patterns reflect only half of the reality of teaching; the other half is saying, “Every moment is different and holds infinite possibilities. Go ahead, break the pattern, and set something new in motion.” This spontaneous, intuitive, risk-taking side of teaching can be genius at times, and other times messy. But kids need to be exposed to artful, experimental teaching, so that they might develop their own unique visions and learn to risk messiness to make them reality.

Teachers need lots of support to be able to do our work well. Sound policies can help provide this; just as easily, they can stifle us. For example, like artists, teachers need to be exposed as much as possible to other great teachers. Policies that promote collaboration and mentoring will help to meet this need. Policies that promote isolation and competition lessen our potential.

Teachers have to get involved in writing good policies, because who else fully understands the dynamic, complex nature of our work? Who will advocate for the space and support to practice our particular art, if not us?

[image of Paul Klee's "Shapes Colors" painting fouund at www.superstock.co.uk]

Emotional Intelligence

It is summer and I love the fact that I have time to live at my own pace. I can enjoy cooking, socialize more, read more, and worry less. Summer also provides much needed time for reflection on the past year and developing for the coming one. Now that I’m much more relaxed and in touch with my inner spirit, so to speak, I’m finding that some new emotions are creeping in, where during the year there was little room to explore them. One, in particular, is not really new but it’s one I rarely entertain: anger.

When I look at the landscape of education right now, I see the standardized testing and punitive responses of NCLB (and its local spawn) steadily dominating conversations in schools about student learning. Government money is spent developing standardized tests and test prep programs, while art, music and drama are practically nonexistent at most city public schools. Class sizes remain unreasonably high, and many children don’t receive the individualized support they need. Teachers are beginning careers in the most under-resourced public schools with little preparation or guidance, and by the time they feel somewhat competent, they are ready to move out of the classroom. We are encouraged to teach in ways that are outdated in relation to the global economy, out of touch with the developmental needs of students, and stifling to creativity. When I step back and consider how these factors affect my work life and teachers and students all over the country, I get, well, mad.

An important part of being an adult is the ability to recognize emotions as they arise and allow ourselves to feel them for a time—but then, I believe, we are wise to figure out what the feelings indicate to us about our situation and to learn from that realization. Anger should be like a traffic signal along the way to another destination, not a place to dwell. This, of course, is easier said than done.

I’m struggling with the overwhelming scope of the problem. I’m frustrated with the fact that any of the issues I mentioned above could warrant a lifetime of work. Yet my students await me in September. My first priority is to become the best teacher I can be—and I’m not there yet. As I design and redesign my curriculum, study methods of differentiation, learn more about the community where I work, and collaborate with colleagues, I think about how my practice fits in to the bigger picture of education. But I fear that even if I become a master 21st century teacher, I still will not make a significant dent in the problems that bar so many students from a quality education.

In my quest to move beyond the offerings of anger and frustration, I turn to the giants (for whom I named this blog) in whose work I find inspiration. There are many of them; they are the members of the Teacher Leaders Network, the writers of books and articles that changed my thinking; the mentors who guided me as I learned to teach and encouraged me to write. These people do not dwell in anger or fear though they see the same problems I do. They act thoughtfully and courageously no matter the size of the obstacle. They communicate what they know, and they learn from others. They are teacher leaders, and if I want to be one, I really can’t waste time envisioning all of the things I might fail to do. In the words of Winston Churchill, “Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential.” Also, “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.”

[quotes found at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/winston_churchill.html
image found at http://www.ci.san-ramon.ca.us/police/images/4way.gif]

Who Can Do Without Professional Care?

I was talking to a friend of mine who is studying to become a nurse. When she completes her master’s degree program, she will be able to earn a starting salary of $60,000! The median salary of registered nurses in New York City is $66,188. Compare that with the median salary of a New York City teacher: $47,974 (a troubling figure in itself because the starting salary is around $45,000.)

I asked, “How is it that nurses get paid so much more than teachers (no disrespect to nurses)?”
“There’s a huge shortage of nurses,” my friend said.

We both thought about that for a minute.

“But there’s also a shortage of teachers,” I said. “So teachers with no training are allowed to fill vacancies through programs like TFA and NYC Teaching Fellows. Do they have programs like that for nurses?”

After a moment my friend shrugged. “No. I guess people would die if nurses weren’t trained. It would be too dangerous. It would become a liability issue.”

I’ve been thinking about this for a few days now. I cannot get over the idea that a shortage of trained nurses has prompted hospitals to pay nurses more, thus attracting many more people to the profession and providing strong incentive to stay in it. A shortage of trained teachers, on the other hand, has resulted in the development of programs that allow individuals with no training to become teachers in the most difficult to staff schools in the country! [I don’t believe that the six weeks of summer observation and course work offered by such programs constitutes real preparation—after all, they don’t let nurses get trained in six weeks, and they sure don’t let people become doctors that way!]

Given the lack of trained professional teachers, how can schools be held accountable for providing quality education for all children? Hospitals would never allow this for fear of harming patients and getting sued for malpractice.

Who is liable when students don’t receive an adequate education? I’ve taught 8th grade students who did not have a math teacher for the first three months of school; instead they had a revolving cast of substitutes who did not teach. When they finally got a teacher—a middle-aged career changer from the NYC Teaching Fellows program with no training—she quit within a month. After a few weeks of searching and more substitutes, a young NYC teaching fellow, also with no training, filled the vacancy. He had the unfortunate challenge of earning back the trust of students who had been cheated out of math education for the first semester of school and been allowed to run amuck every day in the classroom. Under the conditions, he did quite well—I mean he survived somehow, and decided to stay in teaching for another year or two. But were those students prepared for the state math exam that year in March? Not at all.

The students were nonetheless held accountable for their math scores. The other person held accountable for those math scores was the principal. Was it her fault that it’s nearly impossible every year to find experienced teachers for every classroom? Is it her fault that so many qualified teachers leave the profession every year for more lucrative, less stressful jobs with better working conditions? Is it her fault that so many of her students come to school each day with more than their share of trauma and often lacking basic necessities like food?

The real liability is not the lousy test scores. It’s the fact that those students are at a fragile age where they are struggling to negotiate their relationship with school itself. They are beginning to question whether they will progress through high school or drop out when they turn sixteen; they are trying out the full range of possible behaviors, and they need skilled, caring adults to guide them to do their best. The high school drop out rate in New York City is close to 50%. Our students cannot afford the cost of years of instruction lost to absent or inadequate teachers, nor can they pay the emotional cost of being abandoned in their own schools at such critical times in their development. Is this any less dangerous than sending patients to a hospital where there is no trained professional to care for them?

[Imagine found at http://libizblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/hospital-bed.jpg]