It is November 11th and I’m observing Veteran’s day lost in thought for those who have given their lives in war, especially the recent loss at Fort Hood. A friend of mine is leaving for Iraq on Saturday and I can’t imagine being in his place. His journey over the next year will be a harrowing one, and I’m quite sure I would never survive it. Yet, I see parallels in our lives considering the way both situations [military service and education] are being handled by our government. Cutbacks, paperwork being filed to CYA instead of for the purpose of compassion and action, impossible goal setting and a timeline that just doesn’t make sense- as well as a strategy created in a fantastical world of make believe. A colleague who retired last year referred to us teachers as “Special Forces” and by all means we are, and I’m beginning to understand the mental plight that besieges veteran teachers and leads them to become those stigmatized tenured teachers who seemingly do nothing to “truly teach.” It is a very quiet form of PTSD.*
Tomorrow I have a lesson aimed at teaching my students how to elevate their phrasing by using more sophisticated transitional phrases, stronger verbs, and more descriptive adjectives. To do this, students will pair up and edit sentences that came from sample essays from the regents. Once edited, students will compete in a “walk off”- Blue Steel style down a fake runway I’ve created with my monitors. At the end of the runway walk, they loudly say their new and improved sentence and the class votes for who edited the phrase the best and showed the most sophistication.
I should be excited about this lesson, but instead I feel comatose. Although there will be heart warming moments and I’m confident real learning will take place, I’m also sure that I will encounter students yelling in the halls at each other that they are “stank ass bitches” while classes are going on, or telling me I’m a crazy white woman so they don’t need to show me their program and recently I’ve become very tired of patiently explaining to teenagers why it is unacceptable to wrestle in the halls (while they are still locked and fighting). I’m also exhausted from planning 15 lessons per week (on average for my three preps) and handling feedback on homework, tests, and classwork for 170 students. Like Esme Codell said in her book Educating Esme- I don’t have one day. I have 170 days with my students. I have 170 inputs minimum daily. I work every second of my day (including when I leave the school) with blind hope that I can educate in a system that leaves me feeling like I am swimming against the current.
Education reform in the news centers on teaching teachers how better to engage students, or hiring more qualified teachers. Time and again this ignores bigger issues of budgetary problems and cultural issues. It burns to hear that the state will only consider our stats for regents scores a measure of success if we get a majority of students from ISS (Instructional Support Services/Spec. Ed) to pass with a 65 or above, on a test where achieving a 55 is the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest to them. That’s no hyperbole either.
It is equally horrible to know that three students that I worked with last year are now pregnant and will soon drop out to pursue GED’s. These students last year went from having 180 absences in their sophomore year, to only being absent 15 days with me. This past June I celebrated those small victories since these three students were part of a handful that I felt I had changed and therefore made a positive influence in my community. But now since they are pregnant and fighting to still get some form of a degree I wonder about the futility of my fight. Teachers are asked to teach better and get absentees back in the class, yet when students are being evicted or getting pregnant I can’t get them back into the room by making a phone call home and I can’t solve that by being more “engaging” (latest buzz word). Cultural issues MUST be addressed if we mean to make a difference! Not to mention that new media components on testing means we need media to teach with! How about Quality Review taking note that we lack the money to get more TVs, other than the three we have for 3,000 students? This would be more helpful to note than whether or not I’ve taken steps to address why nine students are absent. Do the math- with better media I can more effectively teach the other twenty six that are there, and achieve a greater good for a greater number.
Real change is never accomplished by ignoring reality. The reality here is that fixing minor issues has been sold as the cure to the public, and now the burden of proof for effective teaching and its subsequent pressure have put in the corner the one person who knows the truth (the teacher!), and they have no way out with that information. Students need schools that can provide better media, lower class sizes, and a government that will provide monetary support for those families struggling to keep a roof over their head and early sex education and support for areas where the teen pregnancy rate is high. If these things don’t happen, then it doesn’t matter how qualified that teacher is because a Harvard Degree doesn’t protect kids from unstable home lives, it doesn’t magically make teens use condoms properly, or guarantee that this super qualified teacher knows how to speak to a student who wants to jump a kid after school because his hat was stolen.
And the last thing to leave you thinking about is a humorous (yet startling) article from the perspective of standardized test graders. Check out: Reading Incomprehension
*Please Note — In no way shape or form is this meant to undermine the stress soldiers endure. I have sincere amounts of respect for everyone who has fought and continues to fight abroad. I am merely drawing a parallel in the government’s mishandling of these important cornerstones of our society.


