. . . There is one distinct truth that I have come to realize through 34 years in education: Just like the Ministry, teaching is a calling. It genuinely has to be in your blood. You can immediately identify the young teachers who are going to be successful because they have that indefinable aura about them; the spark in the personality and the effortless connection to the kids. Aside from these select few, however, I’m really concerned about what motivates the majority of young people to think they want to teach. Are they falling victim to the fictitious myths that permeate society in regards to teaching; for example, six hour days and summers off? Do they watch those ridiculous commercials on TV, like the one for an investment fund where the client says, “What if I want to teach when I retire?” He’s talking as if it’s some kind of a hobby, similar to taking up sailing or shuffleboard. And I love the fact that the commercial shows a class of high school students sitting quietly--all enthusiastically raising their hands to participate. Obviously paid actors on a set. Assuming he has a college degree, at least this TV commercial retiree will have the advantage of being able to follow the alternative certification route which, due to the incredible teacher shortage, can be as little as a six week summer program in many states. This way, when he gets to the reality of the job, he will not have invested very much when he drops out to pursue something easier and less stressful. Bullfighting perhaps? . . . .
Chapter 6. Teacher on Teacher
. . . Throughout this book I use the term “career” to describe my years in teaching. In the Random House dictionary, the first word in the definition of career is “progress”--progress through some phase of life. Herein lies what is perhaps the greatest incongruity in teaching:
Regardless of whether you are a beginning teacher starting your first day on the job or a thirty year veteran, your “official” job assignment, level of responsibility and expectation of accomplishment are identical!
The fact that the only difference between the novice and veteran teacher is salary, brings to light a key element underlying the frustration inherent in teaching. Whereas a traditional professional career path is linear in advancement, with steadily increasing levels of responsibility and prestige, teaching is cyclical. In essence, teaching becomes a one year career, repeated over and over for the duration. I believe this basic discrepancy is the cornerstone to which all related concerns can be linked. This is why, despite the many flaws that need to be resolved, I find myself enthusiastic about veteran teachers having the opportunity to pursue a true linear career path by becoming mentor and/or practicing master teachers. . . .
. . . I remember the brief tenure of an assistant principal who suddenly started showing up in my room every day for brief visits. Alarmed, I immediately went to our union representative to ask if I should be concerned about this selective treatment. It turned out this woman was doing the same thing in every classroom, every day. Aside from wishing she had announced this in advance, the uniqueness of the activity filled me with curiosity and provided an opportunity to open some positive dialogue. Lo and behold, it just so happened that this approach was actually taught in one of the classes she had taken for her administrative certificate: “Management by Walking Around” (MBWA, as she liked to call it). I gained an immediate respect for the institution where she received her training because, during the vast majority of my career, I had only worked for administrators with exclusive expertise in MBHIYOAD (Management by Hiding In Your Office All Day). Of course, with the advent of computer technology, another key administrative course has apparently been added to supplement MBHIYOAD; that being MBWE (Management by Writing E-mails).
As I’m sure you can deduce, MBHIYOAD coupled with MBWE has created the current environment in the building where I work. After four years under the present principal, it’s astonishing to report that she has been in my room a total of two times. Once was to get a kid for a disciplinary issue that had occurred in another teacher's class, and the other was for a department meeting. I can easily go through an entire week without seeing her once. . . .
Chapter 8. The Business of Education
Possibly one of the greatest dichotomies one will ever encounter is the cavernous dissociation between the teacher in the classroom and the “business” of education which includes administration, boards of education, parental advisory boards, local, state and national legislative branches/education departments, education advocacy/lobbying groups, institutions of higher education and teacher training institutes. Whenever one encounters a panel or policy discussion, from the local level to the national, ordinary teachers are bound to be absent. Perhaps there may be a building principal, but that too is not the norm. The participants tend to be exclusively superintendents, college professors, elected or appointed officials, legislators, governors, college administrators and/or additional “experts” in the field. The one group of individuals that is rarely invited to discuss issues, provide input, offer expertise, answer questions, or participate in setting policy, are the ones who do the actual educating: Teachers!
Once the establishment has identified and immersed themselves in the current talking point or issue du jour, the individuals who will be responsible for the implementation become inconsequential. Having teachers involved would only complicate the situation by inserting the actualities of the real world of education. Teachers understand that the multifaceted, complex world of genuine contact with students cannot be reduced to a single catch phrase. This blurring of reality becomes even more obvious every time an administrator talks about "seeing the big picture." It really has nothing to do with the size of the picture or the clarity of vision; it's simply that administrators and teachers are looking at completely different canvases. Living in their separated realm, administrators tend to gravitate towards the vision of a tidy, bucolic John Constable landscape, while teachers function within a disjointed, fragmented Pablo Picasso-esque creation.
Understanding the complexity of this chasm between the realities of “educating” (teaching) and “education” (the entrenched bureaucracy) is paramount to resolving the overwhelming problems currently facing public education. Whereas these two entities should be one and the same, the gap is ever-widening. Attempting to shed clarity on this extraordinary situation is indeed a daunting task. . . .
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Chapter 12. No Hope of Parole
There is an absolute, indelible truth to American public education: It does not matter if you are a straight “A” valedictorian or a false alarm pulling miscreant, as a child in America you are sentenced to a minimum of 13 years of public school (kindergarten through grade 12) with no hope of parole. If you want to get a high school diploma you have to do your time. This fact is as etched in stone as if Moses brought it down from the mount, and it is the one thing that absolutely must be changed about public school.
Having taught all levels (K-12), I have watched survival skills develop in the youngest of children. They learn very quickly that, no matter what, they must endure the prescribed length the school day for all of the days that are assigned to the school year. If they do their work quickly or slowly or not at all, nothing will change. You don’t get to go home at noon if you finish that day’s work early, nor are you released from school in April if you have managed to finished that year’s curriculum by then. Not on your life! You are stuck there come hell or high water!
Of course, all of us can point to the occasional child who’s been allowed to skip a grade or jump to upper level classes. A handful may even have the opportunity to take college level courses. And, without question, there are the sporadic magnet schools or privately funded advanced placement academies. I’m not saying these aren’t positive steps, but providing a minute percentage of the public school population with these opportunities is not solving the problem. We need to address the larger issue. . . .
Chapter 15 - The Disconnected
. . . When we are experiencing high school dropout rates as high as 50% in many rural areas of the country, if one factors in the well documented issues in urban schools, the need to create accommodations for “non-academic” students is just as essential as those for the special needs, college-bound and everyone in-between. When it comes to high school dropouts, the crux of the matter is this: What is to be gained from further “punishing” young people who, for whatever reason, have never had an adult in their lives who could “save them from themselves” and have fallen victim to their own youthful short-sighted stupidity? I say this repeatedly: No matter how obnoxious, infuriating or downright incorrigible teenagers may be at any given time, they are still just KIDS! Have we all forgotten when we were 17 and knew everything? Guiding children from their own ill-advised instincts requires real parents. If good parenting is absent from the lives of young people and they fail to connect with another responsible adult as a mentor, where do they turn for guidance? More often than not, it is to their peers--and the downward spiral simply accelerates.
As a society, we need to be doing everything possible to help bring these young people back into the fold. At whatever point they finally “come to their senses,” the opportunity to continue their schooling and help them towards productive, fruitful lives must be available. If we truly believe that an educated populace and an intellegent, creative, skilled workforce is essential to a functioning democracy, the public should be clamoring for such programs. . . .
Chapter 16. Blind-sided
. . . I recall a meeting with a hostile father during my very first year of teaching. Because I was young and single, I had no qualms about allowing the job to dominate my life. Therefore, rather than to simply use the official quarterly report card, I developed my own comprehensive progress report which I sent home to parents monthly!! At that time, prior to the onset of political correctness, a rating scale could simply state “good, satisfactory or poor.” This man’s son, by making no effort whatsoever, was performing miserably in all areas. As a result, he earned a “poor” in each category of the progress scale.
So, in comes the father, slaps the report on the table and announces, “This is Bullshit!” Now, as a first year teacher, I got quite flustered and tried to deal with this man in a civilized manner as he proceeded to behave as rudely, disrespectfully and obnoxiously as humanly possible. In reflection, it was providential that this occurred so early in my career, because I was blessed to be surrounded by a marvelous veteran teaching staff which I wisely sought out for counsel on a regular basis. I received extraordinary advice and insight from them which has served me ever since. However, I have often fantasized about a replay of this encounter. Father: “This is Bullshit!” Teacher: “I’m glad to hear that you so emphatically agree but, unfortunately, I’m not allowed to use that category on the form.”. . .
Chapter 18. The Most Important Job In The World
. . . Perhaps you may recall the situation in Gloucester, Massachusetts that was splashed all over the national headlines during the late Spring of 2008. Apparently, a group of teenage girls made a “pact” to get pregnant and raise their babies together. Subsequently, a raucous debate ensued about access to birth control, too much accommodation by the school for pregnant teens/teenage parents, hard economic times, children growing up purposeless, the influence of movies such as “Juno” and “Knocked-up”--the finger-pointing was endless. My personal favorite concerned the “noble choice” these girls were making not to have abortions. Of course they weren’t going to have abortions; they were trying to get pregnant!
This situation fits perfectly into my mantra for teaching high school: “Saving Students from Themselves.” These kids are children! They think like children: “Won’t it be fun to have a cute little baby?” It’s so easy for kids to think a baby will bring unconditional love, happiness, meaning and fulfillment to their angst ridden lives. They’re teenagers! Their lives are supposed to be filled with angst, confusion and uncertainty. They aren’t thinking about a lifetime of child-rearing and all of the sacrifices it entails!
This brings me to a major issue I never once heard discussed: Where were the parents of these high school children? Somehow, either tacitly or directly, these kids had to be given the impression that their parents would support them in this endeavor. I saw the pictures of these adolescents walking their babies in $200 strollers. You can’t tell me that, with the number of girls involved in the “pact” and the number of boys who had to be involved in getting these girls pregnant, not one parent caught wind of it. That kind of extreme parental disconnection is inconceivable!
When my son was a freshman in high school he tried to arrange a party at our house when he knew my wife and I were planning to be away at a conference. Before even six of his friends were contacted, we got the word from another parent. And this was for a single clandestine party, not a massive pregnancy pact! Truthfully, if the parents of all of the kids involved in this pregnancy ring were that out of the loop, adult parenting classes should be instituted in Gloucester immediately. Similarly, if they approved of this activity, immediate parenting classes should be mandatory. Sixteen year olds should not be having babies!!!. . . .
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Chapter 24 - Lawsuits and Legalities
. . . One would be hard-pressed to find a more preposterous policy than the school lockdown procedures that were instituted in reaction to the 1999 Columbine High School tragedy and similar school shooting incidents. And, there is perhaps no better example of the cavernous gap between public perception of a school policy and the reality of its implementation.
A quick check at the National Center for Educational Statistics website reveals that homicides and shootings that occur at school are so rare that estimates from school crime and safety surveys are not reported. Regardless, school shootings have served as the primary impetus for instituting school lockdown drills. So, if there are 49,800,000 students in America’s public schools and 26 students have been the perpetrators of homicidal school shootings since 1990, this means a total of .0000004% of public school students shoot other students. As a consequence, 99.9999996% of the students, plus 3.3 million teachers, not to mention teacher aides, clerical and custodial staff, are subjected to school lockdowns.
Aside from the 2006 shootings at Platte Canyon High School in Colorado and the Nickel Mines Amish school in Pennsylvania, all of the other 24 school shootings since 1990 have been committed by students. However, the way school lockdowns have been designed, one would think that all school shootings are the result of outside perpetrators. Let's think this through: If 92.5% of school shootings are carried out by students who attend the school where the shooting occurred, and all the students in every school are subjected to lockdown drills, wouldn’t the fact that potential shooters have an intimate knowledge of the lockdown procedure actually make the students less safe? It seems the administrators and boards of education that institute these policies haven't given this a thought. Nor has the public for that matter, who totally acquiesce to the whole idea that these procedures are really making their children safer. . . .
Chapter 25. Tales of Misadventure
As “fired-up,” “go-getter” teachers, my wife and I have organized and led countless overnight trips through the years; I, all over the country, and she, to Europe. This is in addition to innumerable daylong field trips from school. Unfortunately, as the threat of litigation loomed ever larger and the economy soured, my wife took her last school trip to Europe in 2002, and my last youth trip was a cruise in 2004. In essence, these excursions serve as a detailed travelogue of our years in teaching. . . .
. . . Any discussion of our student travel experiences simply has to include how we discovered that the McDonald’s in Spain serve beer. During a single overnight stop in Madrid, we happened to be staying at a hotel that was directly across from the "golden arches." I found it oddly curious that there seemed to be a constant stream of our kids heading back and forth across the street. It wasn’t until I observed the same kids making multiple trips, that I decided a little investigation was in order. One would think that the lookouts would have sent warning of my approach, but apparently their attention was fully focused on the Spanish version of a “Happy Meal.” Sure as can be, I walked into the McDonald’s and there sat a dozen or so of our kids with Supersized Cervesas. I also discovered the reason for the continual trips. Beer was the only item on the menu not available for “take-out.”. . . .
