Nothing to Show

There have been several stories of teachers resigning that have made news as of late.

In a video reported on by The Huffington Post, Ellie Rubenstein laments that everything she loves about teaching is extinct. Her ten-minute video covers nearly everything wrong with American public education today.

One of my oft read columnists, Valerie Strauss, wrote today about a Virginia teacher bemoaning the testing regime. Only four years from retirement, he is resigning.

It is not uncommon these days to hear stories like these, of great teachers who are leaving the profession due to the dilapidated condition of our system. But in a way, I feel that these teachers are lucky. Lucky because they had the chance to teach in public education. They experienced support from administration, parents, and their communities. They experienced success and will likely have no problem finding another job, no matter how similar or dissimilar to education. They changed lives, helped kids. But what about new teachers that never had that chance, that have already felt the walls collapsing on them, in just their first year? They have nothing to show. After years of dreaming of being a teacher, then four or five years of college, they are now left crushed. Their naive disillusionment is long gone, replaced by the stark realities of public schools.

Of course the real loser here is always the kids. As my hero, Sir Ken Robinson said (paraphrased), "Why aren't alternative schools the norm?" I can only hope that students find the alternative education that works best for them.

School Lunch

The First Lady usually takes up some sort of cause, and Michelle Obama certainly found hers. She has been on a healthy kids kick, which involved making changes to school lunches. While I know her intentions are nothing but good, her changes have fallen short in many ways.

First off, the milk. The new policy is to serve only 1% and fat free milk. Naturally, the 1% milk goes quickly, and the kids who eat last are stuck with fat free milk. Maybe you think that's a good thing. Actually, research proves that kids who drink fattier milk are actually skinnier. One of the reasons for this is that whole milk causes people to feel fuller and therefore eat less. Especially for active kids, milk fat is a good thing.

Second, Michelle Obama decided that kids shouldn't be served seconds. For some kids, this is no big deal; certainly for me, this would have been a non-issue in my school days. However, for active kids, this is rough. Obviously kids who play sports require many more calories each day. Moreover, this doesn't take a kid's age into consideration. Kindergartners might be fine without seconds, but a growing middle-schooler needs more food. I had middle school kids come to me after eating lunch, asking for food (I kept a drawer with snacks for them) because they were still hungry. Though I've only experienced it a few times, eating a meal and still being hungry SUCKS.

Third, the quality of school food leaves MUCH to be desired. Almost everything comes in a can (BPA, anyone?), bag, or frozen. One day, I saw "waffles" on the school lunch menu. I decided to get it, and was blown away to find these waffles came individually wrapped, heated in their plastic packaging. Of the dozen or so school meals I purchased, most of them seemed to have been heated in a microwave, as much of the food was soggy.

Forth, the serving size for those canned fruits and vegetables was increased so that kids would eat more of these important food groups. Well, if a kid didn't like the small portion previously provided, they probably aren't going to like the new increased portion size. Plus, without a parent to encourage trying a food, or taking just a bite, many kids won't touch their veggies. Soooooo, now you have even more wasted food.

Finally, the time allotted for lunch is ever-decreasing in this age of standardized test prep. My school's lunch periods were 25 minutes. This of course was supposed to include recess. Nothing like encouraging kids to scarf down their food in order to go play. Or, if they did take their time eating, they didn't get recess.

Streamlining

I spoke with the ELA teacher that preceded me and who is now doing Title One. She was/is a fabulous teacher, as my 8th graders like to remind me since they had her last year. As the Title One director, she was at school a couple weeks ago, offering support and interventions to teachers. She had offered me her class materials from previous years when I first took over but I didn’t really know what to ask for so I never took her up on that offer. I did receive some materials via her husband, the principal, some of which I used.

After her presentation about ways she wanted to support teachers (RTI), I talked to her about a few things, only one of which I remember now. I mentioned to her how the 8th graders seemed much more closely aligned in level, whereas 7th graders seemed all over the board.  I think I used the word “streamlined” to describe 8th grade. She enthusiastically agreed, saying that 7th grade just needed to be streamlined.

I was somewhat surprised that she said this, merely because she was such a good teacher, but I just nodded along because I had to get my thoughts in order. The idea of streamlining students seems.... totally/categorically wrong to me. That is exactly what standardized tests require, that all students perform at the SAME level. But never in the world will you find a situation in which 20 to 30 people involuntarily thrown together in a room perform at the exact same levels. We NEED differences in ability. “It takes all types,” as the saying goes. It is a GOOD thing that people have different fortes. Companies value differences, and in fact it is this very thing that gets one hired: standing out from the crowd! I don’t want to make everyone the same; I don’t want to streamline my students.

But where does that leave me? Against the grain, at the very least. Maybe the question then is what DO I want for my students, if not to perform at the same level? Of course the ultimate goal is that they become productive, self-reliant, caring citizens.  

Streamlining inherently means some students will be held back or stagnated. Why the hell would I want to stall a student? I’d rather stall a car. Another sad reality of standardization is that advanced students are essentially abandoned. Now that they’ve achieved and passed the test, a teacher has no more reason to help them improve--there are too many failing students that need her attention.

Always a Teacher

I still consider myself a teacher, even though I'm not teaching in a public school now, and even though I'm not teaching at all. It is still my passion and what I want to do, just not in our current system.

I read this tweet the other day by Joe Bower: "You're either an accomplice to standardized testing or you are a teacher. You can't be both." In my case, this is true. I can't give students a test I don't believe it, nor devote so much time to practicing and preparing for that test. Not only do teachers have to administer this test, they have to put on a happy face and attempt to convince students that this test is important. My former school resorted to telling students that the benchmark tests would be graded, just to make them take it seriously. Of course they weren't graded. I don't blame those kids one bit. After all, it's hard to take a test seriously when you took a very similar test last month or two months ago. There is no reward for doing well on it. So my former school starting offering rewards: pizza parties, free time, candy.

Learning should never be about bribing kids to try on a test.

The Cantankerous Common Core Monster

I had a three-hour Common Core training that left me so completely disheartened and frustrated by our public education system. Since discovering unschooling a year ago, I can't believe how counter-intuitive so much of what we do in public school actually is. I am adamantly opposed to the Common Core, which has been adopted by 46 states due to federal funding pressure. The Common Core, it turns out, was designed primarily by Pearson, the biggest education company in the US. While schools are laying off vice principals, school counselors, librarians, and running at minimum staff, education companies are making millions. Today the middle school SPED department asked the middle school team if we have any extra supplies. They are scrounging for pencils, pens, paper, expo markers, and other basic supplies. They've been using scrap paper because they have nothing else. To be clear, it's not Pearson that is at fault; rather, our system is backwards and Pearson happens to be the one profiting.

For me, standards go against my fundamental belief that students learn at different paces. Standards go against so much of what the research says and so much of what I know to be true!

Standardized testing takes up so much time. My school uses a system to test the kids four to five times a year to see where they're at. Kids are so tired of bubble sheets. I have articles galore on standardized testing, almost all of them viewing it unfavorably. I have articles on brain research which somehow never get applied to education.

Thankfully, there is a new degree that combines neuroscience with education. Finally! I hope to get my master's in that cross-field one day.