A friend posted this today, about federal mandates coming down on Washington educators. Read for yourself the idiocy and short sightedness of these mandates. I have this to say: you don't scare me, Uncle Sam.
As I mourn the end of summer, I am working to get my head back in the education game. Reading the article above, followed by this validating yet very depressing editorial about how insanely under-everything teachers are could have sent me searching for a new career. It didn't, because satisfying fundamentally flawed federal mandates created by politicians who have never taught is not why I became a teacher.
Don't get me wrong - I'm all for standards. High ones. I think bad teachers should be fired. (How "bad" is determined is a whole other issue.) I think most teachers - certainly about 95% of the teachers I've worked with - are brilliant, dedicated and possess a humanity that is required by only a handful of professions. I don't want to share the same salary and job description as a lazy, burnt out, uninspired teacher who doesn't actually like kids. I just want the standards to actually assess something meaningful. Test scores are all the feds can think up, really? They are limited, limited, limited. I'm not saying they mean nothing, but they sure as shit don't mean everything.
If I read too much stuff like this, the foolishness of the so-called leaders in education in this country would drive me stark-raving mad. So I don't. Honestly, call me fatalistic, but I don't feel like there is all that much I can do about it. I'm not going to march on Washington, or do much more than write my Senators and vote. Why? Because I'm too busy teaching.
I teach for the humanity of it. I love getting my hands dirty with young people who are learning, exploring, thinking, struggling and creating their way to a better world. I love watching teenagers find their passion for a cause that truly matters. I love it when I teach something really hard, it bombs, I go back and reflect on how I can do it better, I do it better, and then the kids get it!! I love graduation day, especially when I have the privilege of working with SO many kids who are the first in their family to graduate and go to college. I love hearing from students years after graduation, and finding out they are crazy successful, or that they figured life out on their own terms, or that they have found love and had children.
I am so very lucky to teach in a progressive, small public school with a visionary for a principal - who also supports all of his teachers in every way. My colleagues inspire me, make me laugh, and make me want to do better. My students piss me off and delight me all in the same day. My school is a family. Because of this, I am able to take the bureaucracy with a grain of salt. I take my job hella seriously, and I am dedicated to being a really great teacher. But the humanity in my job is what is important. If someday, in spite of all I do well, some fed decides I'm not good enough because my students' test scores aren't high enough (for a battery of complex reasons - but nuance and complexity has never seemed to be the strong suit of these dummies), oh well. I will keep serving my students in the ways that they actually need (which I have some idea of, because I know them). Or I'll pursue some other endeavor where humanity is valued above standardized test scores. And if it really takes a total implosion of our education system for the powers that be to figure it out, I'll homeschool my daughter.
So in a weird way, these posts actually inspired me. I'm excited to get back to the awesome journey that each day in the classroom offers me.
Score that, fuckers.
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