I was shocked and fired up by an article in this morning's Chronicle about a teacher in Indiana who was fired for expressing her opinion on the Iraq war in her 4th-6th grade class. (Check it out at http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/05/14/MNG9PPQGVV1.DTL). Yes, I know it was in a more conservative part of the country than the Bay Area and in a classroom of children younger than those we all teach. Still, it is worrisome.
Two quotes from the article were particularly galling:
1. A teacher's speech is "the commodity she sells to an employer in exchange for her salary." So said an appeals court in Chicago ruling in favor of the school district.
2. "Public education is inherently a situation where the government is the speaker, and ... its employees are the mouthpieces of the government." So said a professor of law at UC's Hastings College of Law discussing the issue of a teacher's freedom of speech in the classroom.
Even as we steer close to the state and district standards as we plan and teach, don't we express our opinions in all of our instructional decisions? Just because a text in on the district approved reading list doesn't mean that it teaches itself.
And what are we to do if students ask us our opinion on a "controversial" issue? Demure because we might lose our jobs? Express our opinions with a clear disclaimer (as NPR does: "The views expressed are those of the speaker and not those of this radio station, National Public Radio or its funder.")? Answer with a question and ask them what they think?
And just where is the line between a safe and a controversial issue? Is the enviroment controversial? Homelessness? Government funding for education? And do districts really have policies on each of these issues? If so, I'm in trouble because I'm honestly in the dark.
If we are trying to teach students to be independent thinkers (and dare I say it, a bit open minded) and evaluate different points of view on issues in order for them to learn how to make up their own minds, isn't it enough that we provide opportunities for them to interact with texts whose authors present a variety of opinions?
I firmly believe that we have NO right to to use our position as teachers as a bully pulpit, but isn't there a middle ground between being the mouthpiece for the government (yikes!) and being irresponsible and unprofessional?
Monday, May 14, 2007
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Thoughts on Looking for a Job
Perhaps the morose tone of this post is due to an exhausting Wednesday, the pile of grading I have to do, the grades due next Monday, and the final assignments for my credential classes. Or perhaps I just hate looking for a job.
Those of you who read this blog know that my school is closing at the end of the year due to low enrollment and financial difficulties. (I've already written about this in an earlier post.) So, I've been looking for another teaching position for the last month or so.
While the job search has its high points (finding a announcement for a position you really want, getting a job offer for that position), it can also be wearying and frustrating. (Not to mention time-consuming.) At the moment, I am tired of sending out cover letters and resumes, having phone and face to face interviews, teaching demo lessons and waiting to hear back from principals. Mostly I'm tired of trying to present myself accurately in the space of a 30-minute interview or a 30-minute lesson. I generally know what questions I will be asked and I know what administrators what to hear. But it seems like such a game at times. And although I have done this before, I can't help taking the throw away comment "We are impressed with your background and experience and you taught a dynamite lesson, but..." personally. Yes, I know I shouldn't.
In truth, I don't think my feelings about looking for a job will change once I sign a contract. (Well, I know I'll be happier and less anxious, but I won't think differently about the process.)
Those of you who read this blog know that my school is closing at the end of the year due to low enrollment and financial difficulties. (I've already written about this in an earlier post.) So, I've been looking for another teaching position for the last month or so.
While the job search has its high points (finding a announcement for a position you really want, getting a job offer for that position), it can also be wearying and frustrating. (Not to mention time-consuming.) At the moment, I am tired of sending out cover letters and resumes, having phone and face to face interviews, teaching demo lessons and waiting to hear back from principals. Mostly I'm tired of trying to present myself accurately in the space of a 30-minute interview or a 30-minute lesson. I generally know what questions I will be asked and I know what administrators what to hear. But it seems like such a game at times. And although I have done this before, I can't help taking the throw away comment "We are impressed with your background and experience and you taught a dynamite lesson, but..." personally. Yes, I know I shouldn't.
In truth, I don't think my feelings about looking for a job will change once I sign a contract. (Well, I know I'll be happier and less anxious, but I won't think differently about the process.)
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Another Student Who Puzzles Me
Finding the piece of student work that I shared in class on Tuesday brought back a flood of memories, frustrations and feelings of inadequacy as a teacher. It's startling how a student whom I haven't seen or taught in months can still have such power over my psyche and my sense of myself as a teacher.
Before I read the personal narrative that Ellen (not her real name, of course) wrote, most of what I knew about her came from her disruptive behavior or her almost total lack of engagement in class. I knew that she used to live with her mother in Northern California and then left the area to spend time with relatives in 2005-2006, but I certainly didn't know the circumstances that lead to her being separated from her mother. To be fair to myself, when she joined my class late in the first quarter, I asked her (as I did all my students) to write me a letter of introduction. The letter, one of the few assignments she completed, contained none of this personal detail. To be hard on myself, I never read between the lines.
In her letter, she told me that she had already completed 10th grade but that her coursework hadn't transferred. When I spoke to the dean about this, she said that Ellen's grades were in fact, quite poor. Although Ellen was clearly bright, she and her mother had had to convince the dean that Ellen would take her second sophomore year seriously. Instead, she appeared frustrated, angry, and motivated by few class activities, assignments and projects. In several cases, I offered her alternate (but equally challenging) assessments in the hopes that something would engage her . Variations on "I don't want to be here.This is boring," is what I got in response. The few assignments that she began with promise were turned in late or incomplete. Over the course of the four months she was at school, her teachers and the dean has several meetings with Ellen and her mother. Sometimes, Ellen wouldn't answer our questions; sometimes, her answers were dripping with contempt.
In truth, I took her in your face lack of effort entirely as a reflection of myself as a teacher. "Surely another teacher (more sensitive, more creative, stricter, cooler...) would be able to reach her, find a way of getting her do to the work of which she was clearly capable." Maybe. But can we as teachers compensate for and erase a student's poor home life, the fact that their parents lose a job, the fact that their family is evicted from their apartment? Maybe not. But in retrospect I still feel I could have done more. If I had been able to step back from the relief I felt on the days she was absent I may have found a way to help her: a learning contract, a recommendation for counseling?
I saw little of Ellen's gifts until she wrote her personal narrative (a perceptive remark here and there, creative sketches and doodles in her binder) and then, after she had offered me some precious insights, she was gone, expelled for unleashing a string of foul language directed toward a teacher in another class. As my classmates know, her writing was fiercely honest, poetic and original. Not perfect, but clearly the work of a writer. I don't want to overstate the value of the story she shared with me, because knowing her background may still not have been all that was necessary for me to connect with her. But it would have given me a chance to. And I feel robbed of that.
So, Ellen, I'll be returning your story with my comments. As NG said, maybe knowing that your last assignment blew me away and could have been the beginning of something will mean something to you.
Before I read the personal narrative that Ellen (not her real name, of course) wrote, most of what I knew about her came from her disruptive behavior or her almost total lack of engagement in class. I knew that she used to live with her mother in Northern California and then left the area to spend time with relatives in 2005-2006, but I certainly didn't know the circumstances that lead to her being separated from her mother. To be fair to myself, when she joined my class late in the first quarter, I asked her (as I did all my students) to write me a letter of introduction. The letter, one of the few assignments she completed, contained none of this personal detail. To be hard on myself, I never read between the lines.
In her letter, she told me that she had already completed 10th grade but that her coursework hadn't transferred. When I spoke to the dean about this, she said that Ellen's grades were in fact, quite poor. Although Ellen was clearly bright, she and her mother had had to convince the dean that Ellen would take her second sophomore year seriously. Instead, she appeared frustrated, angry, and motivated by few class activities, assignments and projects. In several cases, I offered her alternate (but equally challenging) assessments in the hopes that something would engage her . Variations on "I don't want to be here.This is boring," is what I got in response. The few assignments that she began with promise were turned in late or incomplete. Over the course of the four months she was at school, her teachers and the dean has several meetings with Ellen and her mother. Sometimes, Ellen wouldn't answer our questions; sometimes, her answers were dripping with contempt.
In truth, I took her in your face lack of effort entirely as a reflection of myself as a teacher. "Surely another teacher (more sensitive, more creative, stricter, cooler...) would be able to reach her, find a way of getting her do to the work of which she was clearly capable." Maybe. But can we as teachers compensate for and erase a student's poor home life, the fact that their parents lose a job, the fact that their family is evicted from their apartment? Maybe not. But in retrospect I still feel I could have done more. If I had been able to step back from the relief I felt on the days she was absent I may have found a way to help her: a learning contract, a recommendation for counseling?
I saw little of Ellen's gifts until she wrote her personal narrative (a perceptive remark here and there, creative sketches and doodles in her binder) and then, after she had offered me some precious insights, she was gone, expelled for unleashing a string of foul language directed toward a teacher in another class. As my classmates know, her writing was fiercely honest, poetic and original. Not perfect, but clearly the work of a writer. I don't want to overstate the value of the story she shared with me, because knowing her background may still not have been all that was necessary for me to connect with her. But it would have given me a chance to. And I feel robbed of that.
So, Ellen, I'll be returning your story with my comments. As NG said, maybe knowing that your last assignment blew me away and could have been the beginning of something will mean something to you.
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