Who would ever want to be a teacher?

Not me. I never wanted to be a teacher. I don't even have one of those special teachers in my past that I strive to emulate.

My mother taught.

My grandmother taught.

But me, I wanted to write, not teach. That confession in my first teaching-job interview changed the expression on my interviewers face from interest to: "You'll teach in my district over my dead body." Oops. (Turns out that's exactly what happened. He's gone now. After twenty years of teaching, I'm in the district that took a pass in the first round.)

If ever a career were a calling, teaching has been mine. Somewhere along the line I noticed that I was happiest around children. I like to play. I also like to learn new things, read, laugh, hang out with people who are real. I like feeling young in mind and spirit. Teaching does all of that and, in spite of all the crazy nonsense we juggle, that is why I stay.

A recent gallup poll says that teaching is good for your well-being, since teachers rose to the top on four out of six well-being indexes on the poll conducted from July 2008 to June 2009.

So what's to like about this job? When I talk with students who want to be teachers I stress that this is a dynamic profession. No two days are alike. Heck, no two hours are alike. Change occurs at a rapid pace both within and outside the classroom. It isn't for everyone, though. Those who like to work toward an identifiable end-product are going to be dissatisfied with the work that is less obvious at my end of the scale.

In the junior and senior year of high school we don't make the serious leaps that are clear in the early years. We don't teach somebody how to read. But, if we're lucky, we can make readers out of non-readers. We can make somebody believe that they can write.

I've had other jobs so I can attest: there aren't many like this one.

Hey, come to think of it, this job is an amalgam of all the others: secretary, bartender (in terms of controlling wildly out-of-control clients ;-), full-time mom, news reporter, copywriter, waitress, announcer, researcher, editor.....

The First Educator?

Grasping for optimism, I began wondering a few weeks back if there is "method to this madness" as we slog through the daily delay tactics, in-fighting, and compromises of the nation's first National Health plan. It's been a long haul since this battle started and there is more to go, but could Obama be letting this play out on purpose? Is he that clever? Am I that desperate for change that I might even ascribe a hidden agenda to this mess?

When I came upon a long comment string on Facebook about particulars in the bill a few days ago among former students who are undergrads right now, I noted one thing: Lots of people are paying attention. Facebook is being used to discuss national policy among the young? That's new, isn't it?

Could this be a huge, nation-sized constructivist project designed to re-orient the nation to it's first job: taking an active role in the government?

What better way to re-engage the public than to draw back the curtain on how the sausage of a new law is made. We have all been educated recently on the power of lobbies, the particulars of compromise, the danger of the filibuster, the definition of corporatism, the names of our senators, and the unspoken rules of that elite body. The machinations of "how a bill becomes a law" is part of every news brief. Extending the argument into Christmas has only galvanized some of those who would not have paid attention otherwise.

I think, too, of my own interests. TLN colleague Anthony Cody has begun his own Facebook group Letters to Obama from teachers anxious to be a part of the next reform wave in education. As more and more of the "new" plan is being revealed, teachers (an often silent majority in the education world) are speaking up. Hallalujah!

This is the way a democracy is supposed to work.

Over the past twenty to thirty years we have been lulled into complacency. Our leaders have taken a patriarchal role and encouraged us to just relax and let them handle things so we can go shopping!

The last overt method to placate the masses was Bush's payout to taxpayers of "their" money to encourage spending and jump start the economy not long after September 11. It appeared to work for a time but was just one more distraction from facing what was really happening in our economy.

Is it Obama's plan to treat us like grownups?

Daily in the news we are asked to face the reality of what happens in government at the national level. The nasty fights are being played out right in front of our eyes. The rules are being exposed and the alliances are spelled out.

Most of us our watching.

And talking about it.

Students make huge gains in learning when they have a fascinating problem that is personally important to them, when they are given latitude to make choices, when the problem features some ambiguity and nuance, and when someone assists by continually handing over resources. We've been getting all that and more in this health care battle.

And like a good teacher we've also been given a deadline. "Discuss this among yourselves, but I need an answer by Christmas."

Obama has been criticized for not forcing the agenda for health care. Maybe he doesn't want to. Maybe he wants us to choose for ourselves and force our leaders to comply.

Maybe it's about time.

Reforming Ed Leadership

My good TLN friend Ariel Sacks sent along this link to Bob Herbert's op-ed piece in the New York Times. Herbert is concerned about reforming our education system. He's written on this before so I know it's at the top of his list.

He's right. We need to solve the problem of what is wrong with schooling. Especially when we are looking at high drop out rates. (Wake up people! We can't toss our kids out on the street and expect to move forward as a nation.)

His current bright light in the reform issue is a new doctoral degree at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in Educational Leadership. The stunning part of the degree is that it will be offered tuition free. Let's hope this is the beginning of a trend. On a teaching salary, pursuing an advanced degree isn't always feasible, and those most likely to pay aren't necessarily the best choice.

But, I have a problem with the description of the goals of the program. The article states that the degree is a collaboration between the schools of business and education. It says:

• Kathleen McCartney, the graduate school’s dean, explained one of the dilemmas that has hampered reform. “If you look at people who are running districts,” she said, “some come from traditional schools of education, and they understand the core business of education but perhaps are a little weak on the management side. And then you’ve got the M.B.A.-types who understand operations, let’s say, but not so much teaching and learning.”

Let's get off this "schools need to be run more like a business" train, can't we? That kind of thinking has been around for thirty years and has culminated in charts and graphs and nutty ideas like paying teachers based on student scores (a plan ripe for corruption). The business model has led to more and more standardized tests and measurements and narrowed the curriculum to the point where a monkey can deliver instruction. (Ever read a scripted curriculum? Monkey talk.)

Kids are dropping out because school is becoming IRRELEVANT. Who wants to sit in a class when you can go home and write, produce, and distribute your own movie/blog/television show/music album from your bedroom?

And if you're already disadvantaged, who wants to go to a place that reminds you every day that you are far behind everyone else. Better to just drop out and find a job or disappear into the world of drugs or crime or who knows what.

School needs to be reformed, but I baulk at using business as the model for that reform. How can we continue to use that paradigm after what has resulted in the current recession and revealed the corruption in the business world? When Wall Street demanded that gains appear on spreadsheets every quarter, the gains showed up. Who cared how they got there just so long as this narrow measure of success continued to build (unsustainably, as it turns out).

Education is NOT a business. We are NOT producing products. My complaint is the same one doctors make in the current health care debate.

What we do (doctors and teachers) does not result in a measurable profit. At least not one you can see right away. We are involved in building charitable relationships that result in better people. Creating better human beings through an improvement in health and education does return dividends, but not always immediately. It's a bit of a leap of faith, but can be uncovered in the narratives of those who benefit from both good health and good formative experiences.

Harvard's plan for creating leaders is to place them in districts where they can learn from others. But we don't need more of the status quo with a sprinkling of management thrown in.

We need to entirely re-see education and make it meaningful, relevant, and vibrant.

We need to fling open the doors to ideas that engage students, create innovative thinkers, develop future leaders, and feed the dreams of our young people so they can work creatively with others.

It is ironic that the new landscape of this 21st century lies in the freeing collaborative nature of getting and giving information on the web, but that the response to that new world is the same "old-world" kind of thinking: More top-down managers.

Holding on to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones

Just finished this new title by Thomas Newkirk - in just two days. Like a long drink of water, it was just what I needed.

Chapter 8 reinforced for me that I am, all the way to the bones and beyond, a teacher. Duh, you say? Well, for some of us, teaching was not a first choice. Newkirk's chapter on what teachers need confirms the deep insecurity we all live with and either learn to accept or must ultimately flee for self-preservation. For someone who came to the party late, it is reaffirming to discover that all teachers struggle with regular failures: students they can't reach, lessons that fall flat, explanations that are met with by blank stares..... And then there is that inevitable class he describes so eloquently that, because of the time of day, or the season, no one appears to have the energy for learning, and the teacher feels mired in lethargy as well. No one is a superteacher 24-7.

In this chapter, Newkirk argues that we need each other - sharing and discussing student work - to bolster and support ourselves in manageable small community. And, we need to be around grown-ups!

Newkirk eschews the teacher hero we are all so familiar with in the movies. (This has been a recurring discussion at the Teacher Leaders Network). Those idealistic views of self-sacrificing wonders only undermine the confidence of teachers who regularly must face failure in their practice. And generally, teachers must deal with the fact of failure on their own, in isolation. He sees a necessity for teachers to share with their colleagues as the true hope for reform.

Ah, don't we all?

It's the old chestnut: Put two teachers together, and all they do is talk shop. Because: we are never allowed to do it "on the job." Because: no one else knows what it's like. Because: grown ups need grown ups. We can't subsist on a diet all children all the time. Because: we need the perspective of many eyes and many ears. Because: we may all survive to teach another day.

There are many other reasons to read Newkirk's book--I have several new ideas for informal writing with my students for instance. But if you have hit that low place in the school year, you will especially appreciate the chapter entitled "Finding a Language for Difficulty."

There is redemption in the confession of just how hard, and messy, and un-hollywood-like, this work can be.

Edublog Awards

I've been slow to the web 2.0 world. Once I considered myself a frontiersman, but that was way back in 1982 when personal computers arrived on the scene. (Something happened along the way. Aging, I think, and a calcification of my brain....)

But now that I am connected to Facebook, twitter, blogs, etc. etc. via my iphone, I can see how it is changing the landscape of our minds, our social world, and the entire future of education. (The kids I teach are always connected. I'm the newbie.)

So, it is my own education that I turn to now. The web has enlarged my faculty lounge and I can pick and choose who I wish to spend my free time with. The Edublogs Awards are out so I want to nominate those who have influenced me most of late:

• Best Resource Sharing Blog has to be Jim Burke's English Companion Ning for its sheer scope and accessibility. You can find resources or just answers to questions. The best thing about open nings is the range of conversation. Not everyone has to agree with everyone else and its helpful to have push back on occasion (see below).

Two blogs I never miss are

• Susan Graham's A Place at the Table. She always amazes me with her ability to see connections across all areas of life.
• And the political savvy of Nancy Flanagan's Teacher in a Strange Land. Her antennae is always up on the politics of school policy and she knows all the players. Very informative. I nominate Susan for Best Teacher Blog and Nancy for Best Individual blog.

I still don't get around much in this cyberworld. I've never check the Daily Kos daily, like my husband does. I rarely twitter. After all, I've got a pretty intense day job. But I do worry about some of this new landscape. Are all of us just listening to like-minded people?

That can't be a good thing. When, on occasion, I have stumbled across posts and comments that are decidedly anti-teacher -- even violently hating teachers -- it is like a cold water bath on the tundra. I'm a bit unprepared. But they are out there and we can't all be talking in our own echo chamber all the time, no matter what our issue is.

Back from 3-D World

This weekend I spent time with colleagues in real-world, real-time at the NWP conference with a quick sidetrip to the NCTE conference--both held in Philadelphia. I heard, via a bookseller at Heineman, that this was the highest attendance at an NCTE convention.

Could it be that we are all aware that this may be the last one for awhile? He didn't see it that way, but knowing what won't be available in funds next year, I was inclined to see it as a last gasp before a long dry spell.

Highlights of the meetings include my favorite: break-out sessions replete with mad brainstorming on how to improve sites, inspire kids, and fill up the energy reserve. Within minutes, table-mates act like old buddies and the ideas fly around. I have pages of notes.

Second only to that was hearing and meeting Billy Collins, a poet who has done much to build my confidence in teaching the genre I struggle with the most. His humor is what has given me entrée into a world I've never quite "gotten."

And finally was the connection with the three-dimensional versions of the online colleagues I have come to know through their writing: Claudia Swisher of Oklahoma, and the Wicked-bad Laurie Wasserman of Massachusetts. We've 'known' each other for five years. Still, a live meeting brings a dimension not found virtually. And then there's the moment of hesitation as you try to absorb the living breathing version that you've known only through deep, written conversations. There's a kind of, "Huh? What shall we talk about besides saving the world?"

These meetings are important, I realize every time I come back from one. Removing yourself from your daily context shifts the discussions. Seeing and working with others who have the same struggles is important.

I wonder who will be able to go next year....

Trying to go Viral

This week I joined with fellow TLN'r Anthony Cody in sending an open letter to President Obama and Arne Duncan. Rather than reform through policymakers, we want reform through teacher voices.

I post the link so any fellow teachers can join their voices with others from around the country in getting lawmakers to heed the advice of career educators. We now have the electronic tools to make the classroom teachers' voice loom large. In addition, we are not affiliating ourselves with a union message - just talking about good practice and what works with our most struggling students. If you wish to have your voice included, please take a look at the site and add your vision.

From perusing some of the messages posted thus far, it is clear that accomplished teachers have a similar messages: Teaching is about building relationships, creating safety so young minds are willing to take risks, and running alongside our developing students rather than standing at the finish line keeping score.

From my own perspective, I see the creeping influence of organizations and companies that have profited from the last eight years of testing as a measure of what students are learning: the testing companies themselves. If teacher voices are to take center stage, we need to be aware that large corporations with money, resources, and the time to lobby and influence decision-making may be speaking in our stead. Though everyone wants accountability, a reliance on test scores is a dangerous, easy way out. In my experience, tests damage education by narrowing the scope of outcomes.

This is a national mistake.

Historically, America has led the world in innovative thinking. Narrowing our curriculum, and rewarding students for "think alike" or "think little" by testing through the narrow window represented in multiple-choice format and other standardized responses will damage our future prospects. Who will lead innovation? Only those who drop out or resist the current reforms.

Please take a moment to add your perspective.