What I Have Experienced as an Educator

            In the spring of 1979 I made a decision.  I was a freshman in college who typically changed my idea for a career path about every two weeks.  Going into college I was convinced that I would be a lawyer.  I had been involved in politics at home and thought that I was going to save the world.  However, on a beautiful spring day I saw a bulletin board that advertised an information session on the steps a student could take to become a teacher.  My school was a liberal arts college in the truest sense.  No major offered was preparation for a specific vocation.  Unlike most universities, there was no college of education, no education degree.  I found that I could take specific courses to get certified to teach, but there was no credit for a minor or a major.  My major was tracking toward studio art.  Drawing and painting were natural for me.  What I began to learn was that these skills were also a part of me.  I had taken a sculpture class my first semester and was taking a class on color my second term.   Through a career in education, I discovered I could be both practical and pursue an intellectual course of study.  Yes, art requires intellect.

            Over the course of my time in college I made a significant change in my direction toward adulthood.  I made a decision to become a teacher and I stuck with it.  I never turned back. I was told I would have a job at the university should I choose in the spring of my junior year.  I turned that job down because I knew I wanted to teach.  After a difficult first year of teaching I was offered a job at a conference center, but I turned that down.  I wanted to teach.  After a few years in the profession, I discovered that I wanted to teach well.  Two years into my career I began to work on a masters in education that focused on art.  Again, I discovered the artistic process to be a natural outlet.  My painting professor encouraged me to take a year off just to paint and work toward an MFA.  Aside from the practical reality of paying for this year, I decided that I wanted to teach.  I did not paint for a year toward an MFA.  By the time I finished this Masters degree I was merely dabbling in the arts.  I had no ambition toward a career in the arts.  I wanted to teach.  I enjoyed working with students and loved imparting a passion for the arts.

            My tenure in education has paralleled the so-called age of education reform.  The spring of my first year as a teacher the Reagan administration published a report entitled “A Nation at Risk.”  For years, many in public education sensed that there was an undercurrent of sentiment to attack and demean the public schools as an institution.  This report made those fears a reality.  We wouldn’t wish this system on our enemies, the report said.  For the next decade the authors of “A Nation at Risk” floundered as they sought a way to justify defunding public schools.  Through out the 1980s idealists, such as me, pretended that the ongoing dialogue resulting from the report was an opportunity to reintroduce the education ideals first articulated by philosophers such as John Dewey in the Progressive Era. We had discussions about the true nature of the classroom, site based management and authentic portfolio assessments.   At last we could throw off the yoke of bureaucratic implementation.   However, the second attack on the legitimacy of the Public Schools arrived in the 1990s in what became known as the “standards movement.”  What historically had been referred to as “the basics” now had a faux intellectual premise.  We have to have standards for students to achieve.  Correct?  What is the purpose of a course of study without “high expectations?”  The next logical step was to introduce tools that would measure progress and tell us that public educators lacked high standards.

            Prior to the introduction of standardized tests as a tool to judge the efficacy of a school or teacher, normative tests were used to diagnose a student’s progress.   As we moved through the 1990s in this country, voices began to question the practical application of these tests by claiming that teachers were not sophisticated enough to use the data.  Public education had a notorious reputation for ignoring research altogether, many claimed.  We needed instruments that forced the schoolhouse, principally teachers, to pay attention and develop teaching strategies that actually brought results.  To get to the bottom of the “crisis” in learning, states and districts began to jettison curricula and focus on literacy and math.  The justification seemed logical.  Statistics clearly show that if a child is not reading fluently by third grade, then they would eventually drop out of school.  The drop out rate was so high, many argued, that we had to get reading trends corrected.  A reading test would clearly define the problem, give teachers a clear understanding of student deficits and, thus, provide a pathway to student success.  Seems clear enough.  We have lacked academic focus in education policy and now we have it.  Let’s teach kids how to read.  Now for the more nefarious components of this focus:

            There were many forces acting on public education in the 1990s.  Since the 1960’s major cities had struggled to integrate schools.  The societal resistance to these efforts, specifically busing, was becoming evident through the growing segregation of neighborhoods.  As families moved to suburbs or toward private schools, educators who continued to desire a model for desegregation began to seek other means to achieve an integrated society while keeping communities participating.  Magnet schools became a popular strategy and a school governance concept independent of traditional public education bureaucracy, charters, began to get traction.  Among progressive thinkers, charters would represent a vehicle for experimentation with successful instructional strategies adopted by school districts.  Those tired of the imposition of bureaucratic education policy began to see charters as a means to break away and reinforce the will of individual school communities.  By the 2000’s there was evidence of a profit motive for charter investment that significantly changed the justification for such schools and represented a motive to defund public schools as a government entity.

            As a teacher in the 1980s, I lived in a bubble that, looking back, was ideal.  Part of the ongoing dialogue about education recognized that teacher pay was a significant contributor to teacher attrition.  States and localities began to experiment with a concept of merit pay as an incentive to keep and reward teachers.  As the country got out of a deep recession in the mid-eighties, revenue became available and teacher pay began to grow again.  The difference in past efforts was that step pay increases would no longer be the focus, but performance would somehow be determined and rewarded.   At first, these experiments included a profound increase in classroom observations, but this was found to be cumbersome and expensive.  My recent masters, along with a substantial bonus earned as a result of good observations, meant that I had more disposable income.  I later began to realize the 1980s were a good time for my chosen subject, art, as well.  Funding was more than adequate and I was encouraged to expand my curriculum.  The direction of public education policy at that time was moving toward local school control.  Teachers began to experience more intellectual options.  Reform, initially, showed promise for the classroom.  Then someone discovered standards.

            As I moved through the 1990s, and “Standards based Education” became the growing mantra, curricular restrictions began to be put in place.  In 1996, I worked in a magnet high school that had a medical component.  My artistic and instructional strengths were in representational art and I proposed an anatomical drawing course for our magnet students.  There was significant interest in this fusing of art and science from both the student body and the faculty.  All of my art classes prior to this proposal were at capacity so I believed this course would represent a good use of resources.  The district turned this proposal down twice.  The justification for rejection was simple: The district offered too many classes already.  Too many high schools had distinctive offerings that did not translate to graduation requirements for other schools in the district if a student transferred to another school.  The stated policy of the district became standardization of curriculum.  Reduce curricular offerings to homogenize the high schools in the district.  Make them all the same.   It didn’t matter that different schools served diverse communities.

            There has always been a strong anti-intellectual current evident in the organization of the public schools.  We frequently heard this articulated as the “3 Rs”.   Part of this was the result of a vocational justification for the public schools that saw a purpose in developing a competent work force.  The evolution of the standards movement in the 1990s gave justification to the vocational bias for schooling.  The great irony became that the standards movement would actually result in a restricted view of vocational justification that has reduced job preparation.  As an art teacher, I discovered that this meant less opportunity for application and more time spent on passive theory.  In other words, teach reading and math while avoiding opportunities for critical thinking and problem solving. 

            At the end of the 1990s, I left the classroom to become an assistant principal.  The standards movement was firmly in place.  Standardized tests were now being used to judge schools thus acting as a stick to force improvement.  However, it became evident that these assessments were not getting the desired results.

As superintendents trumpeted the gains seen in grades 3 -8, thus justifying a focus on reading and math in primary education, the high school results were stagnant.  School boards and the public began to ask why.  As an administrator in a middle school I saw the reason to be obvious.  The 3^rd grade through 8^th grade reading and math tests were rigged.  In the state of North Carolina, where I worked, the threshold for being at “grade level” was below a normative standard of 20%.  If a student could read better than 18 out of 100 students in the grade level, then that student was reading at the level expected for that grade.  However, once a student performing at the minimal level entered high school that student could not handle the content covered in high school courses.  This practice became common throughout the country with the federal legislation popularly penned “No Child Left Behind”.  Every child miraculously was going to be at “grade level” by 2014 or there would be financial penalties.  It was left up to states to define the grade level standard.  Wanting to avoid funding cuts, states naturally began to develop tests that demonstrated proficiency that was in fact below grade level.   As an administrator overseeing these tests, the state policy became obvious.  Lie to the public about actual student performance by using assessments that required little actual ability. 

            There were significant political and economic forces at work once “No Child Left Behind” became policy.  Throughout the history of public schools, financial resources were subject to economic conditions.  The public schools often faced dramatic cuts during economic downturns and would see increased revenues to try and catch up during good times.    The economic influence took another turn with the institution of “No Child Left Behind.”   States did not have the means to develop quality assessments on their own.  A competitive testing industry grew out of this need.   The practical execution of these tests also became more reliable as computing technology improved.  However, only about 40% of curriculum and instruction could be judged based on this testing process.  Although some states and districts tried to develop assessments for courses beyond a standardized curriculum, this was found to be expensive and tests unreliable.  Further justification to reduce curricular offerings was now justified.  With the advent to corporate testing, there was now a profit and efficiency motive added to justify the “Standards Based Curriculum.”  As the standards bias took hold, judgment about performance became systemic and no longer valued the individual school community.  Entrepreneurs and venture capitalists began to influence education policy in terms of corporate economic justification.  Education reform was now being defined in terms of efficiency, not efficacy.  The educational testing environment now was a growth industry that justified its existence in terms of principal and teacher accountability with no entity holding this corporate culture accountable for the accuracy or quality of the instruments used to harshly judge schools.  Numbers reported were rarely vetted through media and simply used to demean public schools.  No one bothered to see if these tests were actually measuring student performance.  The schools simply reported numerical results.  As this efficiency for the sake of profit became the priority, schools were closed, teachers dismissed and funding was allocated toward the profits.  It didn’t matter if students actually knew the material.

            When I entered teaching in 1982, it was frequently reported that half of the public school teachers in this country would leave the profession by the fifth year of teaching.  Many researchers would claim that most of this attrition included the best teachers.  In 1982 there was little data available to support this claim.  Some would say that our introduction of standards data verified this as fact.  The variety and inconsistent quality of tests used across the country makes this claim dubious.  As an elementary school principal I can anecdotally report that teachers are leaving the profession.  The conditions in the classroom have gotten worse as strict instructional standards have reduced teacher input on curricula and taken time away from actual instruction.  The loss of tenure for principals have given districts and states leverage to enforce particular instructional practices that have little or no research validity.  Private schools are now finding it easier to hire teachers away from public schools as teacher pay has stagnated, taking away the once competitive advantage public schools traditionally held when seeking candidates.  The poor conditions now so apparent in the classroom are having an impact on teacher preparation programs as more and more universities report dramatic decreases in education majors.  As teacher shortages become more evident across the country opportunities for students lessen.

            As teaching becomes less a call to service and more an expectation for random results, the allure of teaching loses its luster.  The economic justification brought on by the corporate influence and narrow institutional definitions of learning now creates an impression of teaching as mission work.  The public investment in such organizations as Teach for America implies a perception that  teachers are not important.  While recent policy pretends to acknowledge the significant impact a good teacher has on a student’s academic growth, the practice of government is to invest less in teaching.  The best and brightest students are typically the most astute.  They see the stress placed upon teachers and this acts as a disincentive to get into the profession.  

            A single classroom represents a culture of learning that is only limited by the enlightened nature of the teacher.  A school, therefore, becomes the community that nurtures such enlightenment through resources selected for that classroom.  This is why the best schools, public, charter or independent, thrive.  The evolving focus of district, state and federal policy on economic incentives that reward private interests over the needs of individual schools gives little reason for thinkers to teach.  While the “Standards Movement” has resulted in an entrepreneurial energy, the investment has focused on efficient delivery of content over student opportunity.  Restricted curricula, stagnant teacher pay, and greater investment in inefficient technologies that have marked this three-decade era of “reform” have left teachers and schools out of the equation.  

            I have no regrets about my choice in avocation.   I continue to be energized by the relationships I develop with students, teachers and greater school communities.  However, the institutional forces I encounter often create a fatigue that is deep and counter productive.  During this age of reform my ongoing work with educators, from instructional assistants to superintendents, exposes me to a vast array of individuals who believe in their work and want to provide meaningful opportunity for students.  However, as educators, we continue to be blind to the unintended consequences that come from decisions that ignore local school needs for the one best solution that will magically transform our schools.   We have bought into the mantra of leadership as a character trait as opposed to developing “discriminating followership” as a necessary tool for initiative and success.   We have assumed that the business mindset is a virtue that can lift the circumstances of all, ignoring the selfish limitations that naturally exist with economic incentives. The motivation for education policy over the past three decades has ignored the true focus of our work.  It has assumed that efficient narrow curricular focus can best serve the needs of students while ignoring the fact that learning is typically inefficient and has many foci.  We have ignored the organic cellular nature of humanity through a systemic industrial approach to learning.  Like the pairing young idealist I was 37 years ago, I continue to see that teachers simply want to learn, engage and inspire.    

My Philosophy on Education

                                         

 Early in my art teaching career I recall introducing a unit on architecture and design to an eighth grade class.  I was excited about this lesson because it ignited a memory of my own bedroom growing up.  It was a large room, even by today’s standards, and I had slept, played and imagined there for 14 years, ten as the only tenant.  It was my art studio, my study, my media room and my refuge.  As the lesson began I excitedly asked students to imagine their own rooms; to start with what existed and add features they would like.  I was puzzled when many of my students just sat there. Seemingly clueless to the world I thought they were experiencing.  I soon discovered that many had little experience of their own space.   The physical representation of a bedroom or home was inconsequential in their lives.   It was this moment in my career where I truly realized that students understand a variety of things in a multitude of ways.  It was here that I began to understand the value of experience in learning and developing student inquiry.

My initial understanding of the classroom and student achievement revolved around a systemic approach to the classroom and teaching.  My experience has taught me that systemic efforts fall short because each childhood encounter is unique in perspective and perception.   Although we can make generalizations about student response and learning, these stereotypes prevent us from helping each child realize the gifts before them.   It is the role of the teacher to reach every child where they are intellectually, socially and developmentally.  Therefore, learning does not begin or end in the classroom, but a school acts as a conduit to synthesize and stimulate intellectual development. 

I prefer to see education in a cellular rather than systemic context.  Each child brings their own experience into the greater community.  If the individual child is to contribute to a community in a meaningful way,   then that child has to see that he is valued and brings value.  Our ultimate responsibility as educators is to help bring a child up in a greater community where he believes he can contribute and participate.  This requires a thorough understanding of learning styles, pedagogy and instructional strategies along with an insatiable intellectual curiosity on the part of a teacher, the school leadership and the greater community.   The role of state and federal education policy is to provide the time and resources that allow such learning to exist. 

My leadership practice is not merely collaborative but intentional.  As a principal I lead with the premise that I am only as successful as the people around me.  At Myers Park Traditional School and Providence Elementary School we demonstrated significant academic growth through efforts to help teachers understand that they have the prominent role in student success and that they have the ability to move students toward greater opportunity.   I have worked to get the school communities behind our teachers to support them in their classrooms.   Although the qualitative data at both schools shows growth, it is our development as cultures for learning that is most important.  I strive to lead an academic culture where every child has a vision as a prominent contributor to a greater community.   

I Just Can't Help myself...

“Thank you Lord Jesus for President Trump.”   I saw this held by two "Trumpsters" today on Facebook.   The logic, or lack thereof, is mindboggling.  Jesus, a spiritual individual, advocate for the poor, critic of the wealthy and God’s sacrifice to humanity has given us Donald Trump, windbag, nihilist and billionaire.  Despite this evidence, Americans as a whole are not stupid.  We have managed to maintain an effective form of government that requires the participation of its citizenry for 239 years.  We have had our difficulties, but we have usually recovered.   At least, that’s what we hope.

Just for the sake of argument, say 20% of our population is intellectually inept, stupid.   That would represent about 66 million individuals.  Even though that would leave us with 264 million with rational intelligence, that’s a lot of stupid.  Look at most of the great political movements since the American Revolution.  Most started with far less than a 20% popularity rate, the French Revolution, the Russian (Soviet) Revolution, the over-cited rise of Nazi Germany and the Mao Revolution in China all began with a determined minority that effectively manipulated a desperate populace against the existing government.  All had the benefit of a clueless ruling class that kept to itself, ignored the majority and obsessed with its opulence.  So what does this have to do with Jesus giving us Donald Trump?

After the 2008 “Great Recession”, the wealthiest 20% in this country, some 66 million folk, suffered some setbacks, but by 2012 it was back to its fat and happy debt driven ways.  Sacrifices were minimal and the government kept them, us, afloat until we got back on our feet.  All the while, everyone else struggled.  Median income dropped, real inflation continued to rise and income growth stagnated.  Most continue to suffer while those in the upper income brackets continue to represent the majority of government and pretend everything is good.    

66 million people with most of the economic might in this country represents a very powerful micro-economy.  Enough money can be exchanged among the top 20% to sustain the U.S. economy and keep people content.  What do the Tee shirts say?  “Life is Good.”  While we live in our nice houses and drink our lattes, we pretend the remaining 80% are fine.  Enter the Tea Party.

            There are a lot of pissed off people in this country.  The income inequality, the massive individual debt and general manipulative nature of our representatives helped create a movement that could be a serious threat to the well being of all.  Granted, these folks have good reason to be upset.  However, enough of the Tea Party has proven itself to be gullible to demagogues such as Donald Trump who seethes vitriol for the sake of immediate personal gain.  Immediate is an important distinction here.   There have been numerous characters fueling the angst of our citizenry since 2008, but none have tapped into our worst like “The Donald.” He says what he wants, and individuals with no sense of perspective beyond a mythological interpretation of faith and the pain of current circumstances drink it up like cold PBR. 

            The Donald will not last.  He’ll get bored and realize that the White House will threaten his business opportunities.  However, once he goes back to bullying clients and star-crossed wannabes, a leadership void could result in the rise of a manipulative sociopath who follows Trumps formula for divisive popularity while building a political following that puts he or she in power.  Most of the current Republican candidates for President are struggling in the wake of the Trump phenomenon, and their response has been to mimic the anti-liberal, anti-immigrant and anti-establishment rhetoric so attractive to the “Trumpsters.”  All have maintained distrust for the government they have so willingly served over the years as a means to portray themselves as one of us.  As insincere and hypocritical as all of this seems to most, there is a substantial population that buys the rhetoric.  

            What makes the rise of a powerful and talented populist more problematic is that he or she may not even be on the national stage yet.  One of the consequences of the Tea Party movement and its predecessors of the previous two decades is that the federal government has become a target with less and less power.  Grass roots movements have taken over local and state governments while critics of the federal government have led interference.  Pundits and their followers lambast Federal overreach in education, health care and entitlements while they act to defund these entities at the statehouse.   Fewer resources provided for local citizenry while they are convinced it is Washington’s fault.   This is not a formula for a return to responsive government. 

            We have numerous serious challenges in this country that require thoughtful leadership and discriminating, collaborative, followership.  The history of humankind tells us that such reason has a difficult time overcoming outrage driven by ignorance.   The majority of the population goes about their business, accepting the ebb and flow of life, while a determined minority finds a way to convince others, inaccurately, that there doesn’t have to be an ebb.  The entire Trump affair would make for good comedy if there were not others dangerously stoking the anger Trump is manipulating.  Failure to overcome a movement that plays on emotion over reason could lead to massive national heartache.  Somehow 266 million people need to convince 66 million that ignorance is far from bliss.

Where is the Well?

            I have been reading the two books of Samuel the past few weeks through Forward Day by Day (prayer.forwardmovement.org).   David is a fascinating biblical character full of complex contradictions.  Perhaps that was the necessary leadership trait for greatness in ancient times.  I particularly enjoy reading about his strategic action to overtake Jerusalem. As I understand it, he discovered the way into Jerusalem through the Wadi, or well.  He took what we would probably call a commando unit up the well and overcame the force within the fortress.

            I caught myself thinking of this action metaphorically wondering who could find the well in Washington, D.C. to overcome the established, affluent, order.  Of course there are significant drawbacks to this contemporary scenario.  I’m not convinced, after reading the two Samuels, that biblical writers were sure whether David was a good guy.  God even warned the people of Israel of the drawbacks that come with a kingdom.  Yeah, David slayed a giant and he made Israel a significant player in regional politics, but he did many immoral things: think Bathsheeba.  I’m not sure a contemporary leader with David’s charisma would get the results we desire.

            In this day and age many of us want a modern day Messiah to take over and set the country straight.  We suffer from a mythology about imperial leadership that is not only undemocratic, but almost non-existent in a historical context.  The David model shows us that individuals are flawed.  The best of our history, although primed by strong leaders, was a collective effort.  One similarity to David's Jerusalem is that Washington does tend to act like a walled city.  In fact, so do many state capitols.  Influence peddlers gain access, circle up the wagons, and keep policy makers in the dark, or worse, well fed.

            Grand republican experiments have always had difficulty maintaining a democratic approach to governance because the populous often desires a benign omnipotent leader to keep them safe and prosperous.  Focusing the welfare of a country on one individual has typically ended badly.  Our republic is suffering because the public with varying political perspectives spends a great deal of time looking for one progenitor of the ideal.  The fact that such an ideal is non-existent is often forgotten due to tenuous societal circumstances.  More times than not, republics have fallen because people willingly buy the snake oil of a few.  Perhaps the most constant theme we glean from David is not his actions, but the uncertainty of Biblical reporters.  Is David a good guy? Does the over all prosperity of a Kingdom justify brutal action or indicate God’s will?  The conflict between Messianic saviors and cynical political behavior muddies the historical verdict.

            Our Constitutional legacy was started as an agreement among Men who owned property.  The result was a willingness to acknowledge differences while maintaining a status quo supported by historic governmental behavior.  Of course this, like the flawed Davidian line, led to problems and adjustments brought on by rampant hand ringing, corruption, violence and, in the best cases, respectful problem solving. Not perfect, but often promising.

            Every four years we look for a President who can bend everyone to a will formed by moral certainty of a non-existent majority.  The willfulness of government, communities and individuals keeps such power at bay (Thank Goodness).  Our only way to positive change for the greater society in a republic is to accept that the citizens must do the heavy lifting.  Finding the proverbial Wadi will not change this requirement.