Many readers have noted that their colleagues go along with policies they know are wrong. They comply because compliance is easier than resistance. They comply because they fear losing their job or being seen as a troublemaker.
This is sad but understandable. People need to feel secure, they need to feed their family and pay the mortgage. Few people want to step outside their comfort zone or risk opprobrium and punishment from their supervisor.
Go along and get along is a lot pleasanter than being abrasive. But dream for a minute. What would happen if every teacher in a district refused to give tests that don’t show what their students know and can do? What would happen if teachers said no to policies that hurt children? And to policies that are unprofessional?
Sort of reminds you why teacher unions were created almost a century ago.
Just thinking.
I wish you would look around you – you at least have some semblance of due process to fall back on right now – open fighting back wont be instant dismissal and you (and your unions) could do all sorts of things to hold up the process…
no one else in this country really has that luxury…
And with ed deform, you’re going to lose your jobs sooner or later anyway…
There is life after standing up for yourselves and your students….
You mean those kangaroo hearings that districts rig for their benefit? You have NO real “due process”–it is regularly violated by school districts. People on the outside actually have more rights than teachers, at least in larger companies, because they are worried about lawsuits. School districts couldn’t care less about being sued; in fact, they welcome it because the legal system is completely in school districts’ pockets. Until you have been through these sham hearings, don’t comment.
Principals have all kinds of ways to get back at teachers they don’t want. So do administrators. Teachers are terrified because of what a principal can do to their careers. NO OTHER SUPERVISORS in the economy have this kind of power without any accountability for their actions.
” … compliance is easier than resistance …” That’s just not me. Even as a rookie teacher, I was inclined to voice my opposition to stupid policies and administrative malfeasance. Earned the anger of my principal, whose clumsy efforts to punish me through my evaluation blew up in his face, but I wasn’t detoured.
Silence, in the face of mismanagement and stupidity, is a recipe for ruin. Give me the contentious but open exchange of views and operation by consensus. It can be a slow model for change, but it’s more likely to avoid the stupidity of VAM or using student test scores to evaluate teacher/principals/college training programs.
I guess my feelings are best summed up in my version of an online expletive. “Merciful Molly McGuire!” If you know anything about the Molly McGuires, you get my point. And this coming from a life long Republican and union activist.
I have a question. Why doesn’t a group of teachers get together and use the idea of a charter against the charters? Set up your own school that teaches in the ways we all know work best and show that it can be done once people are free of silly, burdensome testing and state requirements and then say, these were the methods we were using before NCLB/RTTT and they work as long as we are allowed to use them
because charters need approval from the system in which they’re located.
I guess, like Linda1, I’ll need to become Kathy1. This is the first time I have seen another Kathy make a post. I’ve been around for over a month. Please take no offense, Kathy.
Diane, this post has really triggered the comments. I think that should show all of us how important it is to have an avenue to share our successes, frustrations and ask questions. A common thread that was said in most of the above comments as to why teachers are silent is “fear”. I think it’s a combination of that and plain old apathy and the hopelessness that teachers feel that their ideas are never heard even if they voice them.
I spoke for a few minutes today to a group of new, some first year, teachers. One comment I made to them was “I hope and will assume you are all aware of what went on in the legislature this session. Although I didn’t expect them to give answers, I asked them, “you are, aren’t you?” I had returned many a blank stare. Then I encouraged them to become a member of a union and come by and see us at our table. Not a one should have left that meeting without joining. But, guess what? Many did. Some joined. We’ll talk to those later that didn’t. Gosh, I worry about those that didn’t. I’m terribly concerned about all the educators who teach in this state and elsewhere that have had many of their rights stripped from them because of what the deformers and politicians have been able to achieve in their anti-public education agendas. No teacher can survive these attacks alone.
Keep talking, keep sharing, keep informing, keep asking questions.
http://www.fno.org/apr02/leaderreview.html
I was not silent in San Diego in 1997-2005. My career was ruined, my family blames me for my lost career, and I was forced out of teaching last year, after trying to work in New Mexico and moving to try a start my life over again. I am very poor, alone and facing a cold winter and a mortgage held by BofA. Please remember me in your prayers.
Grace,
Hope things start looking up sooner versus later. My question to you is what are you thoughts on the link you provided? Why did you choose that link?
Thanks,
Duane
Thank you for asking, Duane. The link is a review of a Harvard publication touting the leadership of a powerful politician and lawyer who became superintendent in San Diego.
I published (Grace Stell) as was cited by the author of the review. I criticized the reform for its vapidity, and I knew because I had volunteered to be one of the first ‘peer coaches’ for that reform.
I was not silent, 12 years ago now. It has been a very tough time and having another teacher even show interest (finding this blog) are making things better.
Thanks for your kind words and best wishes.
The climate of fear and distrust can undermine a teacher’s self confidence – can make a person begin to doubt his/her own competence and perceptions about what students need to succeed. With the teachers around us trying to keep their jobs and staying silent in the face of harmful policies, we lose our sense of trust in ourselves and our process of learning and working together to bring our students along. The undermining of the professionalism of teachers, the quieting of teachers’ voices is a fact of life today. For whatever reason the public is continuing to scapegoat us perhaps because they do not want to look at the realities of poverty and the price tag of really saving our country’s children. We have to talk to one another. We have to reach out and share our observations, perspectives with one another. We have to listen to and protect the teacher in ourselves and each other by having conversations outside of school. We need to be able to speak the truth -express ourselves about our work with children, about our perspectives on education and what is really happening in our communities and in our schools. We do need leaders and we do need solidarity, but until we make an effort to support the struggling teacher in each of us we will have no strength to fight with -no one but robots left in the profession. ( I have started getting this blog in my email because I know it is one way for me to get that injection of support from committed teachers everyday -words I need to hear to keep me from losing my teacher-self in this destructive environment I have to work in.)
Caroline- Your thoughtful insight is most likely true for a great many of our teachers- sort of like “battered spouse syndrome” wouldn’t you say? I agree-we MUST continue to support each other.
Caroline said: “in this destructive environment I HAVE TO work in”….
look, I get it, I do – the overwhelm, the fear, the battered spouse syndrome – been there, done that…
the point is YOU DO NOT HAVE TO WORK IN A DESTRUCTIVE ENVIRONMENT…. you have the power to change that… individual personal power, professional power, group/union power… if you THINK you have no power, you don’t… If you THINK you do have power, you do…
What do you tell your students when they are facing huge obstacles? Do you tell them they are powerless to take the first step, to make change happen? Do you tell them to accept injustice, to roll over, to give up?
Or do you encourage, urge, support them in getting up, stepping up and breaking free of whatever is holding them back?
Isn’t it time you did that first for yourselves, and second for your students? Don’t you owe yourselves that, at least, if you are claiming the vocation of TEACHER?
“if you THINK you have no power, you don’t… If you THINK you do have power, you do” Quote of the day, Sahila!
Does that mean I will have a million dollars if I simply think that I do?
Ohhh, what to buy…what to buy… My mind is racing with ideas already!
If that is the kind of power you want. Go for it and keep thinking of how you will spend it!
I also think that I’m President of the United States. I’m going to push for a bill that states that people can think anything they want and it will come true. Maybe I’m really the emperor…oooh, I like that much better.
Of course everyone should read Brian Griffin’s book: “Wish It. Want It. Do It.”
http://www.whosay.com/BillMaher/videos/5963;jsessionid=DE41220EB9205BB839A1E4FA9269CA7E
Don’t know if this image will open here… but it’s a quote from Roseanne Barr and it says: “The thing women have yet to learn is nobody GIVES you power; you just TAKE it”…
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=420928934616175&set=a.398425716866497.80986.184599864915751&type=1&relevant_count=1&ref=nf
love her or hate her, she’s done some amazing things in her life, not the least being her latest foray into politics, where she had been chasing the GREEN Party presidential nomination and she knows a thing or two about making things happen…
Teachers, women (sorry guys)…. TAKE your power and use it; GRACE HOPPER said if its a good idea, go ahead and do it – its much easier to ask for forgiveness after, than to get permission before…
And I’m a believer in the maxim – rules are for fools and guidelines are for the wise; apparently the DALAI LAMA agrees… he says: “Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.”
We all know the rules – too well, if you ask me, and most of them are designed to keep us in our “place”, not rock the boat…. TIME TO BREAK THEM…
I wrote about how teachers have failed to teach the importance of this profession. What irony!
http://usedbooksinclass.com/2012/05/06/the-irony-of-not-teaching-the-importance-of-teaching/
I am very heartened by the responses posted on here. Everyone is so passionate and supportive that I think maybe we do have a chance to change things…
It is important to enlist parents in the fight. Easier said than done, I know, but we are toast if parents blithely accept the “value” being imparted on their kids.
As a group, we teachers have contributed to our relatively weak position by leaving parents out or worse. School policy should be driven by students, parents and teachers. Were we a collective, people who aren’t paying particular attention now would see who is actually deciding what schools should be and what their interests are.
@Guy…. there are many parents who have been fighting this agenda publicly for a long time already; many of us are frustrated by teachers’ apparent unwillingness to challenge it…. and that hampers our efforts to educate other parents, many of whom trust teachers to be the experts, to know what is going on (so if teachers arent protesting, things must be OK, right?) and to protect the interests of their students – that whole “First, do no harm” thing everyone assumes is a teacher’s first guiding principle…
Some parents HAVE drunk the kool-aid/believe the propaganda that it is the fault of “all of those lazy teachers, only interested in their benefits and pensions”… and that is also a problem teachers – via a PR campaign financed by your unions maybe – need to tackle…
Logistically. it ought to be much easier to educate, motivate and mobilise 3M+ teachers than it is to do the same with hundreds of millions of parents…
MOST parents still respect and admire teachers – IF you lead, THEN they will follow…
IF some teachers lead, THEN I’m betting the rest of your colleagues will follow – it just takes a handful of people to light the spark… and this is a bonfire about ready to burn…
(Professor) Mark Naison of Fordham University wrote a status update this morning about his lifelong attempts to influence change at the macro level…
Someone wrote this about pushback against ed deform:
“I want to see this as a protest for public schools with 100% participation… to stop traffic… where ever you are – just go out into the street and stop the traffic, hopefully the beltways etc. walk slowly out into the street and stand there – all parents and students and any citizen who cares – which actually is the biggest population in the world…”
I like this idea… wonder if this could be done as a flash mob in numerous locations, all at the same time – literally bringing traffic to a halt all over the country?
There is lots that CAN be done, without or without the support of your unions, with or without the participation of parents (and likewise for parents – with or without the participation of teachers)…. for some ideas, go here:
https://www.facebook.com/notes/sahila-changebringer/taking-the-narrative-de-railing-the-ed-reform-train-quick-and-dirty-notes/446352285391698
@Sahila Your response blames teachers. We could waste lots of time arguing about the the relative leverage of teachers v. parents in fighting the present school reforms. I would rather we simply avoid blaming either parents or teachers as a class, and together focus on those implementing the reforms.
you’re the one who said “its important to enlist parents in the fight” implying there weren’t any of us in the fight…
I’m just putting that idea to rest… and highlighting parent frustration with teachers’ apparent reluctance to face up to and fight back against ed deform…
teachers seem to think this is just another fad and “this too, shall pass”
or they think they pay are paying their union dues and the union should/will take care of it for them – well, we all know how that’s working out…
do you have any idea how discouraging it is, to be ready, willing, able, to support teachers in this, to be doing everything a parent can do at school, district, regional and national levels to push back, and then to have teachers say: “sorry, can’t come to that rally against the new contract which ties our evaluations to test scores and allows TFA into our district because the time and date clashes with my monthly book club meeting”…
or to have only 25% teacher vote turnout, in union elections, which allowed the return to office of ‘leaders’ who “go-along to get-along” with ed deform…
both of these incidents actually happened here in Seattle….
As you must know, this mindset is really quite prevalent around the country…
So true. At last years rally to save public education in Wash. D.C. there was a pitiful turnout of about 5000. Unless teachers are willing to step up to the plate their environment will be determined by the education “reformers”.
@Guy: Well said. Too many people are too busy pointing fingers of blame. Teachers get so much vitriol spewed at them because we’ve become the scapegoats, the easy targets.
It would be nice, now and then, to get a pat on the back for when we do things right.
http://teachertormented.blogspot.com/2012/08/whats-good-for-goose.html
Yes, and the generalized corruption of unions in our lifetime, along with the selling out of universities and liberals, is changing our culture. (See Chris Hedges’ The Death of the Liberal Class for some convincing detail.)
Where I teach there is a pathetic and powerless teachers’ association that may be emerging from several years of doing nothing for its members, but something for its “leaders.”
We need real unions. And you know what else? NATIONAL action. When the Wisconsin teachers fought back, all teachers in this country should have been fighting back with them.
Yikes. justateacher, be careful of making generalizations about unions by using your local association as an example.
It’s terrible that your local association is so weak. But let me offer you this:
Where are your field reps? Where is your state union? How can such a fledgling association continue without its members seeking help on the higher levels?
It is the members’ responsibility to get the representation they deserve. Just sitting there complaining does nothing. YOU are the union–and as such, you can do something to improve it.
I do caution you about getting on the bandwagon of criticism. Perhaps you should exhaust all of your options (and you have many) before making blanket generalization.
If you’d like to talk more about this, I would be glad to help. I personally will do everything I can to help others who are suffering the injustice of under-representation. You deserve better.
Many Illinois teachers did go to Wisconsin to support teachers. Now Illinois has SB7, which is Walker-lite thanks to the union going along with “Stand for Children.” This just shows how deep the rabbit hole goes. It really didn’t matter how many protest or write letters…waste of time…Throw a little money around, manipulate the masses, and you suddenly have brand new rules for all teachers…Amazing! It takes your breath away..I actually think that the teachers in Wisconsin did a great job. They got 40% of the people with them, and this is because Wisconsin is pretty brilliant when you compare it to other states, especially in the South. This is the fundamental problem with Democracy. Sometimes it is tyranny of the dumb masses over those who are actually intelligent. Look at an I.Q. distribution chart. Most are stupid, very stupid. Democracy works in Scandinavian countries because the populations are much smarter, and better educated (homogenous)etc.. It doesn’t work here with all our yahoos. Think of the typical Wisconsonite you meet in the rural areas…They are dumb as dirt and probably never read a book in their life. These are people who should vote??. They are easy to manipulate with propaganda, and here we are! With a dumbed-down populace, all you need is money…The unions are running scared. They should go down fighting instead of giving in on these insane issues.
“Think of the typical Wisconsonite you meet in the rural areas…They are dumb as dirt and probably never read a book in their life. These are people who should vote??. They are easy to manipulate with propaganda, and here we are! ”
I’m actually speechless.