This poem was suggested to me by a friend who does professional development for the Common Core in New York City.
This past week, by coincidence, Jason Griffiths, the founder of the Brooklyn Latin School quit his job and went to work for a controversial charter school, because he was tired of being compelled to go to professional development for Common Core when his school already was the top ranked school in the state and used the International Baccalaureate program. He was tired of dealing with Bloomberg’s bureaucratic Department of Education.
“Over time I wasn’t able to lead the school in the way I wanted,” said Griffiths, noting that he was often stuck in full-day meetings with the Department of Education over the city’s new Common Core standards, which he said Brooklyn Latin’s curriculum already met and exceeded. “We’re working 12-hour and 16-hour days, and if you’re taking a full day out of a week [for a meeting] that’s a lot of time…It had a detrimental effect on me personally, on my ability to connect with teachers and with students.”
My friend, the professional development expert, suggested this poem as a metaphor for the work she does:
Jabberwocky
By Lewis Carroll
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought —
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
“And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’
He chortled in his joy.
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
That’s exactly how i experience it as a teacher being professionally developed.
I do Social Studies and History PD across the country and can tell you at least in my field, good instruction meets and exceeds anything the Common Core prescribes. I can totally understand his feelings and how we’ve been beaten over the head by something that is a strange dichotomy of good practice and hair-brained scheme.
My boys read this poem in seventh grade. I knew it sounded familiar… They had to write their own poem based on jibberish words. This poem was used in Alice in Wonderland. The failing public schools…oh wait, not! I learn new things from them constantly.
Diane, what in the article that you linked to, says the charter that this man is leaving to direct, is “controversial”? Or did you use the word because you don’t like charters?
Twas pineapple, and the slithy hares
Did gyre and gimble for their fee
All mimsy were their testing wares
Or we’re not Arne & Rhee!
[google “pineapple, hare, Pearson, Daniel Pinkwater”]
Profuse apologies to all, especially Lewis Carroll. Perhaps I temporarily came under the influence of an errant Rheeality Distortion Field and have taken leave of my senses…
“Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.” [Shakespeare]
🙂
There are several wonderful choral settings of this poem–I can hear one in my mind right now sung by a high school choir in Lawrence, Kansas where I worked a few years back. This poem has crossed my mind too in relation to edu-crisis.
I have thought about how charters, being exempt from the mania, will become more appealing as Common Core training continues. Is that part of the master plan?
I believe this is exactly part of the master plan!
First, you cut education dollars, to the point that it is grossly underfunded. You bring in charter schools that thin those education dollars. You start high stakes testing, that uses these tests to blame and fire teachers. Blame and close schools. Move charters (or private industry in). This charter school is funded by Bill Gates. But, now the charter gives the teachers the power to speak and be involved in the education of the children. (Novel idea? No common sense.) But, what if those in the government are pushing for these tactics because they are promoting privatization by lining the politicians with money in their pockets? It is all about the money, not about providing quality education. And that is what makes this controversial. At what point does this bubble burst and the American people are left with the latest real estate scheme? Ask yourself this…why are the rich, hedge fund managers interested in public education? Why does Michael Bloomberg care about education in Idaho? He sent funds to Idaho politicians pushing this privatization. Once you follow the money…it all makes sense. New tactic for charters? Praise teachers? This should be done without millionaire/billionaire involvement.
Unfortunately I will be spending too much time at CC inservices, no doubt in uffish thought…
My friend, the math department head at our school, spent at least 6 days in Common Core PD this year, DURING THE SCHOOL DAY, meaning that her students had substitutes for all of those days, WITH the CC now the curriculum. My personal favorite was that she had to go to PD during the last week of school. Who does that?
It’s a “controversial” charter school because Gates money helped start it, and, perhaps, because of its teacher centered culture, it is a charter school (non – union?) that actually works. If one charter can work, and in Harlem, others could too, and that would kind of shoot down Diane’s whole premise that charters can NEVER do a better job for black kids than public schools (properly funded). Like the word “problematic,” for public school teachers the word “controversial” means ‘I don’t like this one dang bit because it contradicts my assumptions and may show up how empty my ideology is.’ I am sure there are many fine public school teachers, but the public schools seem not to be where the action and innovation is going on.
Maybe privatization is truly the wave of the future! If you can’t beat them, might as well join them. I repeat. Education need not be a government function for democracy to be taught and retained in the nation. In fact, enrolling in a charter is democracy in action, the democracy of personal choice. Voting with your feet, so to speak. What can be wrong with that? The democracy of the market place. Oooooo. I said a bad word. The public schools don’t want a market place. They want a monopoly. Diane can try to shut the barn door, but the horse of choice has already escaped. You’ll never get it back. Why? Because people prefer freedom of choice over the required soup of the day. A cafeteria line over a pot of porridge. It’s just human nature. Deal with it. The public schools are the last stand of the old left. And high time too that we saw the last of tyranny in America.
HU,
I have no problem with choice. As long as those who are presenting the choice stand on their own two feet of fiscal viability and not sucking off the teat of the government, i.e., vouchers, state payments, etc. . . .
You may not like it but the each state, through its constitution is mandated to provide public/community education for all up to the age of 21. It is a state function. Now if a private concerns seeks to compete with the state, see religious schools such as the Catholic system in which I grew up, that is fine but they must then compete in the vaunted free market, which by the way, means no government monies.
Duane
CCSS: Paraphrasing comedian Lewis Black: “I took LSD when I was younger to prepare myself for eating CCSS-Common Corporate Shit Sandwiches. Just put em in the microwave and puuufffff instant educational reform food for non-thought!”
I am a bit confused by the underlying message of Diane’s initial post. On the one hand, in many of her posts, she argues that charters are funneling away valuable and multiple resources away from traditional public schools (human capital is also a valuable resource). On the other hand, she posts that Griffiths felt compelled to leave his public school for a charter so that he could have control and autonomy over decision making and other variables (I am certain that the increase in pay had NOTHING to do with his decision. And since Diane posted the link to this information, I consider it part of her argument). When I read the link, I kept thinking that his choosing to leave for a charter confirms their existence and affirms their rhetorical positions. Did Griffiths have other alternatives? Certainly he did, but he chose the one that Diane typically argues against; yet, she doesn’t expound on any of that in her post. Very confusing.
I have found that arguments made by people commenting in one thread are often forgotten in other threads. The most obvious example is the uniqueness of each child in threads about the a common Core and the requirement that all students from the same geographic area attend the same school in threads about school choice.
“human capital is also a valuable resource” is one of the most vilest thoughts of mankind.
Vile, from a Catholic point of view (which you still retain), but nevertheless true. Why was Queequeg signed on? Good harpooneer. It’s not ALL of a person, but his productive knowledge, is something of him.
HU,
Not quite sure I get what you’re saying. Are you asserting that the statement “human capital is also a valuable resource” is a true statement?
And I don’t get what you mean at all in ” It’s not ALL of a person, but his productive knowledge, is something of him.” Please explicate further.
Thanks!