A Gift to Teachers and Parents Everywhere

By dianeravitch

December 25, 2014 //

You must be the light that opens the eyes of children to the wonders of learning.

Categories Parents, Teachers

7 Comments Post your own or leave a trackback: Trackback URL

Yvonne Siu-Runyan says:

December 25, 2014 at 3:45 pm

Mahalo, Diane. Enjoy this day…and may there be PEACE, GRATITUDE, and LOVE. for we teachers and the young we teach, including their parents/guardians.

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chemtchr says:

December 25, 2014 at 5:54 pm

I just learned from my son that the program is called Autotune. It was designed to correct music recordings, but it can be programmed to modulate a human voice into a song.

We had just watched his SAG preview copy of The Theory of Everything, so he showed me this Carl Sagan/blue whale/Stephen Hawking mix.

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Susan Lee Schwartz says:

December 25, 2014 at 6:18 pm

Thank you ,Diane. I love this song, and I will use it on my blog when I begin it.
It inspired me to write this. I hope this will be read.

I feel that we need the arts to tell the truth which the media has neglected. We also need a MIchael Moore and a film, which tells the tale of the WAR on public education, that began and continues with the WAR ON TEACHERS. Till then there is only the voice of the teacher (the subject of The American Educator’s winter edition.

http://www.aft.org/our-news/periodicals/american-educator

In 2004, I put up this piece when I was blindsided by the PROCESS that ended the tenure of those teachers whose excellence was undeniable. Dirty tricks and the subversion of justice was needed… the contract needed to be voided, and it was accomplished when the union in NYC, the UFT looked the other way. (I have the evidence of this, which is also well known).
http://www.speakingasateacher.com/SPEAKING_AS_A_TEACHER/No_Constitutional_Rights-_A_hidden_scandal_of_National_Proportion.html

I hope everyone on this blog reads it, because (although I did not know it then) it became THE PROCESS — the way to end the careers of teachers like myself whose students excelled — kids who took away life-long learning, and scored at the top of any and all assessments based on AUTHENTIC evaluation. Now, stage 2 is in progress — false evaluations that make real teaching to take place.

I have never written the whole story about the long recovery from the trauma caused by the process, which I experienced at a time when I was at the top of a successful 4 decade career, celebrated and expecting my career to end when I decided it was time to retire. See my resume if you don’t know me:
http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html

The travesty and the tragedy is not just about the end of public education, it is an ASSAULT ON JUSTICE and the purposeful VICTIMIZATION OF OUR FINEST CITIZENS — the ones who CHOOSE TO TEACH, rather than to use their education and intelligence to make lots of $$$… which they could in any other profession.

The national conversation to Bamboozle the people began, and as the lyrics in the song explain, the children suffered, but so do we who love to teach.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/BAMBOOZLE-THEM-where-tea-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-110524-511.html

Your wonderful blog hosts the voice of teachers, and that inspirational song we who write here describe the injustice we routinely face, but so does this site, where hundreds tell of real abuse.
http://endteacherabuse.org

and this one:
http://nycrubberroomreporter.blogspot.com/2009/03/gotcha-squad-and-new-york-city-rubber.html

But the book that is a must read, in order to grasp what happens when failed people get to run the show is :”Bravery-Bullies & Blowhards” by Lorna Stremcha– written as a novel, but the real story of a Montana teacher whose principal set her up to be assaulted.
go to this address to learn more.

It is 14 years since I wrote about the lies they use to end our careers, and since then, I have seen the war on teachers empty the schools, and traumatize our nations heroes and heroines… our teachers! I love that song… but we need more that that, we need a film, and a viral video.

I have not seen a single film, interview or article that drives home the devastation reality to our citizens, something that spends weeks on the air, like the search for the plane, the Bill Cosby mess or any of the sensational stories that provide non-stop meat for the talking heads.

This scandal is one that needs its own ‘Ferguson’, an inciting incident, with which to propel the terrible injustice into the public consciousness.

WHAT DO I PLAN?
In the new year, I am putting up my new WordPress blog, CALLED “Speaking A Teacher.”
It was the name of my site, which I still host, where I put myself ‘out there. Anyone who wants to know me, who I was, should look at the old Speaking As A teacher site:
http://www.speakingasateacher.com/SPEAKING_AS_A_TEACHER/Welcome.html

Read there “No Rules and Regulations” which describes what I encountered before I saw that it was the result of a vast conspiracy.

In my new blog, I will not only tell my story and introduce the cast of administrators in NYC that proved to be as villainous as any Shakesperean characters, I will include a section called:
WITTT: What it takes to teach — the essential ingredients that REALLY AND TRULY enable and facilitate learning. In those posts, I will try to counter the Duncan narrative, and explain to the people — in THE TEACHER’S VOICE — the things that you and I — that all of us who are truly “teachers” know MUST BE PRESENT for those emergent minds to learn HOW TO LEARN, and more important HOW TO APPLY WHAT is LEARNED, — how to DO WORK!

It is no mystery to us.

The confusion was caused intentionally when the billionaires club discovered that they owned the media and the most effective propaganda machine in human history, television! THUS, THEY could control the conversation… because there were almost sixteen thousand districts in fifty states, and the right hand did no know what the left was doing!

It is THAT simple!

Moreover, the psychology of education is as COMPLEX as that of medicine or law, and the citizens need Help to grasp what works and does not. Ducnan, Rhee and Gates were the wrong ones to provide that help.

I intend to include in my blog, the stories and the VOIC of teachers other than myself, like May King who has a tale to tell and links to the sites of Lloyd and Bob, and Laura and all the genuine educators who should be the voices in the national conversation.
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/08/subverting-the-national-conversation-a.html

Finally, on Speaking As A Teacher, I will scan and post the weekly letters that I wrote to my students. Those DEAR BOYS & GIRLS’ letters were the tool that Harvard studied.
I will also post a selection of the kids’ weekly “Reader’s Letters” to me — letters from 13 year old NYC kids which stopped the Harvard researchers in their tracks when they were looking for the cohort, the teacher-based researcher for the National Standards.

The publishers at Stenmore wanted a book that featured these astonishing voices and the methods that I used to promote such honesty and erudition in children, as they talked about the lessons in life that they learned from the books they read.

All that disappeared when I was sent to the rubber room; my NYSEC award as EDUCATOR OF EXCELLENCE held no relevance when one superintendent decided to charge me with incompetence.

The song that you posted, which brought tears to my eyes on this Christmas day, Diane, reminded me of what these children discovered in me. Below, is a letter, from a former student, now a writer and editor that I hope is inspirational… because it, too, made me cry; it still does… to know that I am the teacher she talks about.

It came about when a young woman went to interview a home-school mother… who happened to be my daughter in law.

” Dear Mrs Schwartz,
This is almost unreal! I am so glad that I have this opportunity to share with you what an inspiration you have been.

“We (Catherine Diana and Leah) speak so often and so highly of you since we graduated East Side Middle, we jumped out of our seats when Catherine told us she had been in touch with your son’s wife. We have stayed good friends (see pictures attached) and look back to the days in your class and know that you had such an enormous impact on or lives till this day. You encouraged us to be creative, patient and yet free, a most valuable lesson. We joke sometimes that your class was better than our sophomore year college literature class, but actually it’ not funny at all- its true.

” I still have the assignments you gave us and cherish them, and still remember the books you had us read. I remember feeling so confident in your class, a feeling no other teacher made me feel at that confusing time in a teenagers life.

“You combined a perfect balance of discipline and a genuine love of teaching young people, a quality which so many teachers lack in the public school systems and therefore deeply saddens me to hear that you are no longer teaching there.”

“Little Bio: With YOUR encouragement I auditioned for the art program at LaGuardia high school and graduated from there in 2001. I then attended The School of Art and Design at SUNY Purchase and graduated with a BFA in 2006. Since then…. etc”

“There is so much more I would love to share but I must get back to work.” “I will be in touch soon!” “All the best,” JL

She was the first, but not the last of students who now find me on Facebook or Linked-in. All of them begin by saying; ‘ I can’t believe I just wrote “dear Mrs Schwartz, because I remember….

So do I!
So do I!
So do I remember all of you, and what it was like to be in your presence, responsible for introducing you to the human experience through writing and art.
It makes me want to sing!

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Allan R. Bonilla, Ed.D says:

December 25, 2014 at 6:35 pm

Thank you. What a beautiful video!

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Susan Lee Schwartz says:

December 25, 2014 at 10:03 pm

This song is a gift, Diane. I sent it to former teacher Dan Geery, who posted at Oped news, too, and wrote to me that he is dusting off his manuscript… inspire by the voice of that teacher.

For some time now, as I search for my own voice to introduce my own blog, I have been writing about the lost voice of the teacher — the one voice that matters when deciding what works –the missing voice.

Diane, several teachers to whom i sent the link to that sons, got out their own pens and keypads, and are writing.
I think something is going on, now that the kids have weighed in.
Parents hear their dismay and their refusal to waste their young lives.
Kids know when a teacher speaks in an authentic voice.

I know they silenced me and my voice is back, here on your blog and at OEN
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html
I know they never silenced Karen Horwitz, Lenny Isenberg, Rene Diedrich, Francesco Portellos . David Pakter, Walter Porr or Leonie Haimison.

I think that the voice of the teacher is going to be the voice in 2015.
Duncan has had his day.
It is time for the Teacher’s Voice to lead the national narrative.

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Susan Lee Schwartz says:

December 26, 2014 at 9:51 am

I sent Diane’s post of this song to teachers’ that I knew had experienced the ‘great silencing of their professional voice. Many had, lil eke, given up and stopped writing. Here is the response of one woman, Edith Miller, who I told to get out her pen and keyboard and write: “….love the song!…so true…..teaching is more than a living….for people like us…who carry the sacred trust in our hearts and souls… love you Susan…i am reading……and will write..YOU INSPIRE ME!…i am in the midst of trying to settle my affairs..which taking into consideration our current state of changing affairs…. is a frightening business for me…and am going to Az for a while to be with a friend who was a NY teacher………meanwhile….. reading…..and remembering the stories you told me and the specialness of your spirit.

I love that “the voice of the teacher will be the voice in 2015″…..my mother had a saying “from your mouth to G-d’s ears”.

Diane gave me the inspiration…I just passed it on.

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Jean Evans Davila says:

December 26, 2014 at 10:45 pm

Does anyone know where I can find this as a speech rather than the auto-tone song version? I love the sentiment and the images, but I find the synthesized singing a bit hokey to show in a pd session. The message is truly inspirational.

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