Teachers and others have debated the post “Why Are Teachers Silent?” The post has generated more response than anything else I have posted, with (so far) 101 comments.
Clearly, many teachers feel keenly that they should speak up against the policies they know are wrong, the practices they know are harmful to children, but many are fearful. There is a climate of fear and intimidation that now pervades many schools and districts. There is a belief in the corporate reform world that top-down control and direction are necessary, and that those who disagree are troublemakers who must be silenced. And as I said in the original post, teachers need to put food on the table and pay their mortgage.
This teacher has wrestled with her sense of ethical and moral responsibility as a professional. She responded to another regular commenter on the blog, who goes by the sobriquet “Labor Lawyer”:
Labor Lawyer,
Thank you very much for making this clear. As a tenured teacher, I feel very strongly that I must speak out. Given the current atmosphere of administrative persecution of those who do so, I advise our bright, young, non-tenured teachers to take their counsel in private with those they trust. I do feel that my speaking out is an ethical and moral imperative …… at least for myself. My problem is that I feel just as strongly about my perceived duty as a teacher of children to first do no harm. This ususally means abstaining from implementing stupid reform policies pushed (very agressively) by my administration. When asked about my abstention by my colleagues, I tell them that it is, for me, a matter of conscious. I have often said publicly (and I believe) that I do NOT work for any administrator. Instead, I work for the people of my district as represented by the school board. To my way of thinking, it is my moral and ethical obligation to teach the children of my district to the very best of my ability. To fulfill this obligation, it is imperative that I ignore much of the foolishness that is modern school reform. I must ask you (and will very much appreciate you expertise in this area), are my words and my perspective on this issue little more than bellicose rhetoric? Legally, ethically, and morally, where do I stand in you evaluation?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Good for this teacher to risk his or her career over principle. It reminds me of Sir Thomas More and King Henry the VIII. How did that end? I would never do this in today’s climate. Even if you have tenure in a northern state, they have made it so that if you have two negative evaluations, you will lose your teaching certification and job. It would be foolish to take this risk today. It would change nothing, absolutely nothing, and you would be “culled.” This is the time for teachers, fortunate enough to still have job, to hunker down and try to make it through the purges. They can still do their best in their classroom, but they should not lose their jobs for insubordination. They may not survive with VAM, etc., but they certainly will not survive if they speak up. I don’t think it is responsible to tell teachers to sacrifice themselves and their careers. Even the unions are afraid to stand up. That is why they went along with pension-killing legislation all over the country, etc. If they had said no, then it would be like Wisconsin everywhere. Think twice before you commit career suicide. There is an army of know-nothing teachers ready to take your job, completely oblivious to what is happening.
Unfortunately, VAM will get everyone. That’s the way it is designed.
Correct! I was just trying to put a grain of “hope” in my pessimistic message. There is no hope for the career of teaching. VAM is designed to “churn” teachers, even the best ones. Only veteran teachers seem to get this. It is completely unfair and unethical, but that hasn’t stopped it so far.
wow @ Mike….
First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came%E2%80%A6 … and a bit about Martin Niemoller: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Niem%C3%B6ller …
As a parent,I don’t really know whether I would want my child ‘taught’ by someone who advocates hunkering down under the blankets, hoping the storm will pass… I’m not really sure that’s the kind of ‘civics’ I want modelled for my child, in a country which is supposed to value democracy…
My response to John at the original post:
John,
Legally, you would easily be toast. By not implementing what your administrators are telling you to do you can and will be considered “insubordinate”. And that is one of the causes listed in most contracts as reason for dismissal.
Yes it appears ethically and morally right (and I am combining the two for reasons of brevity of response but will come back to it later*). Is what your doing “right” (moral) by your definition of duty “of do no harm” (ethics)? If so then yes you would be ethical and moral. But that and a nickel won’t get you a cup of legal coffee, if you get my drift.
A good book to read is Andre Comte-Sponville’s “A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues”, especially the chapter on “Justice”. This book should be required reading for all prospective and current educators. It is not religiously oriented but philosophical and includes many quotes from the various religious historical figures.
Another good reading is John Rawl’s “A Theory of Justice”-I’ve been rereading a collected works of his that clarifies more his thoughts on his Theory of Justice.
*A quick primer on the difference between ethics and morality from Elijah Weber on his site everyday-ethics.org (http://everyday-ethics.org/2008/11/ethics-vs-morals-not-as-easy-as-it-seems/):
According to Dictionary.com, ethics is a system of moral principles, while morals are principles of right and wrong conduct. This seems simple enough. Ethics is a framework, a systemic and reasoned basis for making statements about morality. Morals are simply what we believe to be right and wrong. There appears to be a clear distinction here that ethics are more sophisticated than morals. Morally, one can support almost anything, while ethically we require reason and justification for what we believe. When a doctor violates a certain behavioral standard, this is an ethics violation rather than a moral one. This individual has violated a reason based, systemic code of conduct that is held in mutually high esteem by all physicians. If we were to call this individual’s actions unethical, we are making a statement about his or her conduct relative to the standards of his profession. If we were to call such actions immoral, we are simply saying that we consider this behavior to be wrong.
In subordination will get you gone before the end of the day. Too, too bad. That’s where they get a teacher every time. Even the unions will tell teachers that.
Insubordination is also in the eye of the beholder. Refusing to do something because you want to discuss it with the administration first because you believe it will hurt the students or compromise your integrity as a teacher is still insubordination. Kathy1 is totally correct, even the union or professional organization’s legal rep will tell you that refusing to follow policy or a direction from the principal will get you fired before the buses leave.
America is also a country that claims to value teachers. It seems that the real problem is not why are teachers silent but why are they so afraid?
Teachers have been “hunkered” down for years and loss aversion a daily task. Instead of asking why teachers don’t commit career suicide why not ask why teachers have to risk their license and employment as if it is their civic duty to do so? I would rather the question be, “What will happen to our public education system, flawed that it may be, if it loses its purpose of the public good and the purpose becomes making money for a company.
If you believe the lines quoted above then speaking out for teachers is everyone’s civic duty.
I’m trying, I’m trying.
For six years, I taught in what was labeled the worst high school in one of the worst districts in Connecticut. At the end of my 6th year (after tenure & glowing evaluations from my district coordinator, an outside agency evaluating teaching at the school, & from assistant principals who actually spoke the language I teach, I received a summative evaluation from a new assistant principal who had never seen me teach. She referred to my poor attendance because I was slammed into a locker in front of her (and filed a report with security & the SRO) and had to leave 30 minutes early twice a week (during a 100 minute free block) to go to the chiropractor paid for by Workmen’s Comp. She ignored the fact that I came to work two hours early each day for 6 years and that I voluntarily worked the entire month of August to make sure the room looked nice for the first day. She somehow forgot all of the evenings and Saturdays I volunteered my time for school events she wad too busy to attend and the many clubs I ran after school (90 minutes each day for 5 years and 90 minutes three days a week during that year). She ignored the fact that I had not called out sick in 5 years or that I had only used all of my personal days one year because my mother was in a hospital halfway across the country and had an extremely rare autoimmune disorder. She chose to ignore that and referred to my not standing outside a classroom door during a four minute passing time because I traveled to 5 classrooms on 3 different floors at opposite ends of the building (and taught advisory in a sixth room) and I thought it rude yo ignore my students’ questions just so I could try to run through crowded hallways and run up and down stairs (while carrying two large tote bags with my materials since the privileged teachers with classrooms wouldn’t give me a drawer for my materials and often would fill up their boards and write SAVE so I could not even write on the board) so I could somehow stand outside my door for a length of time she deemed acceptable. I was called insubordinate because, when they changed teachers’ and students’ schedules at the end of February (which is when they took the classroom I had been using for two years–I traveled for my first three years but considered it paying my dues-was given to a new teacher who couldn’t control her classes & who left 100 minutes early every other day because she saw non-instructional time as time to go home), they forgot to assign one of my classes a room &, when I pointed this out, this same assistant principal told me that it was my job to walk around the building and find my students because it was my fault for not insisting the person in charge of scheduling correct the mistake (I had emails documenting my requests to that person to make the correction). In the end, I was fortunate enough to have saved everything I had ever requested in email and I was able to leave HR (and my union) with a 5 inch stack of emails documenting her lies before I quit. I was also very lucky to have students who waited until they graduated to complain to the now ex-Superintendent (they wanted to complain earlier but I asked them to wait because I could not take the chance that the AP would do something to hurt the kids’ chances of graduation). I was also lucky enough to go to another district where teachers’ rights and opinions are valued. However, this assistant principal is now interim principal at my former school. Even in CT, administrators in urban districts can write anything they want because no one ever checks on what they are doing or the accuracy of what they write about teachers. I used to naively believe that if I taught great lessons every day, engaged my students in learning and speaking the language, put in at least two extra hours at work every morning and at least two extra hours working with the kids after school, got along with my colleagues, and volunteered for every event in the school community, that everyone would see how much I loved my job and how hard I tried every day to be a better teacher and a better person. I used to believe administrators would never write lies or write anything bad about me. I was wrong.
I wonder what the percentage of public school teachers that have been bullied, falsely accused, inappropriately evaluated, not being “backed” by scared administrators, and/or have been “written up” for trivial matters is? 50%, 60%, higher?, lower?
Any guesses???
Higher than 60% overall, closer to 90% or more in urban schools. Perhaps I am too disillusioned and assume the worst.
Please excuse my typos. I was having a hard time typing because just thinking about the whole situation makes my eyes tear up. It was so unfair and they never replaced me so my students ended up suffering because they had to switch to learning Spanish.
Duane, it depends on the school. At my former school, it also depended on the administrator-some did their jobs properly and others didn’t. Someday, I am going to write a book about how teachers were treated there but it will have to be marketed as fiction because people will not believe how that district and that school treat teachers.