Kenneth Bernstein explains why he didn’t get the job:
“I was once interviewed for a teaching position where because I had done my own homework I knew that the principal wanted everyone on the same page at the same time.
I was being interviewed by the department chair and an assistant principal. Having signed an open contract for that district, the only question on the table was at what school I would teach. It was clear they wanted me, having mentioned that if I came I could probably also be the boys head soccer coach.
But the following exchanged ensued.
Me: I understand your principal wants everyone on the same page at the same time.
Assistant Principal: – Yes, she is a strong instructional leader.
Me: I don’t doubt that. But I know you called my current school for a reference and I know what they told you, that if it made instructional sense I could have my six different classes doing six different things. Why would you want to hire me and then take away from me what makes me an effective teacher?
The two of them looked at one another, and I knew I had made certain that they would not select me for that position.
It goes further than that. For much of my career I taught government and politics. It was important for me to be able to be responsive to news that was relevant to the course and to the students.
And most of all, if students in one class failed to fully grasp a content, why should I be moving on, merely to stay on the pacing guide? How is that helping their learning? If in another class it was clear they grasped the material in less than the expected time, why could I not enrich their learning by doing something else.
When I first worked with computers in the Marine Corps in the 1960s, our primary source of input was punch cards which were labeled “Don’t fold, spindle or mutilate.” When we insist upon teaching our children and the classes they attend exactly the same way, when we ignore the differences among them, we are folding, spindling and mutilating them and their opportunity to learn in a meaningful way.”
Kenneth J. Bernstein is a retired award-winning Social Studies teacher, who before he switched to teaching late in life spent several decades working in data processing.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It isn’t helping their learning because we are not teaching. We are presenting a curriculum and if you don’t get it…too bad. However, when they score poorly on an assessment, it is the teacher’s fault even though we did exactly what the adminstrators told us to do. When things go well, adminstration takes the credit. When things sour, it is the teacher who failed. When in doubt, always blame the teacher. It is working well for them so far.
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You are one of the sharpest commenters on this site.
Diane
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Indeed! And we are thrilled to have her formidablility here in CT!
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Thank you Diane. Your comment made my day. I am sure you can imagine I am not that popular at staff meetings or any venue where they pretend they want your opinion until they actually hear what you have to say.
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Don’t let the bast–ds get you down.
There is an elegant Latin phrase that says the same thing but I can’t remember it.
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I believe it is:illigitimus non carborundum / nolite te bastardes carborundorum
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Thank you.
We can check this with our Latin teachers: :illigitimus non carborundum / nolite te bastardes carborundorum
Alan Magister?
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“Illigitimis non carborundum” is the phrase, but it is sort of a Latin joke. Carborundum is an abrasive material whose name resembles the gerund form in Latin. I think the phrase became popular amongst the Brits during WWII. Literally “there must be no abrading by bastards.”
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This English teacher in Florida agrees:
“If you tell me exactly how to teach, then I am not responsible for the results, you are.”
http://realmrfitz.blogspot.com/2011/08/you-cant-have-standardization-and.html
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It is one of the more interesting phenomena of our postmodern age, that purports to value difference, that educators are being scripted to such sameness. The more we homogenize, the more likely educators and public education will fail…which hastens the desired goal, privatization of education. How interesting and ironic it is that virtually every powerfula nd successful private school I know of hires teachers with Ph. Ds and then sets then free to educate. The scripted, test-driven educator is the product of this nation’s deepest anti-intestuall tendencies. It fears nothing more that the intellectual’s influence upon children. It is Washington Irving made manifest: the anti-intellectual Brom Bones running out of town of the Icabod Crane. Only the wealthy can afford access to the private education of the future philospher king who has access to the educators freed from the constraints of a state hell bent on creating and keeping a cheap labor force.
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Your Washington Irving blog entry was brilliantly written.
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Thanks. Unlike the comment I made above! “anti-intestual”…!? I think I’m against that , too. Gotta start proofing before I send. Whatever…it’s just an education site.
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Woe be to the teacher who falls behind in the pacing guide! Some classes grasp material more quickly than others, and sometimes it happens that we need to slow down or (gasp!) teach the material in a different way. This is what good teaching is all about. I have had people who have never taught my grade tell me that second-graders should be able to finish certain units in x amount of time. I have invited them in to show stupid old me how to do this miraculous feat, but no one ever takes me up on it. @Linda: this fellow Nutmegger is in good company: my principal has called me a pain in the *ss for challenging administrative directives.
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That is a sure-fire way to get rid of them. Invite them in to model a differentiated lesson on responding to literature when you have reading levels that range from 4th grade to 10th grade. Ask them to model one 45 minute lesson and you will NEVER EVER see them again.
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Oh, to be someone’s pain in the ass. Alas, that usually requires powerful allies and/or tenure. The mantra of an LD teacher was differentiation before they came up with the term. Then they added scripted instruction, but still talked about meeting individual needs. The killer was the addition of data driven instruction. I have never figured out how to manage differentiated, scripted, data driven instruction.
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Well, there’s nothing like being told to have your students on the same page while also being required to attend an in-service on differentiated instruction… By the way… Has anybody ever attended a professional development on differentiated instruction where the instruction about differentiated instruction was not differentiated? I know I have…
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let me give you something similar to what you say about differentiated instruction
a pd workshop on multiple intelligences that was entirely an administrator talking at us – and btw he had learned what he knew about MI (which was not much) from his wife that morning
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The blindness of rheeformers to irony never ceases to astound.
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I totally relate to this article. As an international educator who moves every few years (in order to keep on top of my game and keep challenging myself)- I often view the job interview as my chance to ask vital questions about the management. My tact is not always well received. I like to flip the meeting so that by the end I am actually interviewing them! Nothing worse then being in a school whose vision for education (or values) conflict with yours. If the values don´t match and administration inflexible then leave that job for a conformist -your talents better used elsewhere!
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Yes, the interview is a two-way street. Alarm bells go off when they start boasting of their test scores.
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