New York State cannot afford to lose teachers like Mr. Conti. Let us hope that the tide will turn before we lose more.
Help his letter go viral. Post it on Facebook. Tweet it. Send it to your superintendent. Send it to the Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, and your local newspapers. Send it to your legislators.
Tell them to support our experienced educators. Tell them that teachers should be respected as professionals Tell them to support public education.
Mr. Casey Barduhn
Superintendent
Westhill Central School District 400
Walberta Park Road
Syracuse, New York 13219
Dear Mr. Barduhn and Board of Education Members:
It is with the deepest regret that I must retire at the close of this school year, ending my more than twenty-seven years of service at Westhill on June 30, under the provisions of the 2012-15 contract. I assume that I will be eligible for any local or state incentives that may be offered prior to my date of actual retirement and I trust that I may return to the high school at some point as a substitute teacher.
As with Lincoln and Springfield, I have grown from a young to an old man here; my brother died while we were both employed here; my daughter was educated here, and I have been touched by and hope that I have touched hundreds of lives in my time here.
I know that I have been fortunate to work with a small core of some of the finest students and educators on the planet. I came to teaching forty years ago this month and have been lucky enough to work at a small liberal arts college, a major university and this superior secondary school. To me, history has been so very much more than a mere job, it has truly been my life, always driving my travel, guiding all of my reading andeven dictating my television and movie viewing. Rarely have I engaged in any of these activities without an eye to my classroom and what I might employ in a lesson, a lecture or a presentation.
With regard to my profession, I have truly attempted to live John Dewey’s famous quotation (now likely cliché with me,I’ve used it so very often) that “Education is not preparation for life, education is life itself.” This type of total immersion is what I have always referred to as teaching “heavy,” working hard, spending time, researching, attending to details and never feeling satisfied that I knew enough on any topic. I now find that this approach to my profession is not only devalued, but denigrated and perhaps, in some quarters despised.
STEM rules the day and “data driven” education seeks only conformity, standardization,
testing and a zombie-like adherence to the shallow and generic Common Core, along with a lockstep of oversimplified so-called Essential Learnings. Creativity, academic freedom, teacher autonomy, experimentation and innovation are being stifled in a misguided effort to fix what is not broken in our system of public education and particularly not at Westhill.
A long train of failures has brought us to this unfortunate pass. In their pursuit of Federal tax dollars, our legislators have failed us by selling children out to private industries such as Pearson Education. The New York State United Teachers union has let down its membership by failing to mount a much more effective and vigorous campaign against this same costly and dangerous debacle. Finally, it is with sad reluctance that I say our own administration has been both uncommunicative and unresponsive to the concerns and needs of our staff and students by establishing testing and evaluation systems that are Byzantine at best and at worst, draconian.
This situation has been exacerbated by other actions of the administration, in either refusing to call open forum meetings to discuss these pressing issues, or by so constraining the time limits of such meetings that little more than a conveying of information could take place. This lack of leadership at every level has only served to produce confusion, a loss of confidence and a dramatic and rapid decaying of morale. The repercussions of these ill-conceived policies will be telling and shall resound to the detriment of education for years to come.
The analogy that this process is like building the airplane while we are flying would strike terror in the heart of anyone should it be applied to an actual airplane flight, a medical procedure, or even a home repair. Why should it be acceptable in our careers and in the education of our children?
My profession is being demeaned by a pervasive atmosphere of distrust, dictating that teachers cannot be permitted to develop and administer their own quizzes and tests (now titled as generic
“assessments”) or grade their own students’ examinations. The development of plans, choice of lessons and the materials to be employed are increasingly expected to be common to all teachers in a given subject.
This approach not only strangles creativity, it smothers the development of critical thinking in our students and assumes a one-size-fits-all mentality more appropriate to the assembly line than to the
classroom. Teacher planning time has also now been so greatly eroded by a constant need to “prove up”our worth to the tyranny of APPR (through the submission of plans, materials and “artifacts” from our teaching) that there is little time for us to carefully critique student work, engage in informal intellectual discussions with our students and colleagues, or conduct research and seek personal improvement through independent study.
We have become increasingly evaluation and not knowledge driven. Process has become our most important product, to twist a phrase from corporate America, which seems doubly appropriate to this case. After writing all of this I realize that I am not leaving my profession, in truth, it has left me. It no longer exists. I feel as though I have played some game halfway through its fourth quarter, a timeout has been called, my teammates’ hands have all been tied, the goal posts moved, all previously scored points and honors expunged and all of the rules altered.
For the last decade or so, I have had two signs hanging above the blackboard at the front of my classroom, they read, “Words Matter” and “Ideas Matter”. While I still believe these simple statements to be true, I don’t feel that those currently driving public education have any inkling of what they mean.
Sincerely and with regret,
Gerald J. Conti
Social Studies Department Leader
This quote describes my principal’s approach to meetings: “This situation has been exacerbated by other actions of the administration, in either refusing to call open forum meetings to discuss these pressing issues, or by so constraining the time limits of such meetings that little more than a conveying of information could take place. This lack of leadership at every level has only served to produce confusion, a loss of confidence and a dramatic and rapid decaying of morale. The repercussions of these ill-conceived policies will be telling and shall resound to the detriment of education for years to come.”
Well, Gerald didn’t so much “quit” as he honorably retired after a long and rewarding career. I wish him well.
He used the occasion to make a valid comment on the current state of education. However, the option of retirement isn’t open to many teachers. Students are also still in our classrooms, much too young for a retirement bonus, so the daily struggle inside our buildings will continue.
Since I reached an age where retirement is an option, I find my concerns focus more easily on my students, and less on the daily, petty harassment driven by the career ambition of my administrators. My sense of safety from any retaliation also makes me more sympathetic to the existential dilemma of the administrators, and I see myself as being able to support them in choosing courageous responses to the demands they face themselves.
I’m suggesting that my older, dedicated colleagues all open our doors and teach, with all our hearts and minds, for as long as we are able. Let’s greet every i-Walk as an opportunity to share the the rewards of serving the students in front of us to our highest capacity.
I’m going to go do that, right this instant.
Your choice to keep teaching isn’t nobler than Mr. Conti’s years of outstanding service and his careful and thoughtful decision to quit.
So, I by the time I got home from work, this odd conversation was over. I read the other comments, then took a long nap (for over three hours). I’m a couple of years older than Conti.
readingexchange, In no way do I impugn the nobility of Conti’s decision to retire three years early. I wish him well, he earned it, and I’m pretty jazzed by the response he got from his students and community to this outstanding letter.
My point was actually that it takes no extra heroism for retirement age teachers to resist the madness of corporate reformat this point. I want to make sure other teachers understand that, because many may not have noticed.
I had a conversation recently with a math colleague my own age, and he was in terrible condition over the things he was being forced to do to his students.
I pointed out he didn’t have to do them at all. Yes, they come in and check, they walk through with iPads. “What can they do to us?” I asked. “They’ll mark you down,” he said.
“Oooh, I’m scared.” Now, there are no wusses teaching math in a district like mine, but he visibly recoiled with shock. He just wasn’t used to thinking that way. Yet. By the next day, he was fine with it, and much sunnier in his outlook.
I think what we all do is pretty heroic, by the way. The 3.7 million of us who don’t self-deport and aren’t fired by the corporate hacks just continue on with the same old low-profile daily heroism of teaching itself.
It wouldn’t hurt you to wish us well, also.
This is one of the most moving documents that I have ever read. Repost it I shall!
What a sad letter and statement as to what we have become. It is always tragedy to lose long term high level experienced people. My dad worked in aerospace until he was 82. The only reason he stopped is that his wife got alzheimers and he had to take care of her. Boeing did not want him to quit. They understood his historical knowledge which cannot be bought with any amount of money. The same is for high time experienced teachers. When my dad died at 94.5 one of my brothers called the V.P. at Boeing and he told my brother that my dad was an icon at Boeing Helicopters. When the airbus went down in N.Y. with the vertical stabilizer that broke off my dad within one week wrote in telling them what he though had happened. One year later when the FAA investigation was finished exactly what he had said happened had happened. He remembered a test in 1950 where they had obtained that data and he remembered. Is it any different for a “Real Teacher?” I do not think so. Now the question is why are they doing this? It is to make a worst world not a better one so they can make more money and power only for the select few and that is all there is to it.
Unfortunately, George, that deep professional and institutional knowledge are precisely what so-called education reformers are trying to purge from the schools, the better to complete their hostile takeover of public education.
Institutional memory is not vauled; infact, it is regarded as dangerous.
Thank you, George. What a beautiful, concise, moving testimony to the knowledge and wisdom gained from years of dedication to a job.
Would that these deformers understood that
anyone who has cared enough to learn how to do his or her job well
will die inside
in the absence of the autonomy required
in order to exercise that knowledge and wisdom.
The sorts of robots who will carry out all these absolutist mandates could never be decent teachers. Every decent teacher knows that.
George, the answer may well be what Clinton said after he disgraced
himself, his family, the office, and us. His answer was simple…The question was “Why?” the answer was simply and unapologetically…
“Because I could!”….
This may be as simple as that and a time in history (we have seen it before) where all the ‘stars’ line up and want to show the rest how powerful they are and helpless the rest really are!!!
Because they can!
Mr. Conti, thank you for your years of service. It is very sad what you have to see at the end of your career. We have to stop them for all of us.
Why keep telling Broad, Gates etc. that we keep quitting? That’s what they want. Somebody has to stay & fight!
I did my part with this post at Daily Kos
Well said, thank you.
When conditions in a district make one physically sick it changes how one thinks. I could not let my work kill me or watch my colleagues die a slow death. Very few are fighting back. It is a very lonely feeling.
Jaded, you are not alone. Join the Network for Public Education and meet your colleagues and allies.
Thank you Diane. I will join the Network. I have also sent this blog to friends and family around the world!. Real learning can only happen when one has the facts. Once a teacher always a teacher whether one is in the classroom or not:)
The lady from North Carolina that wrote a resignation letter last October, also posted here, did a much better job of explaining the blight of the modern teacher. Her words were much more passionate and relative to the trials of everyday teachers, in my opinion. I couldn’t finish reading this letter. I just found myself disinterested. I suppose if I taught in NY it would be of more relevance to me. I regret when any teacher, experienced or not, feels that they can no longer continue. However I have found, through experience, that quitting is almost never the answer. Can’t fault the guy though, human beings can only take so much.
For the viewers of this blog, please click on the link below for the original article on Gerald Conti and his letter:
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2013/04/goodbye_mr_conti_a_westhill_hi.html#incart_most-read
The letter had 230 comments the last I looked.
Valerie Strauss put it on her blog a few days later. Click on the link below:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/04/06/teachers-resignation-letter-my-profession-no-longer-exists/
This posting of the letter had 943 comments the last I looked [the count keeps going up each time I look!].
This is the conversation the accountabullies avoid whenever possible. It’s all so clean and impersonal when it’s all about the numbers, when it seems that nothing but statistics are going up or down, when the edubullies sidetrack us into discussing how to protect “our most valuable assets.”
This is just some of what doesn’t fit into the VAManiacs formulae: The self-sacrificing heroism of the Newtown teachers, the selflessness of public school staff that pays [without reimbursement] for food and clothes and school supplies out of their own pockets, the toll on the emotional and physical health of those in public schools because they won’t give up on any kids—especially the ‘non-strivers.’ And not to forget: the precious time so many many teachers and other school staff spend with OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN when they have children and other family members who would love to have more time with their mothers and fathers and sons and daughters and relatives.
I urge everyone to read Gerald Conti’s letter with an open mind and an open heart.
🙂
We’ve all heard of the law of unintended consequences. Bill Gates and other philanthropists set out to improve the quality of the teaching profession. I’m one of those (likely naive) people who believes that Gates truly wants to improve American education. But by going about it the wrong way, the current practices have had the opposite effect. The best teachers are leaving and they are taking their students, friends and family with them. Above all else, intelligent and well-educated people want to be decision-makers and will not stand for being pushed around and micro-managed.
The other day I met with a young (TFA) teacher. She said she loved teaching but was thinking of leaving because of the poor working conditions. When she asked for my opinion, I didn’t hesitate: “I loved teaching too, but would never do it under the present circumstances. If I were you, I’d prepare for another profession.” She agreed.
My guess is that conversations, such as the one I just described, are occurring all over the country. This is absolutely the worst thing that could have to our educational system.
Correction: This is absolutely the worst thing that could happen to our educational system.
The first time I had a conversation like this was two years ago. I closed my door afterward and cried. I have been teaching for 28 years and it breaks my heart. I cannot in good conscience encourage someone to stay who has other options or is young enough to take a risk on something else.
I actually cried in front of my principal for being an administrator who not only values his staff, but who deeply cares about them in a time when principals are encouraged to “cut down” the staff members that the district no longer wants. I am very fortunate to be working in an environment of mutual respect.
” a misguided effort to fix what is not broken in our system of public education”
That says it all!
I blogged about this a week ago; I’m glad it’s finally getting the national attention it deserves. Mr. Conti teaches in an EXTREMELY high-functioning district (test scores, HS ranking, college acceptance…), just on the outskirts of one of the roughest (in many ways) districts in the State (Syracuse City Schools). Those of us who toiled in the City Schools have been saying this for years, but I guess it took a teacher coming out of an “Ivory tower” school to really grab people’s attention. Hey… whatever it takes. I applaud and salute Mr. Conti. Please see http://askingquestionsblog.blogspot.com/2013/04/gerald-conti-shrugged.html for a unique and heartfelt analysis of the integrity behind this man’s noble move.
This guy sounds like a whiny little bitch. Our education system is failing and the government is taking steps to standardize the public education our kids are receiving. Instead of offering ways that the state could do it better, he- in true teacher fashion- chooses to whine and walk away instead.
He complains that all teachers must teach the same things and give the same tests instead of doing it their own way. Boo hoo. Many other professions require standardized ways of doing things. Accounting and law to name a couple. The truth is, teachers -can’t- be trusted to make their own tests and lesson plans because SO many students have been failed by this approach already.
Let’s amend that to say our society is failing its youth, Kate, and then let’s start looking at what we can do to help the children in this country succeed. Until that conversation takes place, all the “reform” and standardized curricula in the world will not solve the problem.
“Our education system is failing…”
“The truth is, teachers -can’t- be trusted to make their own tests and leson plans because SO many students have been failed by this approach already.”
Kate, could you please cite your sources for this claim so that we can retrace your research?
I’m not gonna hold my breath that you actually -have- any legitimate “research” because you SO protest too much.
Regarding your making blanket statements about myself and my colleagues: A wise man once said,”Better to let people think you are ignorant than to open your mouth and prove it.”
The ignorance in your post is only rivaled by the over-inflated sense of self-confidence that permitted you to write such nonsense.
Wow Kate… so much hate and anger. What purpose is served by lashing out at strangers ? I am sorry to hear that you were a failure in school, but perhaps it wasn’t your teachers.
thanks for your all effort for education.
The entire review process is demeaning. My evaluations have been glowing/fantastic in fact. But here’s something rather funny, or rather sad. My principal in reviewing my lesson on nets and surface area commented that I made a mistake in saying that walking around the perimeter of a pool is not one dimensional. She insisted it was area even though I differentiated between perimeter, area and volume. We are being evaluated by people without the content knowledge – although my principal is math certified – argh. The entire process becomes rather subjective no matter how you look at it.