A teacher left this comment on the blog:
G. K. Chesterton said, ““The Madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.” Those that champion ed-reform are basically those that have lost everything but their reason, they reduce education, as they reduce most everything else, to what can be benchmarked and quantified, in a data driven environment everything is “rational” and “reasonable” but little else. There is no room for whimsy, there is no room for beauty, there is no room for sanity.
But as long as the classroom teacher is sane, does see the importance of whimsy, beauty, the individual and the discovery of the individual that lives beneath the surface of every student, real education will ultimately triumph. The real subversive work of the teacher is what happens in the classroom. That is why I think it is important that we, as classroom teachers do not lose sight of what we are really called to do. I think sometimes we become so strident in our opposition to what is happening in the larger world that we lose sight of what we can accomplish in the world of the classroom. In our stridency we are in danger of losing everything but or reason and in the process become like those we oppose.
Our students have one crack at an education. Each student I teach in 9th, 11th, or 12th grade (the grades I teach) will only have one chance at 9th, 11th, and 12th grade and they deserve a meaningful and “sane” 9th, 11th, and 12th grade. It is important to fight as best we can the battles going on outside our classroom, but w also need to do the best we can to see to it that our students in our classrooms today get the best and most meaningful education we can give them.
Sometimes I believe I am being asked to teach with both hands tied behind my back, but as long as I have a voice to speak with I can leave the gesticulating to others. If we reach the students we teach they will become the future and the best way to change the insanity of the present is to prepare those that will inherit the future. If our students are able to keep their sanity as they go into the world there is a real possibility that they will make the world they help to shape a more sane one.
Two more words for the “The Educational Devil’s Dictionary:
Leader – First follower.
Leadership – The ability to get others to do what they are told by do doing what they, the leaders, are told better than anybody else.
J. D. Wilson, Jr.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The Terror-Reformer Has “Reason” That The ❤ Knows Not Of
May I suggest “Rea$on” or was that implied?
ye$, you ®ead me ®ight a$ ®ain …
Hear, hear!
Can’t measure creativity, happiness, or collaborative ability – when the grade becomes the primary reason to do anything students learn strategies to achieve that, not to give their best and try real problem solving that isn’t quantifiable.
I think that comment gives a bad name to reason.
There is nothing rational about denying the data that defeats ones theory and forging ahead with all guns blazing in spite of all evidence that ones policy is failing.
No, there is no reason in that.
I agree, Chesterton is not suggesting we abandon reason, that we stop thinking and interpreting and using the data and facts and feedback we receive. He is saying reason is not the only thing and that there are other, equally important things, to pay attention to. Learning to be a fully functioning human being means learning to listen to the heart and the head; learning that there is more to life and living well than can be received through reason. Data points can help us to better educate a child, but a child is more than a data point and other things need to be considered. Reason is an important thing, it is just not the only thing.
Cordially,
J. D. Wilson, Jr.
Great post! Thank you.
Google: A Declaration of Professional Conscience for Teachers by Kenneth Goodman. It’s spot on!
“My methods are reasonable, my purpose mad,” said Captain Ahab.
It seems the so-called reformers are channeling him, and we all know how that ended.
My Devil’s Dictionary of Educational Jargon (with all apologies to Ambrose Bierce) has the following entries:
Leader: He/She who is closest behind in following his/her leader so as to acquire a shiny brown nose.
Leadership: The uncanny ability to stay out in front of all other leaders so as to not acquire a shiny brown nose.
“Sometimes I believe I am being asked to teach with both hands tied behind my back, but as long as I have a voice to speak with I can leave the gesticulating to others. ”
Spot on, this is !
I’m now retired, but as a former subversive teacher, I agree with your thoughts. Unfortunately some systems and administrations are so intrusive that principals come frequently into the classroom to see if teachers are following their narrow minded instructions. There are penalties for not doing so. My last three years of teaching were like walking a tightrope trying to maintain a balance between what was right for kids and meeting district requirements.
This is why we as educators must keep our sanity.
Kids are wonderful…
http://faithreel.com/buzz-and-the-dandelions-see-how-this-dad-gets-his-baby-to-erupt-in-bubbling-laughter/
Very inspirational, thanks for the Mother’s Day gift and end of school year gift.
What happens in the classroom is the key to survival and teachers are the only one’s left in this corrupt culture who can transmit the ideas necessary for the next generation to survive and thrive. Four decades of policy built on winner take all, competition and survival of the fittest as everything public or common has been destroyed lies a very sick society indeed
iI’s a battle worth fighting and passing along to the young.
http://learninglab.wbur.org/2015/05/08/4-takeaways-from-jonathan-kozol-on-race-poverty-and-corporate-reform-in-education/
Thank you J. D. Wilson, Jr.
I completely second your motion which is called intelligence with conscience and courage
[start quote]
Sometimes I believe I am being asked to teach with both hands tied behind my back, but as long as I have a voice to speak with I can leave the gesticulating to others. If we reach the students we teach they will become the future and the best way to change the insanity of the present is to prepare those that will inherit the future.
If our students are able to keep their sanity as they go into the world there is a real possibility that they will make the world they help to shape a more sane one.
Two more words for the “The Educational Devil’s Dictionary:
Leader – First follower.
Leadership – The ability to get others to do what they are told by do doing what they, the leaders, are told better than anybody else.
[end quote]
You are the true educator. Very respectfully yours, May King
I’m still not sure exactly what the writer was trying to say. If it was to close your door and teach without regard to the harmful policies enforced upon us, then he should be aware that there are real economic consequences to that if the teacher gets fired or suspended for following their conscience>. That’s a choice we have to make every single day. Do I teach the way my students need it, or the way the district demands? Do I refuse to follow the pacing schedule when they are struggling or stumble through in lockstep? There are many other dilemmas where the choice you make could get you in trouble. If you really need your job, then you may not necessarily follow your heart.
It also seemed to me that he could be stating the case for not-in-your-face teacher activism, but I thought he was advocating NO activism.
My first read-through leaves me puzzled and wondering about motives. Maybe I have lost my reason.
I would venture to say that the people who are “Mad” are not the “Reformers”, but the Teachers forced to commit educational malpractice by “teaching” in a way that we know will fail. There is nothing rational or reasonable in PARCC or any of the other Pearson standardized test programs.They do not measure learning in the classroom – even according to Pearson’s own Senior VP of Measurement Services. What they produce, in droves, is junk data. Data that is both unreliable and unverifiable, because it is deemed secret, beyond scrutiny. Further, there is nothing reasonable or rational in designing curriculum that is not developmentally appropriate. It is, in the most craven and calculating way, designed for failure. It is rationally designed to enrich the corporate oligarchy. It is NOT designed to develop a critically thinking population. It is done at the expense of a free public education, and teachers are the people who have lost everything: respect, pay, pensions, benefits, supplies, nurturing working environment, etc. – teachers are under siege. Teachers have lost everything BUT their reason.
As such, the “Reformers” are not “Mad” in the sense of the quote. The “Reformers” have lost nothing. They are shoveling money into their investment bank accounts. They have systematical destroyed the public trust that is education, in the same way that they have destroyed the public trust of what used to be called journalism and news reporting. They may be narcissistic psychopaths, but they are not “Mad”.