Kipp Dawson is a veteran teacher in Pittsburgh. She writes here about the new school year and the ongoing struggle to teach her students without idiotic programs foisted on her and her students. Kipp was a coal miner, and she knows the meaning of struggle.
She writes:
“Teachers and other front-line workers in our public schools are also on the front lines of some of the biggest battles in this country right now, as we are fighting alongside our children for their future. As school opens this fall, we can feel this, as we are torn between what we can already see and feel in their eyes and words of their potential and real lives and beauties and challenges, on the one hand, and what is required of us to do with and to them, on the other.
“As I begin what may become my last year in this particular relationship to these struggles, I feel a particular obligation both to do all I can with and for each of the marvelous souls and brains with whom I am blessed to spend our teaching/learning brains, and the communities they build together in our classroom, on the one hand, and simultaneously, with my amazing collesgues, to work to make our schools shrug off the ridiculousnesses politicians and their conduits who run many things put in the way.
“This is a Report from One of the Front Lines, #1 for 2017.
“Yesterday, three of my 12-year-old boy students presented personal narratives to their classmates. Two of them had been called out to do so by their peer reviewers who were stunned and impressed by their stories. These boys came from different neighborhoods with different skin hues, and each presented well-constructed, dialogue-filled, literary-devices-well-used (mainly similes and colloquialisms), narrative structure in place and well used. Each of their stories was about overcoming a personal challenge (one, learning to ride a bike; the other, overcoming a fear of rollarcoasters). Each stunned me with the skill both of the writing, and the presentation (hats off Ms. Greco, their 6th-grade teacher!). It was marvelous to see their classmates enjoy, and celebrate, their writing.
“Among their classmates was a third boy who had shared his story only (so far) with his peer reviewer, and with me. This child has the same skin hue as one of the above-mentioned presenters. (To put it right out there: to armed police, both would look like Tamir Rice or Trayvon Martin). This boy’s story was much more bare — no literary devices, sentence structure lacking a bit. He wrote of having been with his uncle when the uncle was shot, three times, in the back, as they left a store. His uncle died, he wrote, was revived, and then died again, forever. The end. Unlike the other two stories, there were no adjectives or adverbs or literary devices. But he felt he had a story to tell, and a safe place in which to tell it.
“These three boys were among their 100 or so 7th-grade peers who noisily left school for a three-day weekend when our last bell rang yesterday. These three boys were going into three different worlds. These three boys will be back in this classroom community, together, on Tuesday. They will spend a school year together in our classrooms. They (hopefully) will grow up and keep going out into different and same parts of this world. For this next few months, we have them, and we have so so much we/they/all of us can do to grow together.
“But.
“When that last bell rang, we who teach these boys, and all of their classmates, gathered our thoughts and papers, did some debriefing with colleagues or rushed out to be with families or simply collapsed at home with fatigue, beginning a weekend of downtime and the first weekend of organizing our time to meet the needs.
“Needs imposed on us by a “data-driven district” (aren’t they all, now?)
“Data.
“I am not alone in having in my home now, the stories and letters to me and daily check-ins of my approximately 85 new 7th graders, on the one hand, and the demands of a frenzied, trying-to-stay-afloat public school district which is translating that frenzy into increasingly onerous distracting, time-consuming, mis-focused (in my humble, professional/human opinion) demands on the workers, especially teachers. I will spend as much time as I can reading every word these new-to-me students wrote (or did not follow directions and left blank — equally important!) this first week of school. I will spend as much time as I can communicating with each/all of the new-to-me (with, of course, some returning via siblings) parents of these children, as these relationships are essential. I will be pulled from doing that by meeting the demands of administrations, some of which are understandable and helpful, and some of which drive me (almost) to despair.
“Test scores are our source of data. We are data driven. Therefore, our children, and their teachers, are judged, grouped, approached, by data, and test scores. Therefore these personal narratives become important mainly in how they will be rated on the rubrics which will turn into data when these children take their end-of-the-year tests. And now we are to take precious time out of our classrooms each day to put them in front of computers so the machines can judge their skills and give them individual, screen-and-keyboard-responses-only, assignments and evaluations. Every day. I am not ok with this. At all.
“If you have read this far, most likely you, also, are a school worker and/or parent. Most likely you, also, are pondering how to respond to the wonderfulnesses and alarm signals of your back-to-school days. Most likely, you are looking for ways to make things better for our children. Let’s do this together.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Writing is a powerful healing tool. I’ve been in two writing groups through the VA, and when vets with combat related PTSD write about what they have to say, their ability to manage their PTSD improves dramatically.
Then we have this quote captured from David Coleman, one of the major architects of Common Core standards that promote rank-and-punish high stakes tests.
“People don’t really give a shit what you feel or what you think,” Coleman said.
I can’t stand people who make absolute statements for everyone. When I have an opinion, that is my opinion and not everyone else.
Coleman was speaking what he thinks; what Bill Gates thinks, what the Koch brothers think, what the Walton family thinks, what Donald Trump thinks, what Betsy DeVos thinks, what Richard Mercer thinks and all the other extremist, corrupt billionaire oligarchs forcing their vision of the world on the rest of us —- BECAUSE they don’t give a shit what we think or want.
He wasn’t talking for most of us.
However, personal writing for children that have lived through trauma and/or are still living with trauma is a powerful tool for those children to cope with that trauma and learn to manage it so it doesn’t destroy their lives. In addition, when other children read/hear those personal essays that share and reveal trauma in another child’s life, those children learn they are not alone in their suffering, and for many children who haven’t suffered those traumas caused by poverty and dysfunction families, they learn what empathy means.
Coleman clearly doesn’t give a SHIT about those children and their lives. Coleman clearly doesn’t give a SHIT about anyone but his fat bank account and the power that money buys him. But he isn’t alone. All the oligarchs I mentioned earlier think the same way he does.
Thank you, LLOYD.
I suspect Coleman was making a very personal statement when he said that.
In other words, “My parents did/do not give a shit what I think and feel”.
I agree. Coleman’s parents taught him to become the psycho monster he turned out to be.
Like George W. Bush, David Coleman likely has “daddy issues”.
He prolly never measured up to daddy’s expectations so now he taking it out on millions of school children by showing them their “failure” with standardized tests like SAT
One of the ugliest things I’ve heard in discussing students. I don’t think he ever apologized.
Has Trump ever apologized or accepted the blame for when he fails?
Horrible people think alike. I’m surprised Coleman didn’t make it to Trump’s cabinet or one of his beachhead teams.
Insecure people often pretend that that are not.
Statements like Coleman’s are part of a tough guy act
In ELA, every bit of time spent preparing “data walls,” attending “data chats,” preparing progress reports on the “data” from one’s classes, and assigning and proctoring and analyzing results from test prep practice exercises, pretests and “benchmark” tests modeled on the state test, and the state test itself–which is mostly what happens in English class now under the standards-and-testing regime–is time wasted on what can most charitably described as numerology–pseudoscience with numbers.
The opportunity cost is breathtaking. The most important thing for people to know about teaching English in K12 is that there is never anything like enough time for the actual job, for the significant interactions that need to take place with one’s 150 or so students because teaching and learning are most effective when there’s an interpersonal transaction involved. Imagine, if you will, that you assign a roughly five-paragraph composition to your 150 kids. You then have 750 paragraphs to respond to–that’s somewhere between a novella and a novel. If you have three preps that meet every day, you have to prepare 21 separate classes a week. I have known English professors to complain vociferously because they had 8. If you are spending your time, instead, on numerology, God help your students.
The Ed Deformers are clueless about what they’ve wrought on the ground, in the classroom, where it matters. Thank you, Kipp, for assisting in explaining this to them.
To understand why the standards and testing approach as currently designed doesn’t work in ELA, one has to leave the lofty perch assumed by the Ed Deformers and actually learn a little something about how kids learn English. Here, a primer addressing one part of the field, Reading:
Yikes, I meant 15 classes per week.
Dude. I would give my eyeballs to “only” have 150 students. I have about 260, and you’re right–reading their writing takes FOREVER because there are so many. I hate to cut down on writing, but for my self-preservation, I have had to.
260 for is classes?
Yikes.
Sounds like classes have actually gotten larger in Utah since I was subbing there.
That was over 20 years ago and classes were typically 35+ but I’d say that 40+ was atypical.
Not sure where you teach, but i thought I had read somewhere that SL district had reduced class sizes.
“For six classes?”
“Front lines” is right, Kipp. I just came home after my first day back with the kids. Your optimism about the power of writing and learning -despite all the challenges we face -is inspiring. Thanks.
Not on topic, but please circulate:
I found this wonderful book, that should be mandatory reading, for this new school year. see
https://education.good.is/features/yo-soy-muslim-a-fathers-letter-to-his-daughter-mark-gonzalez?utm_source=thedailygood&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailygood
“We must learn to live together as brothers, or we will surely perish as fools”-
Martin Luther King Jr.
charles, you confuse me. yesterday, you complained that public schools were teaching Muslim, now you recommend a book that should be mandatory reading. Don’t you think teachers should choose their readings?
I do not mean to confuse anyone. Public schools (and all schools) should be teaching comparative religion. I find it odd, that schools are taking children to Mosques, and teaching them to pray to Allah. This is odd! If public school teachers were teaching kids how to pray to Jesus or Buddha, some people would object. (See Abingdon v. Schempp 1963).
Teachers should be able to select their readings, of course. But, don’t some state education authorities direct certain books, to be taught in their courses?
Charles,
Betsy DeVos is in charge of the U.S. Department of Education. Have you voiced your complaints to her?
Our building principal has doubled the number of unpaid division meetings we must attend each month, because the “data” shows we haven’t made enough “progress.”
We are also now witnessing subtle coercion to take additional, unpaid professional development after our daily contract hours end. Staff members get a “passport” to be stamped for every unpaid, district-sponsored PD you take, with the “reward” of free pizza after so many hours of YOUR time. But wait, there’s more!
Participants may be eligible to win District (last year’s leftover athletic promotions? ) Swag!
We used to be treated like professionals and actually PAID for district-sponsored after-school PD.
Meanwhile, the district has spend millions on Astroturf, multiple big screen tvs in the hallways and hiring friends of friends. Treating and compensating teachers as the professionals they are? Meh …
Data is a four-letter word.
How pathetic! Teachers are being treated like children. When scores are the goal, everyone loses. We always said data should inform instruction, not drive it.
I have often wondered if schools would actually be run better if the principals and Vps were dispensed with and teachers ran things.
Teachers could rotate “principal’s office” duty for unruly students.
Some of the administrators seem to have too much time on their hands — or maybe too many hands on their time.
The experiences described in the post and comments are so sick I can barely get my mind around the reality.
If the public school district were a for-profit corporation, studies (if needed! Simple observation of time sheets & OH codes, more likely) would have already revealed the stunning amount of time devoted to gathering/ processing data vs actual work (teaching) completed, vs any measured benefit (test score increase, increase in degree of literacy/ numeracy, whatever) & summarily have shut the whole machine down.
The current situation reminds me of huge power-generation projects I worked on in the ’70’s/ ’80’s with their bloated project-OH depts devoted entirely to “%-complete” data-gathering/ processing/ cudgeling engrs w/results– made possible only by grotesque pre-utility-dereg project budgets [charged directly to rate-payers]. Today’s projects are by comparison small, focused, & ALL of the proj-mgt bean-counter depts are long-gone, w/lion’s share of budget spent on actually designing & bldg the plant.