School has already started in some districts. In others, it begins the day after Labor Day. Most people, long after they have finished school, get that “back to school” feeling about now. good feelings. Worried feelings. Anxiety. Who will be my teachers? Will I have friends? Am I ready?
Steven Singer teaches in Pennsylvania. At first, he had an inadequacy dream. Will I fail? Am I a good teacher? Why do I teach?
But school started, and his bad dream turned into a beautiful reality: I love to teach!
He writes:
“Before they come in, I’m full of doubt: Can I still do this for another year? Will I be able to keep up with the work load? Will I be able to accommodate all the extra services for every special education student in my mainstreamed classroom? Do I have enough desks, pencils, paper? Have I planned enough for the first week? Will I be able to keep students interested, entertained, disciplined, engaged, working, inspired?
“But the second the kids enter the classroom – literally the exact second – all my doubts disappear.
“There’s no time.
“I have more than two dozen children to see to at any given moment – and their needs outweigh any of mine.
“It wasn’t until about halfway through the day that I even had an instant to myself to stop, breathe and reflect.
“After my first bathroom break in more than 3 hours, then grabbing my lunch and collapsing into a seat- the first time I’m off my feet with no anxious little faces looking up to me – I think back on my day and realize – I absolutely love this!
“No, really.
“My feet hurt, my temples throb from making a hundred tiny decisions every 40 minutes, my body feels like it’s already been through a war… But there is no place in the world I would rather be.”
Many people make more money. Many people hate their work. Steven looks at those eager faces, and he thinks he’s got the best job in the world.
“How can I not come to school every day and give my very best?
“A public school is more than a building to me. It’s a temple to humanity. It’s where we go to offer ourselves to other people.
“Every action, every thought spent on these children is holy. The tiniest gesture is magnified through infinite time and space. When I help a child gain confidence in her reading, I help not just her. I help everyone she will ever come into contact with –her co-workers, her friends, family, even her own children if she someday has some.
“It’s humbling. Amazing. Staggering.
“Where else can you see the accumulated hurt of the world and actually make a dent in it? Where else can you reach out not just to a cause or an idea but to a living person?
“I’m lucky. I am so lucky. My circumstances allowed me to do whatever I wanted with my life.
“I could have become a doctor or a lawyer. I could have gone into business and made a whole mess of money. But I never wanted any of that. I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to help people.
“I remember the pitying looks peers would give me in my 20s. What a waste, they seemed to say. But I’ve never regretted it.
“This is what I was meant to do. It’s the only thing I ever could and still respect myself.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Steven
You have said so eloquently what I feel exactly, even after being semi retiired for 13 years. I taught public school for 38 years and then taught future secondary and elementary teachers for 11 years (and am still at it)..,, it truly is the best job in the world!
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“It’s the only thing I ever could and still respect myself.”
You must be fortunate to work in a district that has not been to hard hit by rephorm.
I had a long talk with my youngest daughter’s teacher (said daughter made the decision for herself to go to public school this year). I was prepared for a knock-down drag out with her because my daughter already got a detention because of an adult misunderstanding about signing the @#$%&! reading log. But I found, instead, that she’s a really great teacher – a lot like Mr. Singer describes himself, someone born to teach. In fact, she used to teach at Francis Parker, so she understands all about progressive education.
But, she works in a working-class, high minority district that has a zillion almost “no excuses”-type policies, ranging from uniforms to homework to “discipline”, so many matters are out of her hands. So her choices are to hand out homework and detentions she doesn’t really believe in (to kids she knows already don’t get enough time to play and be kdis) or else lose her job. How’s that for self-respect?
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I was enjoying your comment right up to the last sentence.
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What do you object to about that? How can you have self respect when your job requires you to do things that you know are not in the best interests of children?
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I find it sad that you must judge others’ motivations. You describe a teacher who is put into a difficult position and has to make compromises, even ones she finds painful. The last time I checked the Human Condition, it seems we all have to make compromises at some points in our lives, some more than others just to survive. I find it offensive that you infer this teacher has no self-respect. Although I am not religious, I try (not always successfully, I admit) to respect that “judge not lest ye be judged” thing. Give it a shot.
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I didn’t say anything about motivation. Her motivation, as she stated it to me, was that she felt she could do more good working with more disadvantaged kids than she could working with privileged Francis Parker kids. Self-respect is an outcome. I know personally I lose respect for myself when I have to compromise my values, even if the benefits might outweigh the harms. Punishing kids for ridiculous reasons that they have no control over (and thereby making them lose the only few minutes a day they get to breath) is not something I would respect myself for doing, even if I felt that I could work within a system to bring at least some progressive benefits to kids in an otherwise “no excuses” school. Believe me, I get the conundrum – if she doesn’t work at that school, they’ll simply replace her with someone who is more “no excuses” and the kids won’t even get any benefit of her progressive approach, so some progressive approach, even if saddled with a side of “no excuses” is better than no progressive approach. But still, I would find it hard to face myself every day, and I got the feeling she shared that sentiment to some extent. It’s something that comes up a lot around here. At what point does a teacher look at him/herself in the mirror and decide “I can’t do this” even if they feel (correctly) they have a lot to offer?
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I challenge you to go back to that teacher and tell her, to her face, “You have no self-respect.” And try the mirror thing on yourself. I’m done reading your comments and done with this exchange.
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So I guess you feel good about yourself when you’re forced to do things you know aren’t in the kids’ best interest.
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This is really appalling:
“By the end of the school year, because of their children’s disastrous experience with the Summit platform, some parents in these states decided to either move out of their school district, home-school their children or apply for a transfer.
Stacie Storms, a parent who lives in Boone County, Ky., said that when she withheld her consent, the response from her child’s school was that she would have to pull him out of the school. She chose to home-school her child, though she has gone to her elected local and state representatives to protest.”
Whole public school systems are adopting the Summit Charter School model- according to these parents they’re getting ten minutes of human instruction a day- the rest is screen time.
I’m really worried about this- I’m afraid ed reformers will shove online learning into lower and middle class public schools to replace teachers.
I really, really hope public schools don’t fall for this. Please don’t all follow like lemmings. They’re leading you down a bad road. Please don’t allow Marc Zuckerberg to buy public schools. Resist this. Local parents will love you for it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/08/30/parents-cite-student-privacy-concerns-with-popular-online-education-platform/?utm_term=.1825d277bad2
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Steven, your comments inspire me. I wish you had been around to counsel me when I made the decision to leave teaching. It was the best time of my professional life.
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My son’s public school is doing “differentiated instruction” now. I know I’m stodgy but I wonder if they considered that younger kids would be socializing with much older kids and they’re not really ready for that. The fact is the younger kids socialize after school and on weekends with the older kids they’re in classes with and I’m not sure that’s a great idea. I wonder if anyone thought this thru. There’s this romantic idea of a “one room schoolhouse” but whatever we read in Little House on the Prairie is not reflective of the reality of a 14 year old in w/17 year olds.
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Your son’s school leaders need to take a few more courses on differentiated instruction. Multi-age instruction may include elements of differentiation–meeting the students at their level–but the idea was originally to provide a variety of ways to engage with the curriculum with your age mate peer group, taking into account that children of close to the same chronological age are not necessarily going to learn at the same rate or in the same way. What your son’s school is doing could be really humiliating to kids if not handled carefully. Who wants to be doing math with kids two years younger?
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Thank you to Mr. Singer for reminding us of the joy of teaching. It is reassuring to know that many teachers are continuing to dedicate themselves to their students despite constant criticism, assault and bad policies. Keep teaching while trying to ignore all the politics as there are few career choices that are as rewarding and important to our collective future.
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“Every action, every thought spent on these children is holy. The tiniest gesture is magnified through infinite time and space.” These words should be on the wall in every administrative office- from the individual school buildings all the way up to the national DOE. Hey Betsy- read this from a public school teacher!
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“my body feels like it’s already been through a war”
Believe me, I’ve been to war, and combat troops are not fighting every minute. They actually get a lot of downtime between missions that might end up in combat. In fact, when I was in Vietnam, they gave us a week of Rest and Recuperation (known as R&R) for each tour. Hint, on that five-day break somewhere in Aisa (Hong Kong, Bangkok, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hawaii even), we weren’t resting, and when we returned to the battlefield most of us had to recuperate there from the R&R.
I also taught for thirty years and the pressure never lets up.
Now that I’ve been out of the classroom for twelve years, if I had to go back to earn a living, I’d rather return to the Marines and combat because the troops do get to rest between IEDs, snipers, and fire fights.
Of course, troops that are killed or wounded by an IED, a sniper, or in a fire fight, that is worse than teaching in a K-12 public school classroom.
At least wounded combat troops get Purple Hearts. Teachers should get medals too. After all, teaching is a battlefield.
Imagine teachers with ribbons, like the troops do, revealing where they taught-fought. The more child poverty in a school, the more prestigious the ribbon.
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I like this!
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