Peter Greene: A Good Teacher Is Not Like a Candle

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1. SomeDAM Poet says:

   October 3, 2019 at 10:20 am

   Candle in the Wind?

   A teacher’s like a candle
   A candle in the wind
   Deformer is a vandal
   Who burns them in the end

   Reply
   • SomeDAM Poet says:

     October 3, 2019 at 10:22 am

     I know, a stupid analogy. But Elton John liked it.

     Reply
2. caplee68 says:

   October 3, 2019 at 10:31 am

   When teachers are empowered, they will be excited ever time they enter the classroom. It’s a passion that never burns out. At 77, I am teaching English in Barranquilla Colombia and love every minute I am with the students.

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3. retired teacher says:

   October 3, 2019 at 10:35 am

   A tree or a river are much better metaphors for teachers. Teachers work with students to hopefully build a better future. A candle burns brightly for a short time, and then it burns out. This reference works for the many charter school associates that work for a couple of years and quit. Career teachers make much better rivers or trees than candles.

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4. Roy Turrentine says:

   October 3, 2019 at 10:47 am

   Thanks for this essay. If I could write, I would have said that years ago. The heroic teacher myth is almost as corrosive as the reformer mentality. They dovetail because they both have utopian expectations as their underlayment. I once knew a teacher who took seriously the idea that she was supposed to get all her fourth graders up to “grade level” on those tests. This was back in the day when the testocrats had not decided that they would rig the system so that this could not happen. She was given every kid in the fourth grade that was below grade level on the test. By the end of the year, she had them at grade level on the test. Then she quit, and never went back. Twenty years hence, an entire generation of children was robbed by not getting to know this teacher, who is wonderful. What good was done?

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5. Arthur Goldstein says:

   October 3, 2019 at 12:49 pm

   The candles burn out, the machines break down, the TDA phonies depart for greener pastures, the reformies reinvent the fake rules faster than anyone can keep up, but we never stop.

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   • ciedie aech says:

     October 3, 2019 at 1:09 pm

     yes: they invent fake rules AND fake problems

     Reply
6. John Ogozalek says:

   October 3, 2019 at 6:21 pm

   I think it was George Bush Sr. who set some completely unreasonable goal for schools. I can’t recall. Every student will….. [ fill in the blank]. A local paper called me for a comment about his plan and my first reaction was to laugh. You gotta be kiddin’ me.

   It’s one thing to be fooled. It’s another to fool someone else. But when people start fooling themselves, well, that’s BIG problem.

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   • dianeravitch says:

     October 3, 2019 at 9:54 pm

     No, not Sr. He had no federal laws or mandates.

     It was George W. Bush and NCLB that set impossible goals (every student will be proficient by 2014…).

     Reply
     • John Ogozalek says:

       October 4, 2019 at 5:18 pm

       It wasn’t a law or mandate….I believe it was this set of goals (below)…. But, I’m sure you remember this a lot better than me, Diane.

       “…Bush told the country, every child in the United States would start school ready to learn, and the high school graduation rate would rise to at least 90 percent. Every American adult would be a literate and skilled worker. The nation would lead the world in math and science achievement. Schools would be safe and drug-free.

       And, most critically: Every student would leave grades 4, 8, and 12 having demonstrated competency in English, mathematics, science, history, and geography.”

       Quotation from: https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/12/01/george-hw-bush-the-education-president-dies.html

     • dianeravitch says:

       October 4, 2019 at 11:03 pm

       John,

       I’m very familiar with the National Goals. They were written at a national governors’ conference convened by Bush in Charlottesville in 1989. The goals were written mostly by Bill Clinton and his staff (e.g. MIchael Cohen, who later worked in the Clinton White House).
       Yes, the goals were wildly unrealistic.
       But unlike NCLB, the goals were aspirational without the force of law.
       Read my chapter 2 in “Death and Life of the Great American School System,” where I wrote about the goals.
       They were part of the zealous ideology that perfection could be achieved merely by setting goals or by passing a law. It was crazy and we never did meet those goals.

     • John Ogozalek says:

       October 4, 2019 at 8:17 pm

       Meanwhile…first frost tonight….just got my exercise running around in the dark trying to cover up the flowers. So, why do we do this sort of thing when we know winter is not that far down the road? Hmmm

     • John Ogozalek says:

       October 5, 2019 at 5:05 am

       I sit here and think back to when things started to unravel in the U.S….. it’s like pulling a thread out of a piece of clothing and it just gets longer and longer. Crazy laws…zealous reformers….a nation allegedly “at risk”…the moral majority (not!)…the silent majority…. how far back could I go? Internment camps, The Red Scare, Comstock, the Know-Nothings, etc..etc…back and back to the start, I guess. 1787. The stupid, the cowardly, the vile….Warren Harding, Donald Trump, Benedict Arnold….

       I guess human things or, well, just humans -us- are always somewhat unraveled to begin with. So, it’s what we have to do…rebuild, replace, rewire, reinvent, restore, re-whatever the mess that our fellow citizens just seem to keep on making. The disasters, the tragedies, the everyday human fiascos and screw ups….we own them all. Those of us who care. And, I like to think there’s still a lot of people out there who do care.

       I went to a union brunch years ago and Alan Lubin, a major labor leader here in New York State, was sitting with me at the table. Something else in public education had just gotten royally messed up…some new attack on teachers, schools and children. There’s been so many the past 20 years I can’t remember which one. But it was upsetting.

       And, Alan said, “This is what we do”. As in, this is what teachers do. We deal with these sorts of disasters. And we just keep going.

       We are definitely NOT like a candle that burns out.

       We can’t be.

7. LeftCoastTeacher says:

   October 3, 2019 at 8:07 pm

   I didn’t even get to the candle simile before I got upset with the meme. A “good” teacher? Is that a teacher with students who have “good” test scores? No! Is a teacher “good” if she works real hard? We all do! When is this country going to stop acting like there are good and bad apples in the teaching profession? “Bad” teachers don’t remain in the profession long enough to be considered teachers. Most “bad” “teachers” leave after a couple years, when their TFA contract is done. It’s not only that good teachers are not like candles; no teachers are like candles.

   A teacher is like Mother Earth. She will provide what you need for you and your generations, so be thankful and don’t abuse her.

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