In response to my blog about the latest Voucher Follies, this teacher wrote as follows:

There’s this little thing about miracles.

They are miraculous. Now, don’t tell me. I know. That’s saying the same thing.

The thing is, miracles are not normal. They are the stuff that converts normal humans into saints. Saints are rare, unless you count the football team in New Orleans. Hmm. Just a minute, NFL Commissioner doesn’t think their behavior is too saintly just now.

We are, most of us, pretty ordinary folks. We work hard and go home tired. We expect to do the same tomorrow. We don’t expect miracles. We expect progress, or at least the opportunity to do as well as we did today.

Children in schools are not looking for miracles either. School is the place kids go that gives them challenges. Children are pretty happy if they meet the challenge head on and struggle through. Children are used to daily challenges. Their teachers give them challenges, support them when they slip, encourage them to stick to it. The good teachers make school a safe place to slip, to stumble, to fall. That is because a good teacher is human, approachable, real, not too saintly, not perfect, not a miracle worker.

That is, of course, unless you think getting Johnny to read or Sally to multiply is a miracle.

Asking for miracles, describing public education as “failing”, using words like “crisis” in the headlines, these are setting a crummy tone for the conversation. It makes parents wonder whether a day’s worth of challenge and success is good enough for their child. It makes kids doubt the chances for their future. Parents and children begin to look at their teachers, their school and see not the reality of hard work, but the specter of doom. Don’t go in there. There aren’t any miracles happening.

Phooey.

Let’s start talking about the reality of learning. It is incremental. It is a constant struggle. If it isn’t a struggle, it isn’t worth doing. It is not a winner-take-all proposition, either. Being the “best” is typically a temporary honor. Being the middle of the pack is okay, and only in the worst situations, where parents, teachers, peers and administrators are harsh or even cruel, even being at the trailing edge, the bottom of a class isn’t so bad. I’m better this year than I was last year, right? You still like me, right? You still love me, right?

Keeping a positive attitude, getting up after a fall. Moving ahead to the next challenge. Those need to be our expectations. We need to try not to be disappointed if every child in a school doesn’t enter college at age 14. Come to think of it, I don’t want to be around for the frat parties that will follow from that.

No miracles for me, thanks.

Gary Stager, an expert in technology and constructivist pedagogy, sent a bulletin from Australia about the latest events there.

He notes that American teachers have been subject to a campaign of bullying, vilification and shaming, that goes beyond name-calling to pink slips, cuts in their compensation and benefits, and removal of what were once standard protection for their freedom to teach. According to the Metlife Survey, teachers are demoralized. I have talked to thousands of teachers these past two years, and I can verify the survey’s finding. Teachers speak of feeling powerless, depressed, angry. They don’t know what to do. And the assaults on their professionalism continue in state after state.

By contrast, teachers in Melbourne, Australia, reacted swiftly and sharply to a proposal by the conservative state government for performance pay. 25,000 teachers stayed home, 10,000 marched on Parliament, and 150 schools were shut down. Parents got notice to make plans for their children, and many principals marched with their teachers.

The Australian teachers are not feeling powerless. They are standing up for their profession. Let’s see what happens next.

Diane

I have met so many teachers who are so wise about teaching, about students, and about what really needs to be done to make schools work better. One of them is Arthur Goldstein, an experienced English teacher in New York City. His students are mainly English language learners. As his longtime fans know, he teaches in a trailer, which is cold in the winter and hot in the summer. He has a blog called nyceducator.com. It is sharp, incisive,fearless, and often laugh-out-loud funny.

I got a comment from Arthur this morning to my earlier post. Arthur asks the right questions and shows how dumb current “reform” policies are.

The state has an underlying assumption that test scores are representative of quality of instruction. I would argue they do not. A role model, sorely needed by kids whose parents work 200-hour weeks, would and should do more than show a kid how to pass a standardized test. In fact, my experience with standardized tests suggests that I’m better able to write meaningful tests for my own students. Now I’m not bragging, because the quality of standardized tests I see ranges from abysmal to “meh.”

It’s preposterous for teachers to be lectured on differentiated instruction when the tests are all the same and the only thing that matters. As a teacher, I know when I’m at my best. I’m at my best when left alone to do whatever it takes to teach my kids what’s important, and I know very well what’s important to English language learners, as well as what they will need to avoid taking zero-credit remedial courses when they enter college. From all I’ve seen, the state and city governments haven’t got the remotest clue.

Teaching is an act of seduction. It’s about making kids love what you’re selling, which is education, their future. The obsession with testing is destroying that. The notion that a teacher can be judged on a test which is likely to be total crap is absurd, and it’s remarkable we even need to discuss it.

It is teachers like Arthur Goldstein who are the best answer to the dilettantes, foundation executives, hedge fund managers and corporate executives who love to decry and shred their garments over “teacher quality.” (Actually, I speak metaphorically, they don’t shred their garments, they just decry.) The difference between him and them is that he knows what he is talking about. It comes from experience. It is the wisdom of a teacher.

Diane