Kevin Ohlandt is a blogger in Delaware. In a recent post on his blog ”Exceptional Delaware,” he reported on the testimony of a teacher who was nearing the brink of his endurance for teaching conditions.

Ohlandt wrote:

Last night, a teacher named Steve Fackenthall gave public comment to the Red Clay Consolidated School District’s Board of Education. It echoed what most American teachers are going through these days. Teachers are mentally drained and have been since Covid turned the world upside down in the early months of 2020. It is having a tremendous effect on the American teachers. Many teachers have left the profession due to severe burnout and not enough support from their district offices. 

This can only trickle down to the American students. Some want to say teachers are lazy, overpaid, get summers off, and only care about their union. Based on my experience with teachers this couldn’t be further from the truth. Most teachers deeply care about their students and want them to be successful. The sad truth is that a lot of pressure has been put on teachers to provide not only education to children, but also social-emotional supports. 

My name is Steven Fackenthall, music teacher at Richey Elementary and Vice-President of the Red Clay Education Association. Tonight I speak to you about the extraordinary high levels of teacher fatigue and stress that is being experienced by our educators.

It’s only October 20th, yet it feels like it should be June any time now. We. Are. Tired. Our educators are drowning. To give more insight, I’d like to share with you thoughts from our educators. I’m extremely disappointed that TEACHER MENTAL HEALTH HAS NOT BEEN MENTIONED BY DISTRICT LEADERS ONCE, other than a link to the Employee Assistance Program. There have been no check-ins to see how we are managing as we are also returning following and continue during a pandemic… along with the absence of support or concern for our well being, we are being told to accelerate learning while we know many students are way behind where even the lowest students are in a typical year. 

From an elementary school teacher. There is, even more than normal, a lack of understanding of what it’s like in the classroom right now. It’s one thing to read and talk about how COVID has affected our kids, but those working office jobs within the district need to take our word on more things or come visit classrooms more often to really understand what is happening. 

I have been a Red Clay employee for 15 years and I feel hopeless. I’m sad for our students and am completely discouraged as a teacher. The general consensus is that NOBODY cares. 

I need pacing guidelines relaxed as I have kids coming back from mandatory quarantines and need to catch up. ELA expects us to get through all 4 units this year, which we never have. 

I need the micromanaging from the district to stop and just have the ability to teach and give my kids what they need. I used to love teaching but after this past year, I am seriously considering leaving. Although I love my kids, everything else about teaching is driving me over the edge, why isn’t the district listening to us? We need more support, we need more time to plan, grade and help our students, I cannot keep up these 60-70 hours a week. 

I was in tears by 11 am and apparently I was the 3rd teacher of the day to do so. I was in the bathroom sobbing saying I can’t do this. I need a different job. This isn’t’ sustainable. These words are saddening. 

These words are heartbreaking. And only a fraction of the responses I received. Red Clay board, if we are truly to respect the tireless work educators put forward for their students, then we must think about the conditions we place on them and how to improve that experience. We. Must. Do. Better. Our working conditions are our students’ learning conditions.

Ohlandt added:

District administrators need to stop worrying about “learning loss” and concentrate on the well-being of teachers and students. Teachers need to teach and students need to learn. Let them do it. Let them do the job you hired them to do. Stop with the Department of Education mandates and pressure and let your school be a school, not a bureaucracy. 

At the end of the day, if you burn out your teachers, who will teach the children? Computers? We all know how that works. We learned that lesson last year. Nothing against teachers but we learned that teaching on a screen does not work for the majority of American students.

God bless Steve Fackenthall and all the teachers in America. They are the guardians of our kids for a significant period of time before they plunge into adulthood. They deserve our respect and our admiration.

When I was a child in Houston many, many moons ago, my public school had recess every day. It was unstructured play, and it was an integral part of the school day, like art, reading, writing, math, and music. We took tests that our teachers wrote and graded, but no standardized tests. That was long ago.

Twenty years ago, Congress passed the No Child Left Behind act based on the belief that standardized testing had produced a ”Texas miracle” that was raising test scores and closing achievement gaps. There actually was no Texas miracle, but the law was passed, requiring that every child must take tests in reading and math every year and promising that every child would score ”proficient” by 2014. Every child was tested every year, and every child continues to be tested every year, but universal proficiency is nowhere to be found. Sadly, failure has not daunted the belief systems of those who value standardized testing.

In the relentless drive for higher test scores, states invested billions of dollars in test prep, interim assessments, and data-driven accountability. Testing took up not only money but time. Some districts eliminated the arts. Many eliminated recess.

Now, it seems, it requires a state law to restore what should never have been taken away from children: the right to play.

Does your school have recess? In Illinois, parents activists pressed for a law guaranteeing The Right to Play. They won.

The state of Illinois passed The Right to Play act this year.

The law resulted from the strong advocacy work of Illinois Families for Public Schools.

THE RIGHT TO PLAY EVERY DAY: PUBLIC ACT 102-0357

“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.” –Fred Rogers

With the passage of SB654, the Right to Play Every Day bill, an initiative of IL Families for Public Schools, all students in kindergarten through 5th grade in IL public schools must have 30 minutes of daily play time. Time must be in increments of at least 15 minutes and can’t be taken away for punishment.

• FAQ: What parents and schools need to know
• Preguntas frecuentes completas: Lo que los padres y las escuelas necesitan saber
• Toolkit: how to ensure 30 min of play

Play is fundamental to the human experience. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by 190 nations, recognizes play as a basic right for children.

Play is a crucial component of education and development, enhancing a child’s social, physical and emotional health along with academic achievement and abilities. Play is learning.

MORE RESOURCES: WHY WE NEED PLAY IN SCHOOL

BOOKS

• Let the Children Play: How More Play Will Save Our Schools and Help Children Thrive. Sahlberg and Doyle. 2019
• Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life Gray. 2013
• Power of Play: How Spontaneous, Imaginative Activities Lead to Happier, Healthier Children. Elkind. 2007
• A Child’s Work: The Importance of Fantasy Play. Paley. 2004

ARTICLES

• “A proposal for what post-coronavirus schools should do (instead of what they used to do).” Sahlberg and Doyle. Washington Post. April 2020
• “Kids Need Play and Recess. Their Mental Health May Depend on It.” Hynes. Ed Week. Aug. 2018
• “From Playing to Play Advocacy: An Interview with Olga S. Jarrett “Journal of Play. Winter 2019
• “A Research-based Case for Recess.” Position paper from the US Play Coalition, American Association for the Child’s Right to Play (IPA/USA) and the Alliance for Childhood. 2019.

PODCASTS

• FreshEd Podcast: Let the Children Play (Pasi Sahlberg and William Doyle) Dec 2 2019
• WBAI’s Talk Out of School: “Whole Child Education and the importance of play” Feb 5 2020
• KQED Mindshift: “Childhood As ‘Resume Building’: Why Play Needs A Comeback” Sept 3 2019

Pasi Sahlberg, William Doyle, and other researchers: Thank you for defending the rights of children!

New Hampshire’s state motto is ”Live Free or Die.” For reasons explained in this article, New Hampshire became a magnet for libertarians whose goal was to abolish government. Last year, The New Republic published a delightful article by Patrick Blanchfield about Grafton, New Hampshire, a town that went libertarian and was soon overrun by a hungry and bold bear population. Certain conveniences are sacrificed in a town, and now a state, where the highest ideal for large numbers of people is the lowest possible taxes.

While Grafton strived to be a Free Town, free of regulations, with low taxes, and a limited government. other libertarians had a bigger dream: to turn NewHampshire into a Free State. The article cited here describes this project and attributes it to a young academic named Jason Sorens. His idea was that a relatively small number of libertarian activists could move to a small state, take over its government, and implement their ideas. it has happened in New Hampshire. The libertarians now control the Republican Party, which controls the state.

In 2003, libertarians formed the NH Liberty Alliance, which rates legislators based on their adherence to libertarian principles.

The Liberty Alliance has since shed its nonpartisan guise to become the dominant bloc within the House Republican caucus. This year, the alliance gave 150 representatives “A“ grades and another 45 received a “B” for voting as recommended on between 87 and 100 percent of 49 tracked bills. All were Republicans.

In fact, among House Republicans, only eight received the lowest score. In other words, 195 members of the caucus, which numbered 213 when the session began and 211 when it ended, aligned themselves closely with the alliance. The “nonpartisan” alliance has placed itself at the forefront of the partisan contest.

Meanwhile, of the 177 Democrats, 18 were given a “D” grade and 24 received an “F,” while the other 135 were graded “CT,” or “constitutional threat,” and “considered unfaithful to their oath of office to uphold the New Hampshire Constitution and the principle of liberty.”

Candidates endorsed by the Liberty Alliance have received financial support from national political committees — Make Liberty Win and Americans for Prosperity — which together spent some $1.4 million on New Hampshire legislative races in 2020.

Americans for Prosperity is the name of the Koch network.

“The liberty movement has made a lot of progress,” Sorens said, highlighting the reduction in both business and property taxes, repeal of the interest and dividends tax and introduction of an expansive school choice program in the last legislative session. He also pointed to legislation repealing the certificate of need process, granting the right to carry a firearm without a license, deregulating home-schooling, reforming civil asset forfeiture, restricting eminent domain, decriminalizing marijuana possession, allowing medicinal marijuana and easing regulation of micro- and nanobreweries.