When I was a
child, I knew I wanted to write and I wanted to be a teacher. Little did I know
the convoluted journey my life would become and the unconventional ways I would
meet both of these aspirations.
I did not pursue
the traditional teacher’s route but worked in any different aspects of business
throughout my 20s and 30s, elements of which I have applied throughout my
career since. Being involved in business from the bottom up, including being
part of a team that built and managed an arts-in-education nonprofit agency,
has taught me a great deal of the nuts and bolts of an organization and
building a constituency, as well as serving those people who benefit.
As an
independent artist educator for the past 12 years, I have been in countless
classrooms at every grade level. Over the past 6 years, I have been
writer-in-residence in the Middletown Extended Central School District in
Orange County, NY, serving two elementary schools, two middle schools, and one
high school as an element of their district-wide literacy initiative. In
addition, I have been in residence in two to five other districts annually for
nearly 10 years. I have averaged a teaching practice of nearly 2,000 students
and 70 teachers and teaching assistants in K-12 environments annually since
2006. I have also been active in designing and implementing school day and
after school programming, as well as a considerable amount of professional
development for educators, both within the duties with my agency as a program director
and as an independent consultant to school districts and community-based
organizations.
I have been
listening to teachers copiously. Teachers are the key to student success but
now teachers are expected to perform many duties well beyond their expectation
when they graduate from a school of education. The climate is challenging and
the demands are tremendous. But teachers are passionate about their students
and the process of learning. Teachers also model life-long learning.
If we are
expecting our students to succeed, we need to fully support their teachers with
the resources and tools to meet that expectation. Quality workshops,
comprehensive accessibility to new methods, media innovations, peer mentoring,
a way to gauge and assess one’s own practice and learn from others are all
essential. Additionally, the way a teacher develops his/her teaching practice
is best supported by the mentoring of those with experience and demonstrated
success of their own. The seasoned teacher shares and supports those new to the
field and the new teachers bring an enthusiasm that can be a “booster shot” for
the educator with many years in the classroom, along with new developments in
the field.
We are also
faced with a change of the classroom environment that is the result of the
technological/digital evolution of the past 10 – 15 years. Proficiency in core
content is necessary but how we deliver the lessons has changed in many ways.
The need to train and support teachers, even those who are fully confident with
all aspects of digital media, so that teachers are able to guide and prepare
our youth for the world they encounter on the other side of the wall is vital
to success as well.
In addition,
with the current rhetoric in community and the political arena, community
engagement in our schools has never been more crucial. Funding sources beyond
the local, state, and federal funding for schools must be identified and
maximized. Allies among the citizens of our communities must be fostered to
protect our schools and their purpose, which is to develop our children into
competent, informed, critical thinkers, citizens who will steer our communities
in the years ahead, who will build and this nation as we move forward. It is
more than the scope and sequence of learning, it is the wonder of discovery that
teachers seed in their students. We need to also support that wonder and thirst
in our teachers so they have the fuel they need to continue entering their
classrooms with the enthusiasm than is transmitted to the young ones before
them daily. The future sits in those desks. The future deserves the best and
teachers deserve the ability to realize their own full capability as the
foundation for that future.
Our nation needs
to return to trusting that teachers are actually the best gauges of learning in
their classrooms and that they are trained professionals who deserve respect
for their career choices. Teachers know how to teach and are successful when
consistently supported with adequate funding, resources, environments, and
professional development. Changing the rules every few years, imposing testing
schedules that seriously limit instruction time, and limiting creative inquiry
in the classroom create tension in both students and teachers, which I believe
is at the heart of the perceived failure of our schools, not the tenure
process. It is short-sighted to think that the current national movement is an
adequate solution to the problem and that teachers are the cause. Not enough of
the decision makers in public education or the politicians have the experience
of teaching within the constraints they create and legislate, nor do they
understand the pressures in today's classrooms and/or what a child at any age
may bring in with them from the home and the outer world. We must provide
teachers the scaffold they need to shine and, in turn, for their students to do
so. It takes each and every one of us to accomplish this lofty goal but I
believe it is possible.
