Teachers Foster the Future

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.

Open Letter to Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education

Dear Secretary Duncan:

First, I would like to congratulate you on your appointment. I trust the intention and knowledge of President Obama enough to believe that your selection for this post is the best option in his opinion; therefore, I look forward to change that you will institute to support our students and teachers, our communities, and bring them out of the current doldrums. The frustration is high among our teachers and school administrators at all levels. This frustration is also evident in many students as a result.

I am a professional teaching artist specializing in the art of poetry. I visit schools as poet in residence, generally for 3 - 5 days of contact with students in any given classroom. I have built my practice on the premise that the elements of poetry support literacy and reading comprehension in a complementary approach to the learning, with hands-on activities to reflect not just reading and writing skills but retention of material from other core content areas.

I am in contact with a great diversity of schools. Just this year, I visited 10 schools among five districts throughout New York State. I worked with approximately 70 educators in classrooms that spanned grade levels 2 through 12.  I have instructed and created poetry with nearly 2,000 students in this academic year. 

There are commonalities I have noticed among these schools, although they range from middle class suburban to very small rural, to deep inner city. Many of the schools, despite location, are Title I schools with a high percentage of free and reduced lunch (and breakfast) recipients. There are issues that affect learning in a multitude of ways. The burden to deal with them all falls on the teacher. The teacher is not just the educator imparting curriculum on their brains, they are parent, social worker, therapist, disciplinarian, nurse, entertainer.

If the child is struggling, even failing, the fault will most frequently fall on the teacher, no matter what the teacher has done in the classroom to teach the youth sitting in the desks before her/him. Many of our children have been failed by society in general and parents in particular.  There is a literacy crisis in America. The teachers are up against the wall with it and being held responsible for it. And from my perspective, No Child Left Behind has exacerbated the problem tenfold rather than solved it.

We are losing veteran educators. We are not attracting enough new talent. We do not have an educational environment that encourages creative, engaging, effective educational practices. We do have a lot of stress and resentment within the walls of America's schools.

We also have a huge budget crisis that causes teachers to pay for many supplies from their own pocket in order to best serve their students and, I might note, none of them earns anything in the order of the lowest paid NBA athlete.

I have known teachers who work in districts that cannot afford classroom sets of textbooks so they have to photocopy lessons for the classes; at the same time, there are limits to the number of copies each teacher can make each school year so they have to carefully choose which lesson plans to teach. Most teachers are regular shoppers at the Dollar Store, Office Max, Staples, Walmart, Target, KMart, buying construction paper, pens, pencils, notebook paper, erasers, scissors, chart paper, sometimes their own markers and chalk for instruction. They provide tissues, hand sanitizer, lotion, bandages for small cuts, art supplies, and books to augment the school's resources.  They also purchase many snacks because students are hungry, often very hungry. It is the teacher who pays for the granola bars, the pretzels, the cheese cracker/peanut butter packs. They may even buy water or fruit. These are generally not reimbursable expenses.

As a visiting artist, I always travel with a box of pens and pencils and extra paper to share with students. I collect every hotel pen or freebie at conferences to replenish my supply and I also raid the Dollar Store regularly. I keep erasers handy, along with tissues.

I hear a great deal in the media about how the Stimulus Package is going to be divvied up. I suggest that one of the first efforts that would move the economy forward would be to mail a check to every teacher working in public schools ($500 for middle class schools, $1000 for Title I schools and other struggling districts) as reimbursement for what they are spending from their own pockets. Teachers love their students and strive to support them fully. If you gave each of them a Stimulus check, I guarantee you that most of it would go right back into the economy (and support sales taxes) as they shop in the office supply and general stores of our nation to restock for the 2009-10 school year. 

Please consider this option seriously. I know that the teachers of this great country would not only appreciate the rebate but it might help them feel that there is hope in the future that an environment will exist that values education, our youth, and the talents of those who commit their lives and hearts to teaching.

Thank you for the courtesy of considering my thoughts. I wish you well with all your endeavors on behalf of American citizens and our schools.

Georgia A. Popoff

Community Poet/Teaching Artist

Syracuse, New York