Every day I meet myself in a myriad of moments. In one I am a confident, enthusiastic educator, in another I am a washed up teacher. In one I love the simplicity of small town New England, in the next I long for a more energized life in a bigger city. It is like Peter and I are both in that precarious moment before birth when we must select our souls. If we choose poorly, we may be condemned to a life of frustration and failure (maybe that's what's happened). The right identity may lead us to success and happiness.
All this choosing is killing me. And the irony is we don't actually have any viable options yet.
People tell me I shouldn't give up, I should follow my calling, I am a teacher. But I am left wondering what a "teacher" exactly is. I feel the profession transforming, disintegrating, and I must admit that I may not want to have anything to do with it.
I had wanted to guide, inspire, play, explore, think, examine, question, grow with my students. That is what I find enjoyable and satisfying and wonderful about teaching. I am not fond of training them. Training them to behave is one thing. It is necessary. But training them to do everything is boring.
I actually heard my principal say to a fifth grade colleague yesterday, "It's actually quite robotic," as she described a lesson on constructed responses to NECAP questions. (note: she has never taught elementary school. note: we are required to teach these NECAP responses until the end of the school year.)
Two mornings ago the same principal popped on the loud speaker (in the middle of Morning Meeting, no warning, no apology) and read a quote. A poem in honor of Poetry Month? A line from Maya Angelou or Eleanor Roosevelt or e.e. cummings? No. "The sentence is the battering ram to get in the door to college." From a "book called Strong Instruction (or something like that) published in 2008. Keep using those sentences, boys and girls. And have a good day." I had no idea what to say. We went back to sharing characteristics of notable women from our biographies.
If I hadn't been pushed off the bridge, I would probably be thinking of jumping.
Maybe it is time to be born again... into a new skin.
2 comments:
There is no question that this is not the right place for you. Perhaps you should be grateful that they have severed this relationship prematurely, so you didn't continue down this path. No one should interrupt instruction with a stupid quote about sentences and testing. That is just idiocy.
I brought you up in a conversation yesterday with a national consultant who is marvelous and creative and dangerous who is helping us think about building our middle grades. I said that I worry that what we are doing is increasingly all too rare and that maybe we really need to think about defending the borders of our school so that we can survive the next 10 years until the pendulum swings aback another way. She said that that was probably true. I said that I knew young, amazing, creative people who were becoming teachers and were discouraged by what the expectations were for them,and she said she sees that all over the place too. Not just in urban districts but in "successful" suburban schools. We talked about fear.
You are an educator. I can attest to that myself. Perhaps you aren't a school teacher if teaching is becoming more about training. But you are a wonderful nurturer of other people's creativity, expression and intellect. I suspect that many/ most people spend most of their lives finding the right place to put themselves -- you will find one or more -- you have already found and created the right family which is no small task or contribution.
Thing are constricting. We must stick together and find little corners to gather in and do what we know is right. Without creativity there is no justice because we just limit people's ability to imagine a different world. You know that so you are already ahead of the game. Not a comfortable place to be, perhaps, but there it is.
Okay, no more coffee for me.
my heart hurts for you. similar to the deal here, in too many ways. please know you're loved and smart, despite all indications to the contrary from that one entity. doesn't make it easier, probably , but do want you to know that you are good, good, good in so many ways. better than good. far better.
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