I'm a remote learning kindergarten teacher this year. In my district, this means that I will still report to my school building each day, but will teach students from my classroom via Loom, Google Classroom, and pre-recorded content videos while other teachers' students join them for face to face instruction on campus. My new classroom is a teaching space that would never in a million years be able to support all of the materials, furniture, decor and experiences that my previous room did, but I selected some essentials that remained with me in the building while everything else was brought home. I hope to be able to mount my laptop (camera) on a swivel stand in the middle of the circle, so as I move from location to location, all I have to do is check for focus and framing, without trying to finagle the right height for my laptop in each location, risking gravity's inevitable assertion.
Here's the "before:"
I've arranged my classroom into three areas. The first is my instructional "circle," which includes in a clockwise rotation my SMART Board, a reading table, bins full of ELA and math manipulatives that can be displayed via projection provided by a document camera, an art easel for painting and craft table for demonstrations/tutorials, and a big book, calendar and story time area next to a cart that is positioned next to the SMART Board. The second is my office area, complete with desk, second monitor that can be hooked up to my laptop, my bulletin board and curriculum storage, and a large table that I can use to sort consumables, create work packets (hopefully), and spread out curriculum guides or other bulky items if needed. The last area is the real estate for my bulletin board displays and other visuals such as anchor charts and dry erase surfaces.
Here's the view from my desk (my SMARTBoard is against the far wall, past the big book stand and storytime easel):
I've been keeping half of the room's lights off and the projector of the SMARTBoard dimmed this past week in an attempt to keep the room as cool as possible. Even with the help of two oscillating fans, I haven't been able to get it cooler than seventy-three degrees, which, no joke, is almost ten degrees hotter that I like any room to be. There are no quilts or lots of puppets and stuffed animals in my room now because we need to minimize the amount of fabric and other porous surfaces into which I and other visitors to my room may come into contact, but the bulletin boards are prepared and surfaces are decorated as they would be if my students were going to be with me in-person. I plan to photograph our sound wall, a display of our 7 Habits, our sixty Power Words, our math vocabulary wall (it's taped to cabinetry), and the front of our room in case a Bitmoji-style room isn't allowed for reference on a Google Site or in Google Classroom. Even if our building is closed again like it was last spring, I should be able to use the pictures I've taken as reference materials online.
To the right of my desk, behind the instructional circle is a long table, rolling cart, and bulletin board/tub storage. I anticipate this area will end up full of math workbooks, packets, and whatever other resources I might be providing to my students. Because there's a huge bulletin board in this area, I've put up a sound wall that I can easily photograph for my students' reference. All of my ELA book tubs are stored within easy reach, though I don't know yet if my students will be able to borrow and use books at home, or if they'll only have access to them digitally.
Though I'm hoping I'll be able to teach effectively for the school year from within this classroom, I'm setting up an instructional closet area at home in my craft room should our buildings be closed again like they were in the spring. Over-prepared is better than under-prepared, right?
This year my classroom won't be full of students or their work, creative constructions, or seasonal crafts. It will be odd, and even uncomfortable. I'll be hearing other children and colleagues as they pass by my classroom each day and it will be an adjustment to only interact with my own students via a screen with little if any time in each other's presence. It will be refreshing yet unusual to eat my lunch and snacks and drink my water outside for as many days as it is possible. It will be uncomfortable, worrying about what might be in the air all around me indoors, and what I might bring home with me each day.
No, I cannot take a year without pay. I'm at least fifteen years away from retirement.
Vigilance. Grace. Hope. Patience. "Preparedness."
I'm not sure they, or my organizational efforts, will be enough.
Today was the first day of my twenty-fifth year in the classroom.
I wore my mask on my face and a button with my face on it. Upon admittance to the building and my classroom, I found tables and desks set up spaced six feet apart with all of the other furniture pushed against the walls and stacked upon cabinetry. After early morning PD, I was sent back to the room (will I be teaching here in a month, or stationed elsewhere as a remote learning instructor? Who knows.), ate lunch, and then started my assignment: determine what remaining furniture, if any, could still be used, and remove all of my own personal belongings and all cloth items from the room. Furniture to be stored had to be labeled and put in a central location within the classroom so it wouldn't clog up the hallway.
I might have been able to maintain some semblance of stoicism for the remainder of the afternoon, but a dear friend walked into my room, and it was all I could do to not sob. After drying some tears (crying and having one's nose run behind a mask is NOT an ideal situation), I pushed through to problem-solving mode: what do I need to keep? What must I send to storage? What must I take home? How can I provide visual cues to students (who I may or may not have in-person) so they know where to keep their very moveable individual desks (one solution would be Sit Spots on the floor, one marking the upper right desk leg and the other marking the lower-left desk leg) as we attempt to maintain social distancing requirements?
But being the first day of my twenty-fifth year of teaching, I recognized that I am being required to do exactly what I have fought doing for my entire career: I must work against my students' very nature, coach and praise them against how they learn best, and constantly redirect them from their very selves. And if I manage to do it "successfully," I know that there are other teachers and possibly even administrators who would find the arrangement of kindergarten students sitting face-forward in straight rows for seven hours each day at desks ideal, even desirable post-pandemic. I'm experiencing a pedagogical crisis.
Here is the furniture to be removed:
Goodbye art cart. Goodbye alphabet rug.
Goodbye Dramatic Play/"House" Center.
Goodbye lightbox, Lego table, and painting easel.
Goodbye reading table. Goodbye Play-Doh table, and math table, and writing center table.
Goodbye discovery table with the roadway on one side of the flippable topper and a farm scene on the other.
The wooden barn and dollhouse will sit high atop the upper cabinetry, stored, but not out of sight. Students will wonder why they are there, and why they are out of reach. If I'm not reassigned, my class set of scoop seats will join the barn and dollhouse. So will whatever extras might fit that we won't be allowed to use... but students will see them. And wonder.
As for the personal belongings that I have to bring home, here's the first load:
Kindergarten will have no resting mats.
No storytime chair. No mini couch or chairs.
No shopping cart. No puppets, no apple basket tree to hold them.
No stuffed animals to "buddy read" to.
No balance beam. No stepping stones. No sensory bin.
No side table for plants or book displays.
No rolling cart for lunch box and snack bag collection.
Kindergarten not being kindergarten is supposed to pass as a solution this year, but a developmentally inappropriate learning environment will never be the correct answer.
Each summer, I'm usually sharing photos of my classroom set up right about now, or posting some tutorials on bulletin board creation, and of course, gushing over my fresh, new teacher planner. This year, I'm at home, with bedhead, my second cup of still-hot coffee steaming next to me on my nightstand and the smell of Clorox kitchen cleaner wafting down the hallway listening to the whirring of the dishwasher, fully loaded and running at 8:30 a.m.
I briefly considered joining my district's COVID-19 task force/re-opening schools committee two weeks ago (they're meeting this week), but decided that I wanted and deserved a break with a little bit of "real summer" leftover to try to enjoy after a workshop I took came to a close. Changes at my building and our state's back-to-school calendar mean that convocation and first few days of PD could be fairly interesting, but it's the sitting and waiting to hear about what the framework of my district's remote learning plan might look like that is preventing me from turning my brain off and attention toward other much less stressful pursuits. The committee is plowing through a lot of content and putting their creative selves to the test. I wish I could bake them all cookies.
In May, I volunteered to be on the staff for any digital academy or distance learning that we might offer because 1) I didn't believe we'd be back in brick and mortar schools, or if we were, that we'd stay there long and 2) I fall into a high-risk category for coronavirus complications. As it turns out, the pandemic and virus did indeed continue on their merry way, causing problems and necessitating adjustments, despite many of my neighbors' disbelief that any entity would dare to work counter to their plans and schedules. I still do not know if I'll be expected to teach face to face, face to face and have my instruction live-streamed (a ridiculous format for kindergarten), face to face with an extended day schedule for half of my class and the remainder of the afternoon after early dismissal creating and sharing virtual lessons and instruction for the second half (easily double or more the workload, especially if diverted to sub in another classroom), remote only using Seesaw and other digital platforms/curriculum tools and restrictive rules implemented last spring, and if teaching remotely, working from home or within some other office elsewhere so that I can help multiple grade levels with planning instead of just kindergarten, all while trying to not be pulled right back into the danger zones of in-person meetings and step-in substitute duties that prompted me to volunteer for remote instruction in the first place.
I'm looking forward to having an answer to the questions I have about where to invest my time, and frankly, money too. Do I start shopping around for an oversized dry erase board, green screen cloth, mini-desk, bookshelves, comfortable rolling chair, storage tubs for all of my belongings and classroom library still at school, and repaint a wall in the guest bedroom? Do I completely reorganize my storage to accommodate all of my gear, which includes classroom furniture and toys, and if so, when do I actually go in to pack it all up and haul it home? If I'm going to have to work in an office, when do I get to pull my necessities and then pack up and store the rest? Do I make and buy more masks and a visor? Do I need to stock up on wipes and hand sanitizer, none of which is available in town, and when it appears in other stores is limited to one item per customer and incredibly overpriced requiring extra gas and extended exposure to others? Do I purchase scrub-type clothing? I spent a lot of money to pay for my summer workshop... will I be allowed to use any of the tools and resources I learned about? What do I have that I can donate to the cause to help my colleagues and their students? Do I create age-appropriate mask-wearing posters, or create Wakelet boards of tutorials for how to create Bitmoji classrooms? I'm not panicked. I'm anxious.
A former colleague told me in May that we shouldn't plan anything, and just wait and see what the state decides and what our district decides in the fall, because "you never know." Yes, yes, you can know. You can know that a pandemic occurs over a wide geographic area and affects an exceptionally high proportion of the population. You can do some research and can come to know that pandemics don't operate via collaboration with businesses' calendars for the fiscal year, and you can infer that preparation for change is necessary. That many parents are now turning on teachers, those same teachers with whom they partnered and praised last year, demanding that we take their children back after purposely (even proudly) avoiding the mask-wearing and social distancing recommendations that could have made that very option viable makes me realize just how much of the population also believes in just waiting and seeing what happens rather than being proactive and making informed, not wild, guesses about the future. The instructors of my summer workshop anticipated that their content would be needed, and I'm terribly thankful that our state board of education created a committee that would address multiple schooling scenarios. I appreciate that the workshop opportunity was shared with me and that there are, indeed, options for my twenty-fifth year as an educator.
But wow. My internal clock and calendar are all thrown out of whack this year, which is uncomfortable for me as a confirmed creature of habit. This week is supposed to involve classroom furniture, bulletin boards, decor, and year-long calendar planning, followed by a website update, parent communication, and copies for August, September and October being sent to the printer. Then I bake and take in cookies for our custodians, my first week of school crafts are prepped, I attend PD while regularly checking on my ever-evolving class list, have lunch with the team, start grade level planning, and sprinkle in lots of peeking into classrooms to catch up and see how everybody's' summer went. I didn't get to do much of this preparation in person last year due to my surgery and didn't realize how much I had been looking forward to getting back into the groove until May when I realized the normal back-to-school routine wasn't going to be likely. After all of this summer's upheaval, and hopefully, as a "remote learning" teacher, I am looking forward to the start of the school year, even with its uncertainties. I need a routine, even if it means creating a new one. My days require structure so that I can develop habits that make it possible for me to plan a schedule. I'll know when I'm working, and I'll look forward to my off-hours. My brain will disengage and allow itself some other pursuits because the foundation will be firmly built and I will be able to rely upon it.
Peeking in on new teachers' groups I've joined via social media isn't really helping my mood.
All teachers are concerned about their students' health and welfare if they continue to have to stay at home without food, without access to the internet (or reliable internet) and digital devices, and where abuse and neglect occur. Some teachers are MORE concerned about those students than their own health, which I understand: that's the default setting for almost all of us.
Other teachers (even after considering school shootings and other crimes) are for the first time adding their health, their lives, and the lives of their families to the same side of the scale, joining, not dismissing or demeaning their students' needs. For many teachers, this is a first, a precedent in our careers. Not every teacher who needs to stay home will have the option to do so. Not every student who needs socialization will get it in socially distanced classrooms.
When teachers get sick (and we will), our substitutes, if available, won't first be looking for signs of abuse or neglect and it's possible that they may not teach to the standard of a veteran educator. When children get sick (and they will, if they don't come to school on the very first day asymptomatic or symptomatic and medicated to mask it), they'll have to have digital back-up resources provided not only in an attempt to keep them connected and learning, but to provide districts data that demonstrate they deserve to retain their accreditation. Why not start digitally for everyone, then use those color-coded district plans in reverse, as we acknowledge the surge in cases that is currently happening (red), achieve some flattening (yellow) and then get the clear-as-it's-going-to-get status proven by study and research (green)?
Trying to pick one side of this debate over the other ignores that there may be yet three more angles and options of which we're unaware or unwilling to explore simply because we are fixated upon a first-day-of-school date that should be just as sacrificial as traditional high school graduation ceremonies were. Sacrifices hurt, but I cannot teach if I've on a ventilator or dead. It's incorrect to label instinctual self-preservation as only selfish.
It's summer and this is the week traditionally when I would be back in my classroom arranging furniture, freshening up bulletin board displays, pulling stuffed animals, manipulatives, journals, tubs, books and other items from cabinetry and sitting down at my reading table to take a break, eat lunch, and survey the progress. There's usually music playing through the surround-sound speaker system, my door is wide open for colleagues to come through if any are around, and it's either sunny and hot or storming like crazy outside my classroom windows, making me wonder if I'll be navigating around downed trees once I leave the building. Even last year after my surgery my teenager was able to help me sort through things and prep. An angel of a colleague arranged all of my furniture so I wouldn't strain myself.
Last week I got to see a video of my classroom, completely cleaned, and that same old urge automatically kicked in. I wanted to walk back inside, stand immediately within the door, and just look, slowing scanning my room from left to right, up and down, and back again. Bookcase, SMART Board, dry erase board, check. Calendar, storytime chair, book display, ELA tubs, check. Word wall, student chairs, writing table, center toys, check. Apple basket stand for puppets, dramatic play kitchen set, baby doll cradle, math bulletin board, check. Bookcase, round math table, manipulatives, rolling cart, check. Art cart, desktop laminator, paint, glue, crates of craft mock-ups sorted by month, check. Easel, play-doh table, carpet, sink, paint rack, Pete the Cat sitting in a wreath gifted to me by a Super Star family, check. Handwashing station, birthday bulletin board display, and way up high, above all of the built-in cabinetry, tchotchkes and keepsakes accumulated from over two decades of teaching in Alaska, New Mexico, and Kansas... check. Door to a shared workroom/storage space, teacher desk, cabinetry, student lockers and cubbies, dollhouse table, check. Rolled up carpets and students' tables stacked, rolling cart used for storage and at the end of each year- except for this year- yearbook distribution... check. Hooks hanging from clear fishing wire. Check. I can imagine the laughter and buzz of students talking as my eyes track across our spaces.
I have also had the incredible urge to walk back into the classroom, empty all of the furniture into the hallway and shared space at the rear of the room where the bathrooms and iPad carts are located, measure out the actual floor space, and start pulling tables and chairs back into the room to measure some more and get a feel for what six feet apart all facing the same direction feels and looks like. Tables and chairs have been in a wagon wheel or flower petal arrangement for several years now, which can't happen now. My go-to, when faced with a problem or situation requiring modifications and solutions, is to move furniture and be creative, taking inventory of what I have, and imagining new ways of using it all. I've been watching all summer and have been seeking out photos and information about schooling and classroom arrangements shared by teachers from all around the world. Articles and tweets about the happiness of being reunited with students, the smell of disinfectant permeating the air and face coverings, the adjustment being more difficult for adults than children and the touchy-feely declarative posts of "I just have to be here no matter what" do nothing to reduce my urges to cry or feel nauseous.
I've wondered if plexiglass dividers would work across the middle of each of my student tables, and should they be too expensive if creating dividers using clear shower curtain liners, PVC pipe and foam strips for a gasket-type seal would serve instead. I've wondered if I need to replace the fabric curtains that cover most of my lower cabinetry with vinyl or plastic of some sort, so they're easier to clean. I've purchased Ziploc baggies with sliders and plastic lidded containers with divided sections of various sizes to see if they'd be efficient and easy for kindergarteners to access and store math manipulatives daily. I've priced individual book totes in anticipation of students not being able to select, share or trade books to look through. I've purchased new tongs, long and short, for selecting items from bins without using our hands and for picking up the tissues, disposable masks and other garbage that will end up on the floor or left on desks. I've tried different masks and bought safety glasses to see if there is any combination that isn't overly uncomfortable, sweat producing, or too scary for young children. I've bought masks with our school mascot on them. I've ordered new sit spots shaped like stars and colored carpet tape for delineating spaces and suggesting traffic patterns.
Despite all of these deeply ingrained habits and urges, my instinct, just as it did in May, continues to tell me to stay away from the classroom. Guidance about social distancing aside, it's always been my job to create a learning environment that appeals to young children, that communicates our classroom is a safe space to which they should want to return day after day and that parents also find reassuring. I could shift decor and manipulatives to all laminated, disinfectant-friendly items. But the safety implied, if it could effectively be so without our puppets and stuffed animals and shared spaces and hugs, would be a lie. Acting-as-if and putting on a brave face aren't markers of professionalism during a pandemic, despite society believing them sufficient in the case of fires, tornados, earthquakes and school shootings.
It's not lost on me that my money might have been better spent on purchasing a large dry erase board to help set up space at home from which I could teach, no masks required. But as usual, my instinct and urge have been to anticipate and prepare for the worst while hoping for the best. I just wish the worst wasn't so very, very bad this year.
Like many people lately, I have been doing the work of examining and re-examining my position and roles within the society to which I belong, unwilling to be a passive observer of the pain of others, unwilling to look away, and certainly unwilling to claim that the realities of inequality are in any way overblown or "fake news." Continuing to social-distance, I've watched protests and rallies on the television and followed the tweet-reporting of news outlets and citizen journalists, focusing in on hashtags close to home from the places where I shop, eat, socialize, and work. I've read articles and posts such as "75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice" by Corinne Shutack, grateful to discover links to additional news outlets such as Blavity and The Root to help broaden my perspective. Not much of this process has been terribly pretty, and despite whatever expression I'm wearing in photos or videos that I've shared or tone I've expressed on social media over the past two weeks, I've been a blotchy, red-nosed and swollen-eyed crier. My heart hurts, and there is a large part of me that is very glad that it does.
During an education-related Twitter chat I shared and attended yesterday, I responded to several prompts and content provided by the moderators related to societal racism and teachers' roles in helping to dismantle it by being allies and actively identifying themselves as "anti-racists." Participants shared resources, experiences, ideas, and responded to and asked a lot of tough questions in an effort to better recognize, understand, and change, if necessary, pedagogical practices that allow and support ongoing racism within our nation's classrooms and schools. Participants demonstrated transparency, expressed emotions, articulated their hopes and intentions, and for the most part, met one another (as we know to do with students) right where one another was at. But I have found Twitter chats (like many other social media platforms) to be an awkward framework, especially when full-fledged discussions are better supported by time, space and within face-to-face venues. No one yields the floor, and you have to know how to open another column (if using Tweetdeck) or directly tweet an individual or small group while effectively and efficiently using the remaining numbers of text characters available to try to make your point or explain your thoughts. And if the topic is as emotionally charged as it was for this particular chat, honest yet carefully selected words can still open up a potential can of worms if someone feels motivated to respond with a tweet that attempts to read as a polite challenge while failing to avoid sounding like an outright rebuke.
During one portion of the chat we were asked to respond to the following prompt and questions:
Heavy, deliberate, and necessary questions to reflect upon, right? And considering the constraints of the platform, an opportunity ripe for misunderstandings, judgment, and unsolicited advice. Understanding the moderators' intentions in selecting the topic and asking such pointed questions, I didn't feel baited and chose to participate in the chat in order to dialogue with other educators about ways that we could help to dismantle racism. Me being me (more on that below), I replied that I didn't consider myself racist, and added that "I am not as knowledgable about other global cultures and nationalities as I could be. I consider people all part of the human race, but I could definitely benefit from more discourse, travel & reading to broaden myself." Later in the evening, I found that that particular tweet had the following responses. 1. "I don't know you and I'm not calling you racist... just thought I would gently point out that most people who are in fact, racist, don't consider themselves as racist" and 2. "...white and white passing folx [sic] need to also realize not racist is a neutral state- we need to strive to be anti-racist."
During the chat I didn't try to misrepresent myself, I didn't portray myself as a person who was going to insist upon straddling some fence of neutrality over the topic of racism, and I never suggested that only actions like the ones I planned to utilize would be effective within our classrooms and schools. I didn't describe myself using the label "anti-racist" but I also didn't suggest that I would be uncomfortable if anyone else felt like describing me using the phrase. Though I didn't experience some new revelation about racism to which I was previously unaware prior to the chat, I contributed where I could, gladly stockpiling the links and resources shared by others for further examination. I replied to the authors of the comments politely and sincerely. But the comments continued to bother me, and I wondered what the motivation had been behind them. I felt bothered because:
While I am the daughter of a woman and a man, I have been "the product" of a white woman who slept with someone not white my entire life. Raised for my first ten years in Texas, I spoke English like my mother and some Spanish like my friends, but not Inupiaq like my father's parents. I was raised in El Paso, Texas, Barrow (now Utqiaġvik), Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska, and Delta Junction, Alaska. I preferred enchiladas over muktuk, corn over spinach and okra, duck soup over chicken noodle. I didn't (and still don't) prepare indigenous foods from my native culture, but loved smoked salmon and thought Eskimo doughnuts (fry bread) were better than funnel cakes but not my mother's homemade baked bread. Despite the opinions of others who lived in the diverse communities in which I was raised, my identity was my own and my non-traditional upbringing worked for me. My childhood was enough, and I am not ashamed of it.
I like jewelry, clothing, adornments, accessories. I like the sparkly stuff, the fluffy stuff, and the stuff with interesting patterns and textures. I like the washable, the dry-cleanable, the handmade and the repurposed. I enjoy music: classical, folk, 80s rock, 70s pop, Tony Bennett's and Lady Gaga's duets, Reba and Garth generation country, global instrumentals, Eskimo rhythmic drumming and Christmas standards. I seek out new-to-me music often. I enjoy exploring diverse literary and film genres but have my favorites: kids' books, science fiction, intellectual humor, fantasy, song lyrics and some poetry. I have a thing for Marcrest dishes (the divided vegetable bowls especially), Noritake china and plastic Tupperware lunch trays. My preferences are my own, they are enough, and I am not ashamed of them.
I became aware early on that I was too brown for some and too white for others and I have spent most of my life being told that I'm a woman who "can pass." I have been given a good talkin' to by parents, community members, colleagues and even strangers for "not speaking my language," which they all assume(d) is Spanish. I have been called out by high school classmates for "trying to pass as Native when we all know you're half black." I have been hit on by men who thought it was charming to greet me with "Well hello, my little Latin Lupe." I have been told I'm not Eskimo because "they're not even a real thing." I've been told I'm not white because "just look at your tan." I've had my hand grabbed by a man who, after having his wife cook and serve me a meal in their diner while he asked me questions such as "What are you?" and "Which half of you is native?" decided that he should congratulate me afterward with "Honey, it works for you." I was supposed to smile and be gracious at the granting of this seal of approval too, which I failed to deliver. It has been explained to me on more than one occasion that I've been hired to fulfill an affirmative action quota and not because I'm highly qualified, and I've been identified as a token representative of my native culture by some colleagues while others can't bring themselves to look me in the face if I'm wearing a kuspuk and mukluks as we pass one another in the hallway. As a mother, some of my children's' friends or parents have appeared momentarily startled upon meeting me, I'm guessing (perhaps wrongly) because they didn't know that my sons and daughter were passing. I watched Hispanic shop owners try hard to impress upon my mother that they were choosing to ignore her while multiple salespeople showered me with attention, and I've been told by native uncles and aunts that my grandparents told them that they shouldn't marry other natives because they weren't going to get anywhere unless they married whites. Most stereotypical attributes that have been assigned to me or assumed about me by self-appointed representatives of their own racial groups have been wrong. Despite others (all others, not just white others) trying to determine how to label me in order to identify where they feel I should be placed in the hierarchy of discrimination, my self has been enough, and I am not ashamed.
If asked, I identify myself as non-religious, but I am familiar with Christian faiths because of my exposure to them. I was baptized Episcopalian, attended Latter-day Saints services with the family of my mother's best friends, and have Catholic, Methodist, Jewish, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Jehovah's Witness, Baptist, agnostic and atheist friends and family. I collect religious icons, I do not pray, and I celebrate Christmas as a winter holiday, happily singing every verse to well-known non-secular and secular songs. I am not upset by well-wishers saying "Merry Christmas," "Blessed Holidays," or "Happy Solstice." I don't wear cross jewelry, nor do I find it attractive on others, no matter how dainty or bedazzled. I don't wear rings, charms, necklaces, bracelets or earrings shaped like or depicting nooses, electric chairs, guillotines, torturer's racks or lethal injections either: to me, crosses symbolize torturous deaths, not joyous rebirth. I don't believe saviors are necessary but I'm convinced that it's not my place or my right to insist that others abandon their deities or meditations about the universe: I've met people who have lost everything, and their faith is a lifeline. I have not felt inclined to explore any religion more deeply in an effort to better define my feelings about spirituality or the future. My reality is enough and I am not ashamed of it.
I take rude, inconsiderate, malicious behavior personally and I have a visceral, emotional reaction to it. I don't appreciate or approve of discrimination based on ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, age, or physical limitations, perhaps because I can empathize with those who have had and continue to endure it. While I don't consider myself racist, I'll admit I haven't met everyone on this planet and therefore can't tell you with one-hundred-percent certainty that I'd never recoil if I were ever to encounter some form of melanin that might disgust me or fill me with fear. Of the people within my immediate vicinity however, I can discern between which ones I want to spend more time with, and which ones I want to, forgive the pun, avoid like the plague. That discernment is not based upon skin color but behavior. If I have an eclectic taste in food, clothing, music, decor, literature and film genres, I think it's fair to extrapolate that there's more than a slight chance that I have diverse friends and family, too. My friendships are mine, and they are enough, and I am not ashamed of them.
I have long considered myself both a member of some type of square-peg-round-hole society and a continual work in progress. As I explore why I care how others describe or interpret my stance regarding racism, I'm faced with additional questions: Is my form of allyship enough? Is dialoguing with others, continuing to add representative literature to my classroom library, looking through curricular resources with a critical eye and modeling mutual respect as I continue to partner with those different from myself enough? Is caring for my diverse friends, family, students, colleagues and neighbors in my way enough, or are my actions only considered valuable and committed if I shout from the rooftops "I AM ANTI-RACIST?" None of the decisions I make as a teacher for my students or as a contributor to my profession are "neutral." To end systemic racism (and frankly all sorts of other -isms), don't we need all kinds of allies in all kinds of settings working toward a common goal? The loud and the quiet ones, the sitters and the standers and the marchers and the ones who make their family members change the channel to watch the protests when they'd rather play video games? The affirmers and the describers and the accusers and the ones willing to listen and to record and to persist in ways great and small? None of these allies' actions are "neutral."
It's not in my nature to relabel myself in an attempt to gain the approval of others and I strongly dislike superficially performative exercises. "Why wouldn't you want to call yourself an anti-racist, Michaele? It's a good thing." Why do people believe that they should dictate to me what I must or must not call myself, and how loudly or publicly I must do it? "What if we call you anti-racist?" Go right ahead. If anyone decides to describe me as a brunette-cookie-baking-crocheting-kindergarten-teacher-anti-racist, I don't have a problem with it.
Holding my students' hearts and minds in my hands is an essential part of my job as a kindergarten teacher, and trying to anticipate what changes, if any, I need to implement in order to support them as best I can is par for the course. Every summer I reflect upon the school year, plan for the start of the next teaching adventure, examine shifts in education and grow my pedagogy through professional development and Twitter chats with other teachers. But even if I could usually direct my attention to coursework and chores, this summer, this week, I cannot dismiss my feelings or pretend to be thick-skinned: I am raw right now. Though the women who responded to my tweet have no way of knowing all of me, they believe they are obligated to call out or "educate" others who may not immediately match their image of an ally. Their tweets may have served to affirm and proclaim their commitment as advocates and anti-racists in their minds, but the implication that somehow I was falling short felt akin to public shaming, which is not how to alter my choices, or likely, how best to create an ally.
Edit, June 11: Here is Dr. Ibram X. Kendi discussing anti-racism. Though the hardcover version of the book he co-authored with Jason Reynolds, Stamped, is on backorder, it is available via Kindle.
Yesterday I wrapped up my twenty-fourth year of teaching with one last visit to my school building (I had to deliver some yearbook payments that had been hastily grabbed from my mailbox on the day teachers were given a half-hour to grab essentials to help facilitate instruction from home), helped a fellow teacher take down her twinkle lights so she can transfer to another school in-district (we wore masks and I re-rolled the LED strands from six feet behind her), planned a very tentative instructional schedule with the remaining members of our grade-level team (two have left) during an informal and productive Zoom meeting from home, wrote and sent my last weekly newsletter to my Super Stars and their families, and held my last parent-teacher conference of the year before dinner, three hours after I technically stopped being my students' "official" teacher. A few last teacher-appreciation gifts made me smile:
This morning I woke at my normalish time, made coffee, and checked to see if there were any education Twitter chats planned but found my regulars on break for the Memorial Day weekend. For the past few years I've enjoyed #satchat and #sunchat get-togethers as transitions to the beginning of my summer break, but this year it seems I'm to dive right into my end-of-the-year reflection. I reread my self-check from the start of the year and found all of it to still ring true. The raw feelings of my last few posts since the stay-at-home order have started to heal and fade, and I remain determined to find some semblance of balance between my professional and home lives as I look forward to spending quality with my family, tending the food and flowers growing in my greenhouse and taking online courses addressing the creation of effective online teaching and content creation. No, no "summer off" for this teacher.
I'll update my district web page so that parents of my next class of Super Stars who go searching for sneaky-peeks into our classroom this summer are greeted warmly, and I'll undertake the Herculean task of cleaning up the desktop of both my school-issued and personal computers. I created so much content and didn't sort it effectively as I went along, and I don't want to risk throwing it all away with the possibility of still needing it during the upcoming year. I already took down the classroom props and essentials in my craft room to return it to what I hope will be a comfy and cozy creative space for my continued hobbying. I'm working on two afghans, plugging along on my goal of crocheting at least one big blanket per month. Last night I took a long soak in the tub and began reading Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane.
My family and I plan to continue to stay at home as much as possible and to socially-distance ourselves if and when we have to go out to run essential errands. Masked people are my people, but I've noticed far too many children, who, while accompanying their parents, cower in fear, like many kids do when faced with something or someone scary, as they encounter me in an aisle, or see me sitting in my vehicle waiting for my pick-up delivery. Some families aren't preparing their children for this new normal, so I anticipate creating and sharing content to help normalize mask-wearing for future students. If I see one too many "prevent the summer slide" or "fill curricular holes created by the pandemic" advertisements or even blog posts by fellow teachers, I'll probably get all ranty in an attempt to explain how no, children don't really shake their heads and erase everything they've encountered and explored like an Etch-a-Sketch pad, and yes, play really IS the best way for them to develop their awareness, knowledge, and interest in this world. Though I really would have enjoyed a longer break from taking college courses, the workshop I've applied for was frankly irresistible, since I'm a just-in-case person. With the likelihood that I'll need to continue to reimagine and modify my future students' learning environment, I want more resources and inspiration to help me creatively problem-solve.
With year twenty-five on the horizon, do I hope to remain a kindergarten teacher for the rest of my career? No. I would like to become a library media specialist and am waiting for the all-clear so that I can reschedule the taking of my PRAXIS. I'd pack up my teaching belongings in a heartbeat if I were offered a library in my district, even during a pandemic. Thankfully, I'm not feeling like a reluctant kindergarten whisperer: a year (or a few more) working exclusively with young children and their families doesn't fill me with dread- I will love them forever. But I do rather feel like I'm on autopilot, and my spirit is chomping at the bit for a new challenge and adventure in education. It's not abandonment or burnout, but a continuation of change and growth, and its possibilities excite me. Shouldn't we all get to feel that several times during our careers?
This year's class photo (and yearbook, when it finally arrives) will get filed away with the others from all of my years of teaching but will stand apart, no matter what. I can only hope that my students and their families, and my colleagues with whom I've traveled and taught over this quarter-century remain safe and healthy. But for now, it's time to go play in the dirt.
COVID19 has certainly been effective at throwing all sorts of systems and semblances of normalcy out the window. Creating new teaching environments, using new communication platforms and tools and completely reorganizing our days and routines are pretty weighty changes to experience in a short amount of time. While I wrap up week four of "instruction" and collaboration and problem-solving with all of my colleagues, be they grade-level or building teammates, building and district administrators, special education and other support staff, I know that some folks within the district are likely already beginning to anticipate any needs that parents, students, teachers and staff might have come the fall semester. Long-range planning happens every year, whether there is a pandemic or some other hurdle in play or not. No matter when their stay-at-home orders were enacted, other schools and other districts have started to do the same.
During many past springs, I pencil-planned for the upcoming year as soon as the finalized school calendar was published. I pencil-plan rather than ink-plan because I know that events will be rescheduled and our calendar will change. I'll find new resources, experience new jolts of inspiration, and have to be flexible for unanticipated accommodations. Nothing is set in stone despite the hope that everything will, in time, go according to the way I had both intended and hoped. Using a pencil indicates that it's a rough draft, the version that precedes the working draft. For many years the working draft got its fair share of White-Out dabbed across its pages, simply because I liked the glide of ink over the abrasion of pencil. Nowadays, I simply double-click on text, delete it, and revise data within the cell. Knowing that changes will inevitably happen has never caused me to rethink the merit of pencil-planning. It's another way for me to mentally map the foundational pieces I need and plan to implement for my students' benefit. I doubt I'll ever choose to fly-blind just waiting to be "surprised" during back-to-school PD. I can be informed now and pencil-plan so that future mandates don't throw me against the wall in August.
As the most veteran member of my grade-level team, and despite having missed the beginning of the year with them thanks to my late-summer surgery and extended recovery time, I am both formally required to act in a mentorship role and personally feel responsible for making myself and my experience regularly available to my colleagues. I have expanded my PLN over the years to include groups on Twitter and Facebook, and I have been fortunate to meet and learn from all sorts of wonderful early-childhood educators, college professors and library media specialists during my career and master's program. When I'm asked for help by a teacher in my building or one five states away via social media, I try to make sure to preface what I share with "use it or don't," so that my PLN can cherrypick the best of what I might be able to offer them while hopefully feeling the autonomy to make their own choices and to innovate, rather than pressure to comply and risk becoming a cookie-cutter teacher. I also believe in playing the role of devil's advocate in order to broaden thinking. Affirmation, agreement, and the feeling of being a contributory component of a trusted partnership where ideas can be shared, explored, or simply explained are essential emotions for members of any team or purposeful group to experience. I believe that a common goal for teams should be to balance harmony while avoiding tunnel-vision because being repeatedly blindsided by information that could have been shared earlier but wasn't results in wasted time, increased frustration, and eventual mistrust. Whether lurking or being actively involved in these conversations, I reap the benefit of diverse perspectives and the experiences of others. I am a mentor and "mentee," a colleague of other educators.
Working from home I still feel like I must operate within dual roles as I teach, collaborate, plan and share. I'm a colleague who is not only a kindergarten teacher, but the yearbook producer for the school and the moderator for the professional development points requests that teachers submit towards their re-licensure. I don't respond in philosophic terms to inquiries about the cost of yearbooks, whether or not I have a piece of writing paper that I can scan and share as a template, or the number of points needed for a fifth-year teacher without a master's degree to renew his or her license. However, when colleagues new to teaching and/or new to our building and district ask for a heads-up regarding what to expect from an upcoming grade-level district meeting, or need clarification so that they better understand the shift from academic grading to marks for engagement, my role as mentor requires that I go a bit deeper, and invest time to not only offer the reasoning behind answers and explanations, but to really hear their concerns and worries, too. This can be a highly emotional, intense component of mentorship, especially for someone who empathizes with others. To me, there is a distinct difference between the nuts and bolts of teaching and the soul of teaching. As a colleague, I can hand you a ream of construction paper when you've run out. As a mentor, I can suggest different ways of using it to benefit your students when you ask or express an interest. Both responses are helpful within their constructs and contexts. Dictating "you shoulds" or steamrolling others so that they can't learn how to collaborate (though they might feel relief at simply having the decision-making taken out of their hands) are not ways aligned with serving the profession. Teaching is full of emotions, and not just for the students. Sharing, patience, inclusion and authenticity are essential ingredients to successful mentor/mentee relationships, not to mention team-growing.
Having to try to teach remotely isn't a choice I, or many others, would have made, but wanting to do it as well as I possibly can remains my intention. I hoped to be both an effective colleague and mentor during this time too, but at this point, I feel like I'm failing at giving my immediate colleagues and some distance-edu-friends what they want or need. None of us is operating at one-hundred percent, and we all react differently to stressful situations. Issues that have arisen likely wouldn't have become issues at all if the status-quo of our daily instruction with students within our classrooms had been maintained and COVID19 hadn't come along. We're not all in the same boat, and even our storms differ. Perhaps some need me to metaphorically just hand them a ream of construction paper, despite the fact that their questions and assertions resemble requests for guidance and/or context. Compounding this uncertainty for me are *of course* my old standbys: for one, I can't "hear" another person's tone within an email and rely heavily upon the use of emojis and gifs (score one for social media where emojis reign supreme). Not many people have the energy, inclination or patience it takes to find the wink, the laughing out loud, or the thinking faces right now, or maybe they're just not considered professional. Secondly, I continue to falsely assume that politeness and consideration will be reciprocated in return for my efforts. Not everyone says "thank you," during a pandemic (another point for social media where showing appreciation continues to be considered proper etiquette), so I remind myself that it is those with whom we are most familiar that we should afford the most grace, especially when it's for something as simple as forgiving a social faux-pas. After dipping my toes into the ponds and streams of Facebook and the lakes and oceans on Twitter, I'm confident that there are many other teachers across the nation and in other countries who also find navigating their colleagues' emotions a wee bit tricky this month. Perhaps a gross generalization would actually be appropriate for this moment in time: none of us is getting what we hope for right now.
After four weeks of remote learning, thirteen years in my present district, twenty-four (twenty-five?) years of teaching, and with a nationwide PLN at my fingertips, I still feel both able and inclined to pencil-plan this spring, just as I've done almost every year. I've worked ahead to curate, create and schedule content via Seesaw, which has afforded me extra time for other pursuits and chores. Because I've purposely sought out multiple news sources, surfed and chosen to read information shared from teachers in other districts and states regarding their immediate and future proposed solutions to closed schools, and have tracked the daily updates from health officials (I'm ignoring politicians who are advocating for the economy over problem-solving that will save the most lives) that have made it clear that we are, in fact, 1) presently both lab rats and human test subjects and 2) that it won't be safe for us to "return to normal" until we have a vaccine that is at least a year away, I've set myself the task of envisioning what remote learning might look like in August and September (and October, and November, and February, and April 2021). So when questions from colleagues near and far arose this week regarding possible changes and tweaks to the present emergency based technology-heavy format for delivery of instruction, I suggested that any and all continued fine-tuning might reflect not only a current but possibly future need as well: there's a significant chance that we will not be returning to the classroom as hoped for in the fall. Can I articulate whether my response came from colleague-me or mentor-me? Not really. Can I unequivocally say that I didn't intend to cause additional stress and worry when I shared my thoughts? Yes.
Suffice it to say, I now realize that many teachers are not ready to pencil-plan or entertain possibilities for next year. Perhaps they don't plan to return and are focusing all of their time and effort into making their last weeks of remote teaching the best that they can for their students and their sanity. Perhaps their boats and their storms have them planted squarely in the middle of the fiercest fight of their lives and their immediate needs require that they invest all of their time and effort bailing water from their vessel. Perhaps they prefer the top-down approach, believing that their "circle of control" (yay, ontological coaching, my favorite), is solely dependent upon the decisions of others, so they'd prefer to not do anything at all until an administrator tells them to. I can admire their perseverance and any commitment they have made to be the best teachers for their students possible. I can empathize with their fear, and sympathize deeply with their pain, with full acknowledgment that it's not just students who have to "do Maslow before Bloom." No, I'll never advocate that teachers completely hand over the reins of education to administrators and politicians, no matter how much I appreciate all of the "good" ones. While I believe it's prudent to start the work of tomorrow today, or at least soon regarding the next school year, I understand that not everyone feels the same way for a multitude of reasons.
And it's here, with these most passive or even resistant of educators, that I find myself feeling neither like colleague-me or mentor-me, but instead wanting to channel Chrisjen Avasarala, a character from one of my favorite science fiction series as I choose to concede (slightly) with this:
"Well, we disagree. One of us is wrong. I think it's you... but I hope it's me."
I hope a true miracle presents itself that enables us to get back to business without fear for our health, or the health of our families, students, colleagues, and neighbors, soon. But until then...
One might think that by being a kindergarten teacher, I wouldn't have any concerns regarding content shared via social media aside from protecting students' and colleagues' identities and avoiding posting unprofessional photos or tweets of myself. But as social media algorithms continue to promote what's shared the most, and lies (*actual* fake news) continue to go unchallenged and are shared ad nauseam, the truth, of which I am a fan, becomes harder and harder to find. Authentic, transparent, and occasionally painful, the truth helps us to become better navigators of our lives. As a teacher, the truths about children and how they develop, rather than the selling points of edu-brands and promises of education reform initiatives have guided and helped me to grow my pedagogy.
I've taught for a quarter of a century, so I can find the humor in teacher memes. I have snickered, giggled, and admittedly guffawed at some of them, and have even created one or two myself. When I began to encounter some rather tasteless memes regarding teachers and our jobs, where the humor was being pushed toward titillation rather than truth, I incorrectly assumed that the masses wouldn't care, and would certainly recognize the rhetoric as entertainment rather than fact. My humor didn't have to be their humor, to each his or her own, after all. But as I watched the outrage that began to attach itself to these memes, and even the embracement of the naughtiness of the not-quite-true content, the thought began to nag at me: rather than fading, these misrepresentations were spreading like cancer, superimposing themselves upon the architecture of public education just as they would the cells inside a healthy human body, damaging, then destroying it. Upon deeper reflection, I realized that my career and students have had to endure No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and now "failing government schools," all big-business initiatives, labels, and election-year rhetoric primarily created to manipulate how the public views this profession, while creating the appearance that the government sincerely cares about quality education and how children are taught in schools. Voters consumed headlines about NCLB, the Common Core, and Race to the Top initiatives like they were Skittles. How many will now eagerly gobble up "failing government schools" simply because they don't realize they are trapped by their own confirmation biases (and blind trust) masquerading as truth?
Memes and other content don't magically appear out of thin air. When I created the one above several years ago, I had to log onto the eCard site, choose a suitable illustration, figure out how to make my text fit, and hit "publish." People apparently liked it a lot, recognizing and sharing the humor of my sigh-of-relief declaration that there are no photos of me holding the clammy hands of a boy during PE in the 1970's. Fine... maybe MY hands were the ones that were clammy. But more and more often, rather than illuminating the art and hilarity of teaching, or commiserating with other teachers about the ups, downs, laughter and tears of our profession, the memes I was encountering were becoming the newest weapon for those who would continue the attack on teachers for their own economic benefit. Other professions and groups of people are regularly targeted as well, which made for an onslaught (ugh!) in all of my feeds because of how diverse (yay!) my friends and those I follow are in reality as well as digital-land. In trying to find a compromise so that I wouldn't end up tossing the baby out with the bathwater regarding social media (there's so much that I do want to see and share, despite the content I find misleading and unsavory), I first chose to unfollow a whole bunch of folks. On FB it was friends, colleagues, families of former students, strangers, and even family members, though they all remained contacts. On Instagram and Twitter, it was acquaintances and strangers alike. Unfollowing people on Instagram and Twitter yielded almost immediate relief, frankly because I wasn't closely connected to most of them, and because unfollowing removed them and their content entirely.
The hard work came a few months later when I had to challenge my ideas on how I wanted to use FB, rather than how FB wanted to use me (thank you grad school and Digital Minimalism). Was I okay with clothing and cute shoe businesses knowing what I like and don't? Sure. Have I become a member of a kindergarten curriculum, baking, or crochet-related group on Facebook based on its suggestions? Yep, and I love what I've encountered there. Did I like the content that was being suggested to me by what some of my friends appreciated? No, not all of the time. But even after fiddling with all of the account settings, I had to re-acknowledge a truth about myself that I've articulated in different ways over the years: I am triggered by very obvious bovine fecal matter. My jaw sets, my cheeks flush, my body tenses, and I feel anything but relaxed, pleasant, or safe. Despite my own confirmation bias (who doesn't like to be right?), having to repeatedly acknowledge others' truths and mindsets by their continued and often excessive spreading of some of the most unsophisticated memes, pages/groups and clickbait left a bad taste in my mouth, making me feel more fight-or-flight than engaged or entertained. That's right, unsophisticated. The clickbait posing as investigative journalism claiming to be able to prove that all immigrants are rapists and "articles" about how drinking seventeen cups of coffee per day is healthy are shams and should be easily recognized as such by most of us. While photos of flowered headbands resting upon the heads of pit bulls are products of the same technique utilized by those who manipulate images for political gain, and though the dogs are certainly deserving to be seen in a more flattering light, shouldn't most people by now have caught on to the ploy? The tugging of the heartstrings? The triggering of patriotic rage?
Call me a truth snob. Stereotypes, prejudices, misrepresentations, lies, and other marketing ploys really aren't hard to spot for adults. "Girls aren't good at science." "Those Chinese kids always excel at math." "A woman can't be president because she'd be too emotional." Bovine. Fecal. Matter. Consumers just want to feel something, and fear, anger, jealousy, and hate are easy sells. Within our schools, students rely upon us to be good stewards of accurate information as we teach them to navigate all of the content that is available. This makes it necessary in my opinion, to weed, guard, protect and continue to educate ourselves as teachers, even when we're outside of the classroom getting our social media groove on. Being vigilant about information and knowledge we impart is a significant part of our profession. CommonSense.org has resources for challenging confirmation bias here.
Eventually, I unfriended almost three-quarters of my contacts on Facebook and experienced the visceral gut-punch of having a much smaller audience. I, the person who for years has sought out affirmation from others as a gauge to measure whether or not I'm actually deserving of anything, doing my job correctly, or creating content that helps others, did something that immediately shattered a significant conduit by which I had been feeding myself the idea that who I am and what I do matters. And I survived. Not unlike other addictions, there have certainly been some withdrawal symptoms to work through, but without the mob, there's much less BFM through which I have to sift, making it easier to ground myself and identify any new evolutionary change that might be occurring in my life and pedagogy. As it turns out, I'd like to move from the classroom into the library. Until then, I'm still a kindergarten teacher, ranter, and sharer of good news. And the good news remains this: knowledge is power. Know how to find the truth, and be brave if and when it challenges your own confirmation biases.
Though you may need to take some Dramamine (good grief, he never puts the camera down) this video from Veritasium, "Why Facts Don't Matter Anymore," is a great opener for those needing or wanting to learn more about confirmation bias, the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one's existing beliefs or theories. Initially interested because of the negative effect my own social media use was having on my mood and optimism, I quickly came to realize that other educators and our students would also benefit from the following point being made explicitly: our biases aren't the truth.
With my twenty-fourth year of teaching underway, it's time for my annual self-reflection, which has become something of a tradition for me out here in Blogland. With each successive year, I continue to find myself in the position of having a perspective gleaned from many years of experience, and appreciate that for the most part, I still love my job. I consider myself lucky that my time as a teacher has been spent invested in diverse communities, successfully coexisting and/or collaborating with colleagues and administrators, and finding joy, humor, and humility within the kindergarten learning environment. My advocacy for young children continues to be fueled by caring, my knowledge of and respect for their rights as developing, rather than "deficient" human beings, empathy, and enjoyment of my dual roles in the learning process: I'm a teacher and a lifelong student. Not to mention, kindergarteners are fun!
Mentored by advocates of young children and developmentally appropriate practice, challenged by colleagues who either want to maintain the status quo or throw the baby out with the bathwater, and appreciated by families who often find themselves surprised that they like me, they really, really like me, I've seen my fair share of education trends and reforms. I've explored naturalistic settings, party-themed classroom decor, minimalist backgrounds, and multiple seating options. I've been seizure-trained, MANDT trained (years ago), and invited to participate in live shooter drills. I've attended both assigned and self-selected professional development and obtained my master's degree after many, many years of searching for the right program, aided by friends and family who helped me envision my future. I give back to my profession regularly, happy to share my knowledge and expertise, and I understand the responsibility I have to play devil's advocate when future or new teachers are discovering and developing their best practice. Having the freedom to share an honest, earned and honed pedagogy with others, lighten their load when possible, or just support them with trays of cookies throughout the year has matched my spirit during much of my career. Teaching has filled my heart, and for quite a long time, I haven't felt as if I would be more valued if I were anyone but myself.
I've seen the family dynamic change over time, as all things do. There was never a "better time," in parenting during my career. Families have always been diverse, strong, needful, overinvolved, and absent. Some were abusive, most were supportive, and many tried to be nurturing. I have partnered with parents, administrators, colleagues and agencies. My students, teammates and I have benefitted from our relationships with local and national partners in education. Community helpers have kept us safe and taught us ways to help ourselves and others. I have also been threatened, stalked, had a mother show me her handgun during a parent-teacher conference, and have had to watch as a student's hand was taken from mine and placed into that of her abusive father the day before Christmas break, thankfully all years ago. I have fed and clothed my students, and I have intentionally created a womb, not room, of trust and comfort within what used to be considered one of the safer community venues, the elementary school.
Education has always been big business, which didn't use to bother me as a student nor as a young teacher just starting out. Armed with math and language arts kits and teaching manuals, I knew that I could rely upon my colleagues to be additional resources, sounding boards, and my backup. If I needed help with instruction, I could ask not only my kindergarten team but the reading and math specialists for insight and tips. Speech/language therapists, bi-lingual educators, cultural liaisons, and physical therapists freely shared their advice and the context behind it. I made mistakes, corrected them, modified and grew my pedagogy, much like my students. I figured out that the powers that be (administrators, parents, politicians, and even teachers) don't always make the best decisions when it comes to the actual learning that occurs in schools, especially if those decision-makers aren't comfortable with or aware of the organic nature of growth: human beings are muscular bags of developing/evolving emotions and skills, not machines. Though the articulation of standards has helped to identify just how much there is to put into place to help build a firm foundation for learning and support it for a lifetime, the subsequent desire to equally distribute, pace, and assess each slice of Learning Pie further continues to place students in a mechanized, assembly-line setting. I've watched many teachers respond to this wash, rinse, repeat testing culture with attempts at balance: they've implemented project-based learning, differentiated their instruction, integrated digital tools, supported lots of collaboration and talk time for colleagues and students, and offered flexible seating. Despite constant changes in education, veteran educators continue to know that the end of second grade, all of third grade, and the beginning of fourth grade remains an almost magic span of time for children: it's when every previous life experience (not just the reading or math instruction or intense interventions) congeals and creates in students a big bang that heralds their next developmental step in learning.
Over my years of teaching, I've watched (and sounded an alarm, repeatedly) as big business in education has sold parents, teachers and districts the idea that not only will their products help that big bang occur earlier, but they may also someday solely facilitate that learning in the first place. Districts invest in "research-based" products equating them with research-based best practice, often due to accreditation (and therefore funding) requirements, and these products tend to ride the wave of education trends during the height of their popularity. Much of the "research" shared is originally commissioned and paid for by the publishers themselves, which for many consumers might suggest the possibility for bias. I remember when "NCLB" stickers were stamped on curriculum materials and teacher publications, followed by "CC," and then "Research-Based" labels. Now there's a brand and sticker for all things education, to include social/emotional/character-building "school culture" programs, which are also standardized with mandated vocabulary, products, and very public and documentable implementation. While these guarantors of success have attempted to prove and improve their efficacy (and brand) through teacher training, focused professional development, and specific artifacts, I've found that their rigid scripts illuminate a chasm that can exist between new and veteran teachers. Just as I did over twenty-five years ago, today's newbies appreciate focused direction while immersing themselves in content as they develop their pedagogy and practice, while veterans like me are more likely to cherrypick through new innovations and materials to integrate them into our already well-stocked toolkits. These differences can often result in educators being sorted into three groups: those invested in the infomercial (they're characterized as "enthusiastic team players" and try to follow scripts with fidelity), those indifferent to the infomercial (they do their job, and tend to jump through the necessary hoops merely out of obligation), and those who find no inherent value in the infomercial... these folks are often characterized as lazy, burnt out, oppositional, and make those around them wonder if they couldn't somehow be convinced to retire sooner rather than later. After twenty-four years, I know this: teachers in any of these groups can be highly effective.
I repeat: teachers in ANY of these groups can be good teachers. Teachers in any of these groups have value and bring much to the culture of a school.
With each successive year that I teach, I become more and more the veteran educator, and that means I recognize repackaged product when I see it. And speaking for myself, I find the repetition of it all redundant and inefficient, while others, exposed to it for the first time, find it essential. It's increasingly difficult for me to feign enthusiasm for a product, program, or initiative when it doesn't feel authentic or valuable to me. When colleagues who would usually say "thanks for your help," "oh, awesome," or "have an incredibly great day," (like spontaneously expressive and vocabulary-rich normal human beings do), instead replace their verbal communication with me and one another with the very scripted "Wow, way to be proactive!" or "So Michaele, it's awesome how you began with the end in mind," in the hopes that adult and student listeners will also adopt the script, I find myself fighting against both gag and cringe reflexes. And those folks who insist on insisting (you know the type, they're the ones funded by the product's producers) that they're not "sight words," "popcorn words" or "star words" but MUST BE "______ words," appear increasingly confused as they face the fixed stare that I wear as I attempt to control an eye-roll.
At forty-nine years of age and after almost a quarter of a century teaching, I find myself feeling as if I'm trying to be polite rather than sincerelybeing polite during these encounters, which is uncomfortable. I'm a firm believer that polite is professional and I highly value reciprocity, but, being human myself, I too have my limits... as evidenced by the two times I have blurted out in frustration recently. I find it nearly impossible to respect or trust one-size-fits-all programs because I remain comfortable with and engaged by diversity and I respect individuality. And I'm not a testimonial person who pitches a brand nor do I appreciate any kind of salesmanship trying to influence my teaching, despite being able to remember a time when I considered any offer of help or proposed solution worthy of thorough examination and acceptance. As a veteran educator, being surrounded by consumerism posing as pedagogy now bugs me, deep down into the marrow. When I'm faced with someone who might assume that my point of view suggests that I'm refusing to teach effectively or that I'm choosing to promote chaos, opposition and resistance, I'm left feeling that my experience, prior growth, and purpose aren't nearly as highly valued as my playing the role of a yes-man would be. I'm somehow failing the "I'm-as-invested-to-do-right-by-our-students" measurement that has been tossed out there with the newly adopted "common" assessment.
And let me tell you, this feeling is less than pleasant.
