teacher autonomy

Covid Has Hobbled Public Schools. Here’s Why They’re Worth Saving 

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Is public education worth saving? 


 
That’s the question in the air these days.  


 
In the last century, the US academic system helped us reach the moon, defeat Communism and become the world’s largest super power.    


 
However, today our public schools are more damaged than ever before.  


 
An increasing number of families are leaving them for charter and voucher schools.  


 
Teachers are quitting their jobs in droves with few people willing to fill the vacancies they leave behind.

 
 
And above all, many people seem to think the schools, themselves, are failing. 


 
Isn’t it time to move on to something else? 


 
I’m here to tell you – no, it is not. 


 
In fact, we need to guard and cherish our public schools more than ever before. Because we face the real possibility of losing them for good.  


 
The Covid-19 pandemic on top of years of corporate sabotage and propaganda have obscured what public education really means and why it is absolutely necessary to the functioning of our society and any possibility of social, racial or economic justice. 


 
Let’s begin by looking at how the current disaster exacerbated an already difficult situation and then consider why we should care enough to fix the mess. 


 
 
The Pandemic Effect 


 
 
Public schools got a bloody nose from the Coronavirus crisis.

 
 
After decades of segregation, inequitable funding, incentives to privatize, and federally mandated standardized testing, it took a deadly virus to finally hobble the system.  


 
Being forced to contend with the uncertainties of Covid-19 damaged people’s faith in public education more than anything that had come before it. 


 
Issues of masking, contact tracing, safety of immunocompromised students and staff, and when to open or close buildings (among other issues) lead to inevitable dissatisfaction from all fronts.  


 
However, none of these issues should have been decided at the local level in the first place.  


 
These were issues of national significance. We needed a unified strategy to fight a global pandemic as it washed over our shores – not scattershot policies by part-time officials unequipped to deal with them. 


 
These problems should have been tackled by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and enforced by the federal government without deference to big business.  


 
Instead, the CDC made conflicting decisions based more on the needs of the economy than public health (many of which were roundly ignored anyway). Then federal and state governments either refused to decide safety protocols leaving it up to individuals or municipalities, or when they did decide matters, they were embroiled in partisan battles over any kind of restrictions.  


 
In fact, it was the failure of federal, state and even local municipal governments that often made public schools the de facto legislators of last resort. And this is something they were never meant to be. 


 
Public health should be decided by scientists not school directors. 


 
The result was widespread dissatisfaction no matter what school boards decided and an exodus of students and faculty. 


 
Many families, upset at local school board decisions, enrolled their children in charter, cyber or voucher schools.  


 
Overall, charters saw a 7% increase in enrollment – an influx of roughly 240,000 students -during the 2020-21 school year, according to a new report from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. This is the largest increase in five years. By comparison, public school enrollment dropped by 3.3% – or 1.4 million students – in the same period. 


 
The biggest increases were in cyber charter schools. For example, in Pennsylvania 99.7 percent of the charter enrollment growth occurred in virtual charter schools. Enrollment at the Commonwealth’s 14 cyber charter schools swelled from about 38,000 students in October 2019 to more than 60,000 students in October 2020, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Education. 


 
But it wasn’t just students leaving our public schools. It was staff, too. 


 
Teachers and other school employees who felt unsafe or were crushed by the incredible pressure thrust on their shoulders either quit or retired in droves.  


 
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 567,000 fewer educators in our public schools today than there were before the pandemic. And finding replacements has been difficult. Nationwide, an average of one educator is hired for every two jobs available. 


 
 
This has left us with a weakened system suffering from more problems than before the pandemic hit.

 
 
 
Why Are Public Schools Important? 


 
 
Because of what they are and what they represent.  


 
We hear about public education so often – usually in deprecating terms – that we forget exactly what the term signifies.  


 
A public school is a school meant for everybody and anybody.  


 
It is a school where any child can go to get an education.  


 
You don’t have to pay tuition. You don’t have to have a special ability or qualification. You don’t have to be neurotypical, a certain race, ethnicity, belong to a certain faith or socioeconomic status. If you’re living in the US – even if you’re here illegally – you get to go there.  


 
That may seem simple, but it is vitally important and really quite special.  


 
Not all nations have robust systems of public education like we do in the US. 


 
This country has a commitment to every single child regardless of what their parents can afford to pay, regardless of their access to transportation, regardless of whether they can afford uniforms, lunch or even if they have a home.  


 
We simply define education differently. We look at it as a right, not a privilege. And for a full 13 years (counting kindergarten) it’s a right for every child, not just some. 


Perhaps even more significant is our commitment to children with special needs. 


We have developed a special education system to help children at the edges that many other countries just can’t touch. In some nations these students are simply excluded. In others they are institutionalized. In some countries it’s up to parents to find ways to pay for special services. The United States is one of the only countries where these children are not only included and offered full and free access, but the schools go above and beyond to teach these children well beyond their 12th academic year. 


In every authentic public school in the United States these students are included. In math, reading, science and social studies, they benefit from instruction with the rest of the class. And this, in turn, benefits even our neurotypical students who gain lessons in empathy and experience the full range of human abilities. 


That isn’t to say the system has ever been perfect. Far from it. 


 
There are plenty of ways we could improve. Even before the pandemic, we were incredibly segregated by race and class. Our funding formulas were often regressive and inadequate. Schools serving mostly poor students didn’t have nearly the resources of those serving rich students.

 
 
But at least at the very outset what we were trying to do was better than what most of the world takes on. You can’t achieve equity if it isn’t even on the menu. 


 
Without public schools, equity is definitely not on offer. 


 
 
 Public is Better Than Private 


 
 
That’s really the point.  


 
Charter, cyber and voucher schools are not set up around this ideal.  


 
They are not instruments of inclusion. They are instruments of exclusion.  


 
They are about who is sent away, not about letting everyone in.  


The United States is a big country – the third most populous in the world. We have 332,630,000 people and growing. That’s about 50 million students in public schools. 


 
No private system in the world has ever been able to work at that scale. If we lose our public schools, many kids will be left wanting.  


The market-driven approach does not guarantee an education. It guarantees competition for an education. 


 
It forces students to compete to get into schools and schools to compete for their very existence. Think of how that affects instruction. Schools have to spend a considerable amount of time and money attracting students to enroll. That’s time and money that doesn’t go to education. It goes to advertising. 


  
Moreover, any school that attracts a surplus of students can choose which ones its wants to enroll. The choice becomes the school’s – not the parents’ or students’. In fact, administrators can turn away students for any reason – race, religion, behavior, special needs, how difficult it would be to teach him or her. This is much different from authentic public schools. There, any student who lives in the district may attend regardless of factors such as how easy or difficult he or she is to educate. 


  
Another major change with this approach is how privatized schools are run. Many are operated behind closed doors without the input of a duly-elected school board, without transparency for how they spend tax dollars, without even the guide rails of most regulations. 


  
Like in the charter school sector, these schools get almost free reign to do whatever they want.  


This means corporate interests get to run charter schools while cutting services and increasing profits. In fact, administrative costs at charter schools are much higher than at traditional public schools. Students lose, the market wins. 


  
Moreover, many charter schools provide a sub-par education. To put it more bluntly, they do things that would be impossible for public schools to do. One in Philadelphia literally transformed into a nightclub after dark. Another funneled profits into the CEO’s personal bank account to be used as a slush fund to buy gifts and pay for rent at an apartment for his girlfriend. Another CEO used tax dollars to buy a yacht cheekily called “Fishin’ 4 Schools.”  


 
And virtual charter schools are even worse. A study found that cyber-charters provide almost less education than not going to school at all. Even brick and mortar charter schools can close on a moments notice leaving students in the lurch. 


  
It’s a Darwinian model made to benefit the predators, not the prey. It’s a boon for any unselfconscious businessman who doesn’t mind getting rich stealing an education from children. 


 
We Must Fight 


 
That’s why we must fight to keep our public schools.  


 
As flawed and bruised as they are, the public school model is far superior to the alternative.  


 
But many will look only at their own individual situation and stop there.  


 
They will say, “At MY charter school we do this…” Or “That’s not the way things are at MY voucher academy…” 


 
First of all, a well-functioning privatized school is like a castle built precariously on a cliff. Things may work well now, but they could change at any moment and there’s nothing you could do but vote with your feet. When authentic public schools go bad, you have a democratic process to fix the problem.

 
 
But you may luck out. Every privatized school isn’t a scam. Just most of them. So if you have found a charter, cyber or voucher school that is working for your child and doesn’t self-destruct in the time your child is enrolled, you may wonder why you should worry about the rest of us – the kids caught up in a web of privatized predation and neglect?  


 
Because it’s not all about you and your child. Selfishness cannot be the foundation of a just society.

 
 
Even a well-functioning charter or voucher school is publicly funded. It splits the funding that would normally go to one school and divides it among two or more. So students at both have to make do with less. 


You have to live in this society. Do you really want to live in a country with a large population of undereducated citizens who cannot figure out how to vote in their own interests? Do you really want to live in a society where crime is a better career choice for those who were not properly educated?  


 
That’s why we can’t let public education disappear.  


 
It is a necessary condition for democracy, shared economic prosperity and a just society.  


 
I know it may sound like an insurmountable task, but saving our public schools can be done.  


 
It will require collective action. 


 
We will need to actively participate in our school board elections, go to school board meetings and possibly even run to serve on the board, ourselves. 


 
Many people are upset with what local boards did during the pandemic, but the way to solve this isn’t to flee to schools without democratic principles. It is to seize those principles and make them work for you and your community. 


 
We will need to change the way our system treats teachers. If we want to encourage educators to stay on the job and even entice young people to enter the field, we need to make the profession more rewarding. That means higher salaries, more autonomy, more respect, smaller classes, less paperwork, and actually listening to educators on the subject of education.  


 
We also need to discontinue countless policies and programs that have been dragging our public schools down for decades. We need to eliminate high stakes standardized testing. We need to ensure every school is adequately, equitably and sustainably funded. We need to actively integrate our schools and classrooms. We need to stop supporting privatization through charter and voucher schools and instead support authentic public schools.  


 
And to do that, we need real political change at every level of government – local, municipal, state and federal.  


 
None of this is easy. All of it takes work.  


 
But it is the fight we must wage if we are ever to keep our democracy.  


 
It is the fight we must win to create the better world our children deserve.  


 
Public schools are worth saving, but it is up to you and me to do it. 


 

 

 

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It’s Open Season on Teachers – Again  

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I am so sick of being a scapegoat.  


  
But Republican lawmakers seem to think they can’t get elected without finding some boogeyman with which to terrify their base.  


  
Whether it’s climate scientists or Hollywood elites or a mythical caravan of brown people determined to burst through our southern border, the GOP cannot function without someone to cast as the monster. 


  
For a political party that scornfully calls others snowflakes, you will never find a more concentrated gathering of self-proclaimed victims than today’s GOP.   


  
Now they’re turning their attention once again to teachers like me.  


 
Across the country, Republican politicians are refusing to let educators give an accurate recounting of history. 


 
In Florida, the GOP is banning math books.   


 
And on Fox News, Tucker Carlson is even calling for mad dads to storm the school and “thrash” the teacher.   


  
In my home state of Pennsylvania, it’s no different.  


 
State Rep. Barbara Gleim (R – Cumberland County) stoked the flames in the Commonwealth this week with the following message to her social media crew:  


  
“We also need conservative eyes and ears in the schools. If anyone can substitute even one day a week, the teachers who are activists and indoctrinating children can be revealed. Not all teachers are for [Critical Race Theory] CRT, etc. We need to identify the ones who are pushing the professional development they received over the summer. Are they putting black children’s tests in separate piles and grading them differently? Have they separated the classrooms? We won’t know these things until parents are allowed back into schools, so the best way is to sub.”  


  
What a load of crap! 


 
Pennsylvania’s public schools are experiencing a sub shortage. I WISH people would volunteer to sub in our public schools.  


 
In fact, back in October I even suggested lawmakers like Gleim volunteer to sub a few times a week to see what’s going on in the classroom instead of pulling vacuous lies out of their butts.  


 
 
They certainly have the time!  Legislators from the Keystone State make the third highest salary in the country, and they’re only in session a few weeks every month! They could easily spend a few days a week struggling with overstuffed classes, in-school suspension, hall duty and the like. 


 
To be a sub in most public school districts in Pennsylvania, essentially all you need is a bachelors degree (it doesn’t even have to be in education) and pass criminal background checks. 


 
Districts that aren’t experiencing a shortage may require a teaching certificate as well, but beggars can’t be choosers. In districts where it is hard to get subs (i.e. those serving poor and minority kids) you can get emergency certified for a year. 


 
But when I made such a suggestion, I naively thought lawmakers might see the problems schools actually have and start to support them.  


 
Fat chance of that! 


 
People with an agenda like Gleim would simply take the most innocent of interactions and pretend they were examples of indoctrination.  


 
In Florida they banned 41% of the math books for being “woke” without a single concrete example and then patted themselves on the back for being transparent. It would be the same here. It would be like the Puritan girls in “The Crucible” finding witches in every classroom and hallway.  


 
This state representative really thinks teachers are putting black children’s tests in separate piles and grading them differently!? As if we’re somehow changing their grades or assessing them more leniently?

 
 
NEWS FLASH: Children of color are not suddenly acing all their tests or rocketing to the head of the class. In fact, just the opposite. There has been a racial proficiency gap for decades based on segregation, lack of resources and punitive and biased standardized tests. 


 
For decades teachers like me have been screaming for change but lawmakers like Gleim either shrug or double down on it. 


 
But back to her social media tirade. She wonders if there are separated classrooms – by which I assume she means classrooms segregated by race. 


 
BINGO! She got that one right! But it’s not what she seems to think.  


 
A majority of children of color are not getting privileged treatment. They’re being underprivileged. They’re in the lower academic tracks and a majority of the white kids are in the honors courses.  


 
Using standardized tests to sort students into academic tracks has hurt minority children and benefited richer white kids.  


 
But back to her social media bubble. She wants parents to be allowed “back” into public schools!? Parents have never been excluded. As long as they can pass the background check, they can come in almost any time.  


 
And if they want to know what’s going on, they can come to any school board meeting and be in the room where all things are decided and be heard during public comment periods. They can even run for school board and make those decisions, themselves.  


 
But way better to pretend a grievance where no such problem exists.  


 
Public schools do not indoctrinate kids.  


 
We teach them to think and come to their own conclusions.  


 
Yes, we teach history, science, English and math. But it’s up to kids to decide what to make of it all.  


 
However, if she wants to see REAL indoctrination all she has to do is look at the private and parochial schools who accept school vouchers – a policy her party usually supports.  


 
These schools use books like America: Land I Love, an A Beka Book; United States History for Christian Schools; and the Teacher’s Resource Guide to Current Events for Christian Schools, the last two published by Bob Jones University Press (BJU). 


 
 
The books are riddled with counter factual claims and political bias in every subject imaginable such as abortion, gay rights and the Endangered Species Act, which one text labels a “radical social agenda.” They disparage religions other than Protestant Christianity and cultures other than those descended from white Europeans. 


 
 
They teach that humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time, some dinosaurs survive into the present day (i.e. the Loch Ness monster), evolution is a myth disproved by REAL science as is the claim that homosexuality is anything but a choice. 


 
 
Teaching these things in school is not just educational malpractice, it’s exactly the kind of indoctrination the right is claiming without evidence happens at public schools. 


 
 
And this kind of brain washing is common at voucher schools. 


 
 
If there’s one thing we need to understand about today’s GOP leaders, it’s this: their accusations are always admissions.  


 
They accuse Democrats of the pedophilia Republican congresspeople like Matt Gaetz are already under investigation for.  


 
They accuse Democrats of fixing elections while the last GOP President actually tried to steal an election. 


 
They accuse public schools of indoctrination while private schools routinely do that already. 


 
Or as the old proverb puts it: 


 
“I looked, and looked, 
 And this I came to see:  
That what I thought was you and you, 
 Was really me and me.”   


  
 
We could stop these shenanigans if the rest of society actually took it seriously.  


 
But that would require news sources to point out the hypocrisy above every time a MAGA supporter started making these sorts of claims.  


 
And that won’t happen because modern media is committed to giving equal measure to both sides of a story – even if one is patently false. They’re too afraid to appear biased to report the truth.  


 
It would stop if the Democrats actually prosecuted the former President and his cronies for the Jan. 6 insurrection.  


 
But that won’t happen because they’re terrified it might lose them a vote. They’re too afraid of being called partisan. Yet there is no middle ground with justice. You either have it or you don’t. 


 
It would require a stance on principle.  


 
So far, it hasn’t happened, and I doubt it will.  


 
So Republicans will continue to take aim at all the usual scapegoats like teachers.  


 
Like when Chris Christie threatened to punch educators in the face.  


 
Their base will get fired up – perhaps maybe even too fired up – and someone will walk into a school with gun-in-hand to take down all these indoctrinating teachers.  


 
That’s the kind of thing that happened a few years ago at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. A MAGA gunman was convinced by Trump that Jews were helping immigrants come into the country illegally. So he decided to kill as many Saturday worshipers as he could. 


 
If we don’t stand up to this, it’s only a matter of time before it happens again.

 
 
Look. I don’t want to be at the center of this ridiculous culture war.  


 
I just want to teach. I just want to do right by my students and their families.
 


But as our country burns to the ground, the school house often seems to be the center of the blaze.  


 
I am sick of it. 


 
I am sick of it.  
 


I am just so sick of it. 

 

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We Say “Gay” in My Classroom

stevenmsinger Censorship, Child Safety, Civil Rights, Compassion, Education, Hate Crimes, Learning, literature, Local Control, Parents, Philosophy, Politics, Prejudice, protest, Republican, school violence, Schools, Social Justice, student teacher relationship, Students, teacher autonomy, Teachers, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

 
 
There are some giggles you dread as a middle school teacher.  


 
Like when one of your students loses all control over a line of poetry. 


 
It happened most recently over these lines of Dylan Thomas: 


 
 
“Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

 


 
 
There it was. The G-A-Y word. The one thing with which adolescent boys and Florida Governors cannot contend. 

One of my 8th graders thought it was the height of hilarity. 


 
“You know that word here just means ‘Happy,” I said.  


 
And he lost it some more.  


 
I tried logic. 


 
“I’m gay. You’re gay. Sometimes we’re all gay.” 


 
A renewed outburst.  


 
“You’re probably the gayest student in my class.” 


 
And the laughter stopped.  


 
“No, you come in here laughing and gay just about every day,” I said.  


 
The frown on his face was serious.  


 
“Me, too. I’m hoping to have a really gay weekend.”  


 
Which seemed to break him. He got up, walked to the other side of the room and sat silently in the corner.  


 
Not exactly the reaction I was hoping for. 


 
Some people just can’t take the truth. 


 
Like the fact that there are gay kids in middle school.  


 
And, no, I don’t just mean “Happy.” 


 
There are gay kids. 


 
 And straight kids. 


 
 And trans kids. 


 
 And all kinds of kids.  


 
There are black kids and white kids, Muslim kids and Christian kids, Latinos and Lithuanians, Italians and Iranians, girls, boys and all genders in between.  


 
There are tall kids and short kids. Fat kids and thin kids. And, yes, some kids who like other kids in ways which all adults might not approve. 


 
However, some people are too juvenile to deal with it – they can’t even say the word or can’t even endure someone else saying it!  


 
That’s not so bad when you’re 13 and terrified of your own sexuality, anxious that anyone might question your cis privilege.  


 


 You still have time to grow out of such sophomoric hijinks.  

 
 
But it’s worse when you’re a counterfactual zealot like Ron DeSantis passing laws like the “Don’t Say Gay Bill.” 

I’m glad I don’t live in the Sunshine state, but you know ALEC will bring their own copycat version of this fascism to the rest of us sooner or later.


 
Forbid teachers from talking about gender identity and sexual orientation?  


 
Allow parents to sue schools for any comment they take offense to? 


 
Things are tough enough in middle school simply because we’re not such cowards. 


 
We say “gay” and embrace all its multiple meanings – often at once.  


 
 “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” but we talk about everything else.  


 
And we have to! 


 
It is incumbent on teachers to acknowledge the reality before them.  


 
We have to recognize our students for who they are.  


 
That doesn’t mean labeling them. It doesn’t mean trying to convince them of anything in particular about their identities.  


 
But it does mean admitting that identity exists. And it means refusing to accept the intolerance of those who refuse to accept others for who they are. 


 
When a student tells you their pronouns, you listen. 


 
When a student draws a pride flag on their notebook, you tell them it’s beautiful.

When a student tells you in confidence that they feel ugly, hurt or broken because of what their pastor or parent or classmate said, you tell them they’re marvelous and not to change a thing!

Because we don’t have the luxury to be judgmental. 

It’s not in our job description.

We teach our kids no matter who they are. We love them for who they are. And if DeSantis or any other adult has a problem with that, they can just fuck off! 


 
Silencing the grown-ups in school won’t change who the kids are. It will just forbid us from mentioning reality. It will permit us to recognize only the tiniest fraction of who our students are and leave a de facto shroud over the rest.   


 
I refuse to turn my classroom into a closet.  



 
It might make the most bigoted adults feel better. It might relieve grown-up fears that just talking about other ways to live is enough to mold someone into something against their nature.  

 
 
As if such a thing were possible.  

But it won’t help the kids.


 
People don’t become their sexuality. They discover who they were all along – and ultimately no piece of legislation can stop that. It can make that search more difficult, painful and riddled with guilt. But you are who you are.   


 
It’s regressive shame-based norms like these that encourage little boys to bash those who are different.

 
 
That make them feel the only safety lies in violence against the other so no one questions who they are, themselves.  


 

That scares them enough to giggle at a three-letter word embedded in a poem.

 
 
And speaking of my giggle goose, eventually he got himself under control.  


 

Before the end of the period he came back to the table.

Silently, swiftly, and soberly, he sat down with the rest of us ready to continue discussing “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Goodnight.” 

Not a titter or laugh. 


 
It wasn’t until a week later that he turned to me with a smile and asked: 


 
“Mr. Singer, did you have a gay weekend?” 


 
I did, Buddy. I did. 

Like this post?  You might want to consider becoming a Patreon subscriber. This helps me continue to keep the blog going and get on with this difficult and challenging work.

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Just CLICK HERE.

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I’ve also written a book, “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform,” now available from Garn Press. Ten percent of the proceeds go to the Badass Teachers Association. Check it out!

Teaching the War in Ukraine is Fighting the War at Home 

stevenmsinger Accountability, Art, Civil Rights, Education, history, Learning, literature, Local Control, Media, Parents, Philosophy, Politics, Prejudice, Schools, student teacher relationship, Students, teacher autonomy, Teachers, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

 
 
How does one teach about war?  


 
With pictures or words? 


 
With speeches or documentation? 


 
With prayers or curses? 


 
With laughter or tears? 


 
I began my class like I always do – with a question. 


 
“Has anyone heard about what’s happening in Ukraine?” I asked.  


 
A few hands, but they had only heard the words. They didn’t know what was happening.  


 
So I showed my 8th graders a short video that summarized events so far. I drew a map of Europe and Asia on the board. I outlined Ukraine, Russia and the European union. I explained about the Soviet Union and its collapse. I explained about NATO and the struggle for power and prestige.  


 
When I was done, there was a moment of silence. They were all staring up at me. It was one of those rare moments of stillness, a pregnant pause before the questions started raining down.  


 
A patter at first, then a storm. 


 
They asked about what they were hearing at home. They searched for corroboration, explanation and/or other viewpoints. 


 
One child asked if this was NATO’s fault. If it was President Biden’s doing. 


 
Another asked how it would affect us and why we should care. 


 
And yet another asked about nuclear proliferation and whether this war meant the end of the world.  


 
I couldn’t answer all of their questions, though I tried. When there was something I couldn’t say or didn’t know, I pointed them in a direction where they might find some answers.  


 
But it led to some interesting discussion.  


 
Then I asked them if they had talked about any of this in their other classes – perhaps in social studies. They all said no, that a few teachers had promised to get to it after finishing the 13 colonies or another piece of mandated curriculum.  


 
I was surprised but not shocked. I know the tyranny of the curriculum.  


 
I was only able to talk about this, myself, because of the scope and sequence of Language Arts. You see, it was poetry time and I was about to introduce my students to Alfred Lord Tennyson and “The Charge of the Light Brigade.” 


 
For those who don’t recall, the poem tells the true story of the battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War. A cavalry regiment of British troops charged Russian gunners and were mostly shot to pieces.  


 
It’s a pillar of English poetry and a perfect opportunity to talk about warfare in general and Ukraine in particular since the battle took place in the same general area of the world. 


 
In the poem, a general mistakenly orders the soldiers on horseback armed only with swords to charge the enemy armed with cannons and guns.  


 
Tennyson writes: 


 
“Theirs not to make reply, 
   Theirs not to reason why, 
   Theirs but to do and die.” 


 
And after the result is graphically portrayed, the speaker extols their virtue: 


 
“When can their glory fade? 
O the wild charge they made! 
   All the world wondered. 
Honour the charge they made! 
Honour the Light Brigade, 
   Noble six hundred!” 


 
So I ask my students what they think about it. Is it a soldier’s duty to follow orders no matter what? Should they question those orders?  


 
Typically, most of them back up Tennyson.  


 
And then I present them with an 80s heavy metal video by Iron Maiden of the song “The Trooper.”

 
 
The video uses images from a silent movie version of the Tennyson poem while singer Bruce Dickinson wails the story of a single soldier of the Light Brigade being senselessly gunned down and dying alone, forgotten on the battle field. 


 
It certainly gives them something to think about as they watch black and white horses flung in the air and our spandex clad narrator commenting on the situation with hairspray piled locks.  


 
Students end up leaving the class continuing the debate with each other about heroism and the waste of war.  


 
I certainly have my own opinions on the matter, but I keep them to myself.  


 
The way I see it, this isn’t the time for me to insert my opinion into the class. It’s an opportunity for my students to think through the problem, themselves.  


 
And, frankly, that’s really the point of most of school.  


 
It’s not the transmission of knowledge. Teachers can’t magic information into children’s heads.  


 
Instead, we provide opportunities to learn. We encourage students to think. We’re more like gardeners than anything else. We water, we weed, we make sure the soil is fertile. But it is up to the child to grow and in which direction to strive.  


 
That’s why far right scare mongers are so ignorant and absurd when they try to constrain teachers from teaching about history or racism.  


 
These campaigns are not aimed at educators. They are aimed at students.  


 
The goal is to offer children only one path in which to grow.  


 
They want to stifle thought, stifle free expression, stifle intellectual freedom by removing the option to think.  


 
They want to remove the opportunity.  


 
It may not be as dramatic as Putin invading. “Shot and shell” may not be flying. But the forces of fascism are equally at work on the minds of our children.  


 
In teaching about the war in Europe, educators are waging a battle against the war at home. 

Zhyvitʹ revolyutsiyeyu!

 
Viva la revolución! 

Long live the revolution!

 

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I’ve also written a book, “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform,” now available from Garn Press. Ten percent of the proceeds go to the Badass Teachers Association. Check it out!

A Teacher’s Wish

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People often ask me what I’d change about education if I could change just one thing.

But they don’t seem to realize that our schools are kind of like Jenga – if you change one thing, you might set off a chain reaction and it all comes tumbling down.

Change one thing – the RIGHT thing – and you may change all of them.

Maybe even for the better!

Why worry about that now?

Monday is my birthday. I’ll be 48.

Old enough to know that birthday wishes don’t come true. Unless maybe you wish for cake and ice cream.

But I can still see myself staring into the candles as friends and family sing the obligatory tune.


The orange flames wave back and forth atop tiny wax fingers threatening to burn down the whole chocolatey confection.  

But before they do, I just might give in and make a wish – a birthday wish – and….

You never know!!!

So here goes.

Candle burn, candle bright,

Let me strive to make things right,

I wish I may, I wish I might,

Have the wish, I wish tonight…

 
I wish there were no more standardized tests.  


 
No more judging kids entire academic year based on their performance in a few hours of multiple choice Hell.  


 
No more assessments where a multiplicity of nonacademic factors like parental income, childhood trauma and corporate bias are hidden behind a numeric label.  


 
No more evaluations based on eugenics and pseudoscience. No more tests supported by the bottom line of corporations who make money creating the tests, grading the tests and selling us the remediation materials to retake the tests.  


 
That, alone, would make such a difference.  


 
No more teaching to the test. No more narrowing the curriculum. No more pressure to increase test scores.  


 
Just the freedom to teach.  


 
To empirically observe a classroom of students, see what they need and try to help them get it.  


 
And since I’m overturning that stone, I’ll topple another one. 


 
I wish schools were budgeted fairly.  


 
Not equally, mind you, but fairly.  


 
I wish every student got all the resources necessary to meet his or her needs. No! I wish they got MORE than enough.  


 
I wish we funded schools the way we fund the military! I wish schools had money flowing through them like a river of gold. I wish school buildings were marble palaces where the community could come together and learn and play and talk and interact. 

Imagine how that would impact class size.

No more 20-30 kids stuffed into a single classroom with just one teacher between them.

No more trying to differentiate, grade, instruct, counsel, and inspire until there’s nothing left of you at the end of the day.

No more being on stage every moment but instead having dedicated times untethered to students where you can actually think about things – how to teach this or that, what students really meant when they made certain comments, how to best help parents…

But wait there goes another pebble!

I wish there was no school privatization!

And I do mean NO school privatization.

There shouldn’t be schools for some kids and schools for others.

We should differentiate by need but not by income bracket. We shouldn’t divide kids up based on race, ethnicity or their parents biases.

No more prep schools. No more parochial schools. No more prestigious academies. No more charter schools. No more home schools.

Just public schools of every shape and size.

Schools funded by everyone to teach everyone’s kids. No place to hide money for some and deprive it from others.

Oops! There goes another stone overturned!

I wish there were no more segregated schools.

No more districts or buildings or classes focusing mostly on white kids, or black kids, or rich kids or poor kids.

Silly privatizer, schools are for ALL kids. All kids mixed together. Because only then can we ensure they all get equity and that they learn the true face of America.

Only then will they learn how to get along, how to understand where they’re coming from and how to embrace their differences.

Uh-oh! Did you hear that!? There went a whole mountain of stones!

No more profiteering off children!

No more data mining!

No more developmentally inappropriate standards!

No union busting!

Teaching could become a calling again.

Educators would no longer be seen as overpaid babysitters but trusted pillars of the community.

They’d be respected – their opinions sought after in educational issues like diamonds.

And the pay! No longer would any teacher need to work more than one job! They’d be compensated like professional athletes. Maybe there’d even be a draft in each state where the most promising prospects out of college would be fought over by schools with children who they think would best be served by their hire.

Imagine a country like that! One that put children first by putting education first!

Imagine how it would change the landscape. Adults who grew up in such a system would be pretty hard to fool because they’d be critical thinkers.

No political charlatan could come in and bamboozle them with nonsense and charisma. No corporation could trick them into pyramid schemes and tax evasion.

No wars for oil.

No climate denial.

No banning books.

No gun ownership without strong regulations.

No lack of social services, public healthcare, public goods!

Ah! It would be a much better world I think if my wish came true.

But…

Oh…

Sigh!

I don’t see it happening.

No even a little of it.

After two decades in the classroom, the wind always seems to be blowing against such things.

But then again, I have a chance to change the wind come Monday.

We all do.

If you’ll help me blow out the candles.

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I’ve also written a book, “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform,” now available from Garn Press. Ten percent of the proceeds go to the Badass Teachers Association. Check it out!

Forget About Quality Instruction When You Take Away Teachers’ Planning Time

stevenmsinger absenteeism, Accountability, capitalism, Child Safety, Civil Rights, Compassion, COVID-19, Education, Healthcare, Labor, Learning, Local Control, Parents, Philosophy, Politics, Prejudice, principals, school closings, School Funding, Schools, Student Mobility, Students, teacher autonomy, Teachers, Technology, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dear Principal, 


 
 
You talk a lot about quality instruction.  


 
We need to do THIS to give students the best quality instruction.  


 
We can’t do THAT because it will reduce the quality of instruction.  


 
Yet once again today I have to give up my planning period to sub for an absent teacher! 


 
Doesn’t THAT impact quality of instruction!? 


 
We closed the entire district last week because COVID-19 cases were out of control. Then we reopened this week to preserve – say it with me – quality of instruction. 


 
There has not been a single week so far this school year when I have not had to lose my planning period and sub.  


 
Not one single week.  


 
EXCEPT when we were on remote.  


 
I’m not saying that’s the best model to teach, but at least I get to stop and think about what I’m going to do with my students.  


 
At least I have time to grade some papers and call some parents and plan out how my next few lessons will fit into each other to form a coherent whole.  


 
At least I’m not flying by the seat of my pants.  


 
Which seems to be the norm in the physical school building these days. 


 
You need to understand something.  


 
Every time you take away a teacher’s planning period – whether it be to cover an IEP meeting, use a teacher as a security guard in the cafeteria, sending someone to a training or otherwise – you are reducing the quality of instruction that teacher is able to provide that day.  


 
And if you do it for long enough, you can no longer fairly judge that teacher’s annual performance by the same expectations you would have under normal conditions. 


 
You need to put an asterisk next to her name for the year.  


 
Meaning this isn’t the best she could do, but this is the best she could do WITHOUT HER PLAN. 


 
Imagine an actor going on stage without having the chance to practice the play? Imagine an athlete playing in the championship game without having the chance to warm up or watch tape. Imagine a pilot flying your plane without being able to contact the air traffic controller or plan the route from one airport to another. 


 
The results would not be ideal.  


 
You would expect them to be sloppy, haphazard and possibly disastrous.  


 
In fact, if most other professionals working under these conditions were able to pull out something even passable, we’d celebrate them as prodigies.  


 
Wow! Did you see Denzel in Hamlet? He didn’t even have a chance to practice! He just did the whole play from memory!  


 
Oh! And when Brady threw that touchdown pass! He wasn’t even warmed up! He rushed right from his car to the field – and he wasn’t even at training camp all week!  


 
You should have the same reverence for your teachers who perform miracles every day in the classroom without having the time to plan. 


 
That’s how amazing this should be.  


 
It should not be accepted as the status quo.  


 
But I know what the excuse will be: this is unavoidable.  


 
There are just too many absences and not enough subs. And to an extent that’s true.  


 
However, what are you doing to alleviate that situation?  


 
Have you reached out to local colleges to find teaching students who would relish the experience of subbing? Have you reached out to retired teachers looking for extra pay? Have you lobbied the school board and the legislature for more money to pay subs and teachers? 


 
Have you done everything you can to support the health and well-being of your staff so that fewer need to take off? Have you cut all unnecessary tasks like formal lesson plans, stopped holding staff meetings unless an urgent need presents itself, refrained from new and unproven initiatives, cut duties where possible to increase teacher planning time? 


 
If not, then don’t talk to me about inevitability. You have contributed to it.  


 
What’s happening in education has been a long time coming. Low pay, lack of respect, gas lighting, scapegoating, micromanaging – no wonder so few people want to be an educator anymore.

 
 
The people who are left want to be in the classroom because we love teaching. However, with all the nonsense heaped on our shoulders, the job has become less-and-less about that and more preoccupied with ancillary concerns – paperwork, endless meetings where nothing gets done, useless trainings so some corporation can get paid, and outright babysitting.  


 
When you take away our planning periods, we can’t do our best for our students. And that’s why we’re here! To give our best!  


 
When you take that away from us, you take away a lot of the satisfaction of the job.  


 
No one devotes their life to something to do it half-assed.  


 
Quality of instruction is not an excuse for us. It’s not a cudgel or a catchphrase or a policy decision.  


 
It is the core of our jobs.  


 
It is the essence of our calling.  


 
Don’t take that away from us. 

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I’ve also written a book, “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform,” now available from Garn Press. Ten percent of the proceeds go to the Badass Teachers Association. Check it out!

Don’t Blame Teachers for Covid Quarantines and Closures

stevenmsinger absenteeism, Accountability, Biden, Budget, capitalism, Child Safety, Civil Rights, Compassion, COVID-19, Credibility, Data, Democrat, Education, Labor, Learning, Local Control, Parents, Politics, Prejudice, privatization, Propaganda, Republican, school closings, School Funding, Schools, Social Justice, Strike, Student Mobility, Students, teacher autonomy, Teachers, Uncategorized, union busting, Unions , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

 
This week the US reported more than a million Covid-19 cases in one day – a new global record! 


 
As this latest surge in the pandemic hits, schools all over the nation are closing up again and returning to on-line classes.  


 
People everywhere are wondering if teachers are to blame. 


 
Here are some things for school directors and administrators to consider:  


 
 
–If you don’t require all students and staff to wear masks – don’t blame teachers. 

–If you don’t regularly test students and staff for Covid – don’t blame teachers. 


 
–If you don’t require all students and staff to be vaccinated – don’t blame teachers.  


 
–If your classrooms are not well ventilated – don’t blame teachers. 

–If you force staff to come into the building for professional development and don’t allow them to attend remotely – don’t blame teachers.


 
–If you don’t provide K95 masks to all students and staff – don’t blame teachers. 


 
–If you didn’t devise a schedule to keep students socially distanced – don’t blame teachers. 


 
–If you don’t deep clean each classroom and other student spaces between classes – don’t blame teachers.  


 
–If you don’t have lunches outdoors or in some other extremely well-ventilated space – don’t blame teachers. 


 
–If you don’t require a negative Covid test before sick students or staff can return to school – don’t blame teachers. 


 
–If students and staff have steadily been getting sick for weeks and you’ve done nothing to prepare – Don’t Blame Teachers. 


 
 
–In short, if you haven’t done everything you can do to prevent an outbreak sweeping through your school and your community – DON’T. BLAME. TEACHERS.  


 
BLAME YOURSELF. 

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I’ve also written a book, “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform,” now available from Garn Press. Ten percent of the proceeds go to the Badass Teachers Association. Check it out!


 

Gadfly’s Top 10 Articles of 2021 – Shouts in the Dark

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I work very hard on this blog.

It’s not exactly easy to fit in so many articles – 53 so far this year – between teaching full time.

And I’ve been doing it for 8 years – since July 2014.

In that time, this site has earned 2.3 million hits – 218,603 just this year.

I’m proud of the work I’ve done here.

I haven’t changed the world, but I’ve been heard. Occasionally.

As a classroom teacher, that’s really what I’m trying to do. In my everyday work, few people whose grade I’m not calculating actually listen to me. And even then it’s not always a given.

I want to believe my words have an impact – that policymakers read what I write and consider it before offering new measures and revising old ones.

But as time goes on, I wonder if any of that actually happens. These days my writing feels more like a shout in the dark than anything else.

At best, from the comments I often get on my articles (and the fact that 14,887 people have signed up to follow my work), it seems at least that I am not shouting alone.

We are all yearning to be heard.

These are the cries that most of us seemed to have in common this year:


10) Top 6 Administrative Failures of the Pandemic Classroom

Published: May 22


 Views: 3,014


 Description: This is a postmortem on the 2020-21 school year. Here are the six policies that really weren’t working from social distancing, to cyber school, hybrid models, and more.


 Fun Fact: I had hoped that laying out last year’s failures might stop them from being tried again this year or at least we might revise them into policies that worked. In some instances – like cyber school – there seems to have been an attempt to accomplish this. In others – like standardized testing – we just can’t seem to stop ourselves from repeating the same old mistakes.

9) Why Does Your Right to Unmask Usurp My Child’s Right to a Safe School?

Published: Aug 17


 Views: 3,151


 Description: It seemed like a pretty easy concept when I first learned it back in civics class. Your right to freedom ends when it comes into conflict with mine. But in 2021, that’s all out the window. Certain people’s rights to comfort (i.e. being unmasked) are more important than other people’s right to life (i.e. being free from your potential Covid).


 Fun Fact: This was republished in CommonDreams.org and discussed on Diane Ravitch’s blog.

8) Stop Normalizing the Exploitation of Teachers 


Published: Nov. 26


 Views: 3,716


 Description: Demands on teachers are out of control – everything from new scattershot initiatives to more paperwork to having to forgo our planning periods and sub for missing staff nearly every day. And the worse part is that each time it’s done, it becomes the new normal. Teaching should not be death by a million cuts.


 Fun Fact: This was another in what seemed to be a series of articles about how teaching has gotten more intolerable this year. If anyone ever wonders what happened to all the teachers once we all leave, refer to this series.

7) Top Five Actions to Stop the Teacher Exodus During COVID and Beyond


Published: Oct. 7


 Views: 5,112


 Description: Teachers are leaving the profession at an unprecedented rate this year. So what do we do about it? Here are five simple things any district can do that don’t require a lot of money or political will. They just require wanting to fix the problem. These are things like eliminating unnecessary tasks and forgoing formal lesson plans while increasing planning time.


 Fun Fact: Few districts seems to be doing any of this. It shows that they really don’t care.


6) I Love Teaching, But…


Published: Dec. 20


 Views: 5,380


 Description: This is almost a poem. It’s just a description of many of the things I love about teaching and many of the things I don’t. It’s an attempt to show how the negatives are overwhelming the positives.


 Fun Fact: This started as a Facebook post: “I love teaching. I don’t love the exhaustion, the lack of planning & grading time, the impossibly high expectations & low pay, the lack of autonomy, the gaslighting, the disrespect, being used as a political football and the death threats.”

5) My Students Haven’t Lost Learning. They’ve Lost Social and Emotional Development  


Published: Sept. 30


 Views: 6,422


 Description: Policymakers and pundits keep saying students are suffering learning loss from last year and the interrupted and online classes required during the pandemic. It’s total nonsense. Students are suffering from a lack of social skills. They don’t know how to interact with each other and how to emotionally process what’s been going on. 

Fun Fact: This idea is so obvious to anyone who’s actually in school buildings that it has gotten through somewhat to the mass media. However, the drum of bogus learning loss is still being beaten by powerful companies determined to make money off of this catastrophe.

4) You’re Going to Miss Us When We’re Gone – What School May Look Like Once All the Teachers Quit


Published: Feb. 20


 Views: 9,385


 Description: Imagine a world without teachers. You don’t have to. I’ve done it for you. This is a fictional story of two kids, DeShaun and Marco, and what their educational experience may well be like once we’ve chased away all the education professionals. 

Fun Fact: This is one of my own favorite pieces of the year, and it is based on what the ed tech companies have already proposed.

3) The Teacher Trauma of Repeatedly Justifying Your Right To Life During Covid


Published: Jan 16


 Views: 9,794


 Description: How many times have teachers had to go to their administrators and school directors asking for policies that will keep them and their students safe? How many times have we been turned down? How many times can we keep repeating this cycle? It’s like something out of Kafka or Gogol. 

Fun Fact: It may not be over.

2) Teachers Are Not Okay


Published: Sept. 23


 Views: 14,592


 Description: This was my first attempt to discuss how much worse 2021-2022 is starting than the previous school year. Teachers are struggling with doing their jobs and staying healthy. And no one seems to care. 

Fun Fact: My own health was extremely poor when I wrote this. I was in and out of the hospital. Though I feel somewhat better now, not much has changed. This article was republished in the Washington Post, on CommonDreams.org, and discussed on Diane Ravitch’s blog.

1) Teachers Absorb Student Trauma But Don’t Know How to Get Rid of the Pain


Published: Nov. 10


 Views: 40,853


 Description: Being there for students who are traumatized by the pandemic makes teachers subject to vicarious trauma, ourselves. We are subject to verbal and physical abuse in the classroom. It is one of the major factors wearing us down, and there appears to be no help in site – nor does anyone even seem to acknowledge what is happening.


 Fun Fact: This one really seemed to strike a nerve with my fellow teachers. I heard so many similar stories from educators across the country who are going through these same things.

 

Like this post?  You might want to consider becoming a Patreon subscriber. This helps me continue to keep the blog going and get on with this difficult and challenging work.

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I’ve also written a book, “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform,” now available from Garn Press. Ten percent of the proceeds go to the Badass Teachers Association. Check it out!

I Love Teaching, But…

stevenmsinger Accountability, Budget, capitalism, Charter Schools, Child Safety, Civil Rights, Common Core, Compassion, Corporate Education "Reform", COVID-19, Credibility, Education, Gun Control, Guns, history, Labor, Learning, Local Control, Parents, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, privatization, Propaganda, protest, Racism, School Funding, Schools, Standardized Testing, Students, teacher autonomy, Teachers, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , ,

 
 
I love teaching. 


 
I love greeting the kids as they come into class every day. I love listening to their stories, making them laugh, giving advice, and calming their fears. I love accepting assignments, helping with problems, and making connections about things we talked about last week. 


 
I don’t love being perpetually exhausted.  


 
I don’t love struggling to keep my eyes open as I drive home every day. I don’t love shuffling through the door, dropping my bag on the floor and collapsing into bed for a few hours before I can even think about cooking dinner. I don’t love the paralysis every tiny decision gives me after making thousands of choices all day long in class. I don’t love missing giant chunks of my family’s life. 


 
I love teaching. 


 
I love inspiring kids to write. I love coming up with creative and interesting journal topics and poetry assignments. I love explaining the far out concepts – hyperbole, alliteration, onomatopoeia. I love jamming to Blackalicious’ “Alphabet Aerobics,” sharing “Whose Line is it Anyway” videos and trying to write paragraphs to the melodies of Miles Davis. 


 
I don’t love having so little planning time.  


 
I don’t love having to fly by the seat of my pants rehashing lessons that were getting stale two years ago but having no time to make them fresh or original. I don’t love trying to fit in as much grading as I can in class, trying to call or email parents on my lunch break. I don’t love having to fill in for missing staff 4 out of 5 days a week, being a glorified security guard in lunch duty, subbing for a teacher who isn’t absent but who has been called into an unnecessary staff meeting for yet another scattershot initiative to fight bogus learning loss.  


 
I don’t love the impossibly high expectations. 


 
I don’t love being praised for being the most important factor in school for student learning but bullied to ignore the importance of out of school factors. I don’t love being blamed for a child’s poverty or home life or the bias of standardized test questions. I don’t love being held responsible for everything by people who don’t listen to me and are, themselves, responsible for nothing. 


 
 
I love teaching. 
 


I love reading books with my students – both together and separately. I love going to the library and helping them find something suited to their tastes – try a Ray Bradbury classic;  maybe a new anime; and when you’re ready, a deep meditation by Toni Morrison. I love reading “The Outsiders” with my classes and experiencing Ponyboy’s story anew every year – feeling the highs, the lows, the losses, the victories. I love seeing the look on children’s faces when the realization dawns that they can no longer honestly say they hate reading, but only that sometimes it’s hard. I love catching them with a book in their bags or the same book on their desks being read over and over again because they love it so much. 


 
 
I don’t love the low pay.  


 
I don’t love that starting salary for most teachers is just $10,000 above the most generous minimum wage. I don’t love that becoming a teacher often means going into debt so you can earn a four-year degree in education and serve an (often unpaid) internship in the classroom just to make 14 percent less than those from professions that require similar levels of education. I don’t love that our salaries start low and grow even more slowly. I don’t love that many of us need a second or third job just to make ends meet. I don’t love that teachers get crap for having summers off (unpaid) but average 53 hours a week during the school year – making up for any downtime in June, July and August. 


 
I don’t love the lack of autonomy.  


 
I don’t love having to waste time writing formal lesson plans detailing what I hope to do every minute of every day complete with justifications and references to developmentally inappropriate academic standards written by the testing industry and political hacks. I don’t love being told to differentiate student learning but standardize my assessments. And when things go wrong, I don’t love being forced to enact scripted lessons when everything my students do and ask and feel and care about is unscripted. 


 
I don’t love the gaslighting. 


 
I don’t love having my health concerns about Covid-19 ignored as the school board votes to make our buildings mask optional while their children are quietly quarantined in greater numbers. I don’t love explaining to my administrators or principals about how useless standardized tests are and being told that my opinion is wrong. I don’t love how my educated viewpoints based on decades of classroom experience are always silenced by charter school operators, think tank goons and newly minted principals fresh out of prep schools funded by billionaire philanthropists who make money off the standardized testing industry. I don’t love being called a hero if I put my life on the line to keep children safe during a shooting or emergency but vilified if I ask for reforms to make sure it doesn’t happen (again).  


 
 
I love teaching.  


 
I love conferencing with students every step of the way as they write essays. I love providing whole group instruction, mini-lessons, and even reteaching it all at individual desks when they didn’t catch it the first time. I love watching students’ abilities grow with each passing day, with each line they write, with each assignment they turn in. I love cheerleading, championing and boosting their confidence until they can see their own powers increase. 


 
I don’t love the disrespect – sometimes in the classroom but often outside of it. I don’t love being told I’m not man enough, not woman enough, too black, too brown, not black enough, not brown enough, not bilingual, not poor enough, too poor, too selfish, too selfless, too anything and everything. I don’t love being blamed for all the evils of society while having none of the power to change anything. 


 
I don’t love being used as a political football. I don’t love being scapegoated for the latest scare tactic jargon used to trick people into thinking public education is a failure when it works better than almost any other social program we have and would work even better than it does if we adequately, equitably and sustainably funded it. I don’t love having my work compared to that of teachers in other countries when our public education system teaches everyone and most others are extremely selective about who gets 12 years of schooling. I don’t love having to explain why complaints about per pupil spending in the US are misleading since they’re talking about averages and we don’t spend the money equally – some kids get riches and many get pennies. I don’t love getting hate mail and risking pink slips for teaching honest history or science while politicians foam at the mouth hurling racist dog whistles like “Critical Race Theory.” 


 
I don’t love getting death threats just for doing my job. I don’t love TikTok challenging students to slap a teacher or encouraging nationwide school bomb threats and shootings.  I don’t love going to trainings where the police offer advice on how to fight back if there’s a shooter because at that point it’s survival of the fittest in the middle school. I don’t love being in class and all of a sudden everything goes quiet and you hear a strange noise in the distance and wonder if this is the moment you have to make sure the door is locked and get the kids to take up their positions in the dark.  


 
 
I love teaching. 


 
I do.  


 
I really love teaching.  


 
But all this other stuff makes it hard to keep coming back and doing this thing I love. 

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The Endless Humiliation of Teachers

stevenmsinger Accountability, Budget, Civil Rights, Compassion, Corporate Education "Reform", COVID-19, Education, history, Labor, Learning, Media, Parents, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Politics, Prejudice, School Funding, Schools, small class size, Standardized Testing, Students, teacher autonomy, Teachers, Uncategorized , , , , , , ,


 
 
Comedian Rodney Dangerfield used to joke that he got no respect. 


 
For this punchline to work today he’d probably have to be a teacher. 


 
Because few other professions are less appreciated. 


 
A viral video making the rounds on social media shows South Dakota educators scrambling to pick up $1 bills in a hockey game sideshow.  


 
This was an opportunity for them to grab a few hundred dollars to buy school supplies for their classrooms.  


 
Can you imagine any other professional doing that?  


 
Lawyers giving foot rubs so their clients can get an appeal. Doctors grubbing on a bathroom floor for their patients’ pain pills. Police squeezing into a cash grab booth to fund new bullet proof vests. 


 
Nope. It would never happen because these careers are held in high esteem. And you can tell that based on their salaries and/or the resources provided to do their jobs.  


 
But teachers… We seem to have a perpetual “Kick Me” sign taped to our backs. 


 
We’re underpaid given the years of schooling necessary for employment. 


 
We’re given huge classes and few supplies. (In fact, we’re expected to buy pencils, books, tissues – whatever our students need.)  


 
We’re scapegoated for every social ill in the country but whenever it comes time to find solutions, we’re ignored completely in favor of tech billionaires many of whom dropped out of school and “earned” their fortunes based on loans from rich parents or corporate welfare.  


 
But somehow WE have to grovel on the floor to scrape together enough money to take care of other people’s kids. 


 
It makes me want to throw up.  


 
I can almost hear the reality show TV producers queuing up to make pitches for their next project.  


 
“How about this? Teachers trapped in the woods have to take each other out with paint guns and the last one gets a new set of textbooks!” 


 
“What’ll we call it?” 


 
“How about The Hungry for Education… er… Games?” 


 
“I’ve got a better one. We have high school biology teachers compete for a chance to pay off their student loans by answering trivia questions about marine biology…” 


 
“Yeah and we could call it Squid… er… Game?” 


 
“Try this one on for size. Teachers competing in a marathon to win a HEPA filter to reduce Covid-19 in their classrooms …” 


 
“Ooooh! We could call it The Running… er… Man?” 


 
I’d say this is post-apocalyptic humor but there’s nothing post about our pandemic world.

 
 
The disrespect for teachers has been a fact of our society for decades. 


 
The University of Pittsburgh made headlines recently for bringing back its undergraduate teaching program. For the last 30 years the school only offered masters or higher teaching degrees. But now that so few college students are entering the field, the university thought it made sense to entice them with the relatively lower cost of undergraduate classes.  


 
To which I thought – yeah but who is going to apply? 

Who wants a job that requires you to be a rodeo clown?

Who wants to have to mortify themselves in the Circus Maximus?

“Are you not entertained!?”


 
“Come one, come all – to be underappreciated, underpaid and overworked!” 


 
“Hurry! Hurry! HURRY to proctor standardized tests for poor students and be judged by their low socioeconomic test scores!” 


 
“Gather Round! Gather Round! The one! The only job that takes a genuine calling to help kids learn and makes you so miserable you’ll run away screaming!” 


 
Undergraduate classes won’t be enough. 


 
We need structural solutions to the problem:  


 
Money. 


 
Autonomy. 


 
Respect. 
 


And in the meantime: 


 
Less Paperwork. 


 
Reduced case load. 


 
Dedicated planning periods. 


 
But the problem goes deep.  


 
We live in a country where a significant percentage of the population is skeptical of the value of education.  


 
They don’t want anyone to challenge their preconceptions about race, religion, economics, politics, science, history! No wonder they hate teachers so much! 


 
We might inspire their kids to have an original thought!  


 
We might light the flame that would burn down a different path, and if there’s one thing these people hate, it’s difference.  


 
The worst thing in the world for some folks is raising kids that aren’t carbon copies of their example.  


 
So why not degrade teachers at every opportunity?  


 
Why not have them panhandle for cash instead of funding their classrooms? 


 
Why not have them hustle and scrounge to make their jobs even slightly bearable? 


 
Why not have them beg, borrow and steal for the slightest fraction of economic viability?  


 
Because the less attractive we make the job, the fewer people who’ll apply.  


 
As a society that suits us just fine. 


 
Humiliating teachers is about avoiding humiliation. 


 
For those who refuse to be educated. 


 
 
 
 

 

Like this post?  You might want to consider becoming a Patreon subscriber. This helps me continue to keep the blog going and get on with this difficult and challenging work.

Plus you get subscriber only extras!

Just CLICK HERE.

Patreon+Circle

I’ve also written a book, “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform,” now available from Garn Press. Ten percent of the proceeds go to the Badass Teachers Association. Check it out!