The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Over the past year I have had the opportunity to do a great deal of speaking, presenting and collaborating with educators all over the country. In talking with educators from every state in the US as well as numerous of the US Territories, I have gained a unique perspective of the state of education in our country. Now, I am not going to pretend to be an expert but want to share some of the things I have seen, heard and experienced. Despite what the title suggests, I will go a bit out of order in my observations.

The Bad:

There are bad teachers teaching in our schools. I have seen them. I have talked to them and listened to them talk. I have heard more stories from other educators about these bad teachers than I would ever have time to share. They are out there in our schools teaching students every single day.

To be clear, I am not talking about the teachers whose students’ standardized test scores are low. Nor am I talking about the teachers who are labeled bad by some subjective administrator evaluation. I am talking about those teachers who are demeaning to children. The ones that teach the same way in year one as they do in year thirty one. Their lesson planner rolls over and the copyright dates in their packets are before the students were even born. Some are even engaging in inappropriate relationships with students or are abusive. These are the teachers that as parents we never want our children to have. They are out there and nearly every teacher or administrator I talked to could point out at least one in their building or district.

While this sounds bad, the reality is that these teachers are by far in the minority. They are few and far between but unfortunately they get all the press. These teachers end up on the 5 o-clock news for their antics and often embarrass our entire profession.

The Ugly:

As I have travelled and spoken to media, education lobbyists in Washington and even a handful of politicians and policy makers, I see lots of ugly. That is not a knock on these people’s personal grooming but more on the actions of the individuals within our government and our major media outlets. Despite what people want to believe, real change in our country’s educational system will only happen with a concentrated and real effort on the part of at least one of the two major influencers, media or government.

The national mediahas more power to change public perception and put pressure on politicians than any teacher’s union or grassroots movement in schools or on social media. Yet, they choose to report on the negative and continue to perpetuate the stereotypes that prohibit educators in our country from achieving a level of professional respect that many other professions are afforded. It is literally ugly at times to watch the education stories that show up on the news and in the papers. Media outlets are letting the few bad teachers tell the story for an entire profession.

Government is such an easy target these days in an election year where everyone is pointing fingers and casting stones. However, the reality is our state and national governments are doing little to help the state of education in our country. We have politicians around the country speaking of the importance of special programs and extracurricular activities in our student’s schools. Yet, when it comes down to voting and allocating resources, those are the first to get cut. There are policy makers that claim they don’t want teachers teaching to tests. Yet, they create systems of accountability that not only necessitate teaching to the tests but also set up a system built to encourage cheatingand not collaboration. It is ugly to see the amount of pontificating that happens with little actual action to support those words. As the old saying goes, “actions speak louder than words.”

In addition, fake political campaigns in an election year to artificially show respectfor teachers will not create any lasting change. Our politicians spend more time trying to get reelected and further polarizing the people of our country that any improvement or this so called “system” may be an unachievable dream.

The Good:

Of course I saved the best for last which is the good I have seen. Despite the bad teachers, disinterested media and incompetent policy makers, there is good abounding in education and it is everywhere. I could write for days about the stories I have heard from educators across the country and beyond. One such story is of Chad Miller, a teacher from Hawaii, who shared with me his school’s mission of promoting peace and a philosophical approach to learning. Then I was blown away when I learned that the Dalai Lamahimself visited Chad’s school to talk about his mission and the work of the teachers and students. The work that he and colleagues are doing along with their students is inspirational to say the least.

I am constantly amazed by the sheer number of teachers that share their very best work and that of their students through social media. They have no obligation to do so but still choose to share in an effort to better learning for all students. Spend an hour following a hashtag or a discussion thread and you will see powerful work happening in 140 characters every minute of every day.

In my heart I believe an overwhelming majority of educators are doing good work. They are working day in and day out to the very best of their abilities. They spend countless hours perfecting their craft and making the learning experiences in their classrooms the best they can be despite the lack of funding and professional respect.

The Verdict:

What does this all mean? What have I taken away from this? Well, it is actually quite simple to me. Celebrate the good, fight the bad, and acknowledge the ugly.

We must bring each other up in a genuine manner and celebrate the good around us. Send a note to a peer who is doing something positive or trying something new. Encourage the positive work that is happening in your schools in big and small ways. We cannot settle for mediocritynor should we tolerate it and need to fight against all forms of “bad” in our schools. We need to provide opportunities to support and improve teachers but also know when enough is enough. Cut our losses on those teachers who refuse to improve and focus on those that have a chance to be better. Acknowledge the ugly media campaigns and political circus but don’t spend our time focusing on things we really don’t have control over. Recognize and be informed but remain focused on what is important…the students. At the end of the day we must remember that above the tides of ugly and bad that can easily discourage our work as educators, there is far more good that we must recognize and appreciate. 

Passion Projects

I am always looking for ways to inspire my students and promote learning in my classroom. The biggest obstacle I often face is school itself. Whether its curriculum, rules, schedules, standardized tests or the host of other things that get in the way of inspired learning, there is always appears to be some obstacle. The past two years I have been fortunate to offer my students a day of unfiltered learning that was driven by their passions and interests in the form of Innovation Day. For me, it always kind of bothered me that this day only happened one time during the school year. I wanted a way to have this notion of learning exist in my classroom more regularly and this year I am giving something new a try.

Two weeks ago I introduced my students to something a colleague and I are calling “Passion Projects”. We committed a day a week (which is a class period in a junior high setting) to allow kids to work on these projects. To start, we asked our students what they were passionate about. What did they want to be when they grew up? If they had unrestricted time and resources to learn about something, what would that be? As a class we talked through the answers to these questions and started designing projects and learning activities based on their interests. Below is the first list of topics that was generated by my students during their first brainstorm.

• Music
• Environmental impacts on testing
• Entertaining
• Ocean
• Building
• Website design
• Interior Decorating
• Fishing
• Photobooks/Photography
• Acting
• Writing
• Engineering
• Dinosaurs
• Dancing ballerina
• Cooking, chef
• Perform-drama-skits
• Occupational Therapy
• Marine biology
• Animals
• Basketball
• Swimming animals
• Game design
• Meteorology

Now some of these we are working with and creating into “doable” projects within the parameters of our school day and physical space. Outside of that, I have given them very few restrictions. One requirement I gave them is that I want them to keep a learning journal in some form to reflect on their learning. The other thing I asked them to do is share their work with their peers a few times over the course of the year. I told them I will provide feedback and guidance but never a grade or evaluation.

My goal is for students to pursue something they are passionate about and may never get a chance within a school to study. One way I hope to further inspire them is to use my social media “superpowers” to connect my students with some experts or professionals in some of the above topics. For example, I am already working on connecting my young meteorologist with one of the stars of Discovery’s show Stormchasers. I truly want to inspire these kids to think outside of the box and find something to be passionate about. If are or know somebody that is connected to one of these fields please leave me a comment as I would love to talk with you.

I look forward to sharing this journey with my students and sharing their successes and spectacular failures along the way. 

The Victim

The other day I had the opportunity to speak with a student who was heading back to school as so many children are or will be soon. This particular student, a young man, was not too keen on going back to school. I asked him why and he just said he hated school and didn’t want to go. Knowing this student fairly well, and even knowing a great deal about his school, I was a little taken back by this. Here was a good kid who I thought had a great previous school year, who was now nearly petrified of going back to school. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why. Personally, I just wrote this off to the unease that often accompanies a new school year. I even went as far as to talk to his mother about the situation and she was just as baffled as I was.

As any good parents would do, this young man’s parents encouraged him and slightly “forced” him on the bus that first day of school. Knowing both of them well, I knew the anxiety they felt and uncertainty of how his day would go. At the end of the day, he got off the bus, came home and appeared to be in good spirits. When he was asked about his day, he simply replied that it was good and that he wanted to go back the next day.

Being the inquisitive person that I am, I was curious as to what could have happened on the first day of school that could flip his seemingly strong feelings so quickly. Once I had a chance to sit down with him, I asked him how his first day was. He replied that it was good as he had told his mother. I then followed it up with the question, why? Why was school good for him? He looked at me and said, “Pat is not there anymore.”

Now, Pat is a fictional name because I don’t want to embarrass or put down a real student. However, he said that his day was good because this student was no longer in his class. This again heightened my curiosity so I asked him what he meant by that statement. He went on to explain how this particular student would push and hit him all of last year. Now that this student was no longer in his class, he was confident school would be “good”. This young man was a victim of bullying. As someone who knows this student well, I was shocked that he was apparently being picked on and nobody was aware of it. Trust me when I say his parents had no clue. As any good teacher would do, I then asked this young man if he told his teacher or another adult in his school. He replied nope and then went back to coloring.

The story above is real and actually happened to me as I described it. The students involved will remain nameless as that is not the intent of why I share this story. We have many students in our schools and classrooms that are harassed or mistreated in some way and will never speak up for themselves. Instead they harbor this fear where it manifests as it did in this young man to a point of him not wanting to go to school. Now, I know this student as well as his teachers. They would be the first to address this type of issue but clearly they were not aware of it.

It is this type of story that reminds me to be ever so aware of the quiet and meek students in our classrooms…or even the loud ones that you suspect are hiding pain. While many kids will share their life stories with you at the drop of a hat, many will never step up and advocate for themselves. Sadly, we have seen the pain caused by adults on children who were incapable of speaking up for themselves. We have to see the real pain that is also being caused by other kids. Be mindful of the victims and go out of your way to create those relationships that allow students to feel comfortable reaching out to you and advocating for themselves. Not all victims are obvious and not all victims will stand up for themselves.