So, here it is. My attempt at taking everything that I am currently thinking about and putting it all together. What do I mean? I mean there is a knocking from within that is asking me to do some kind of project that will take what I know and what I am learning about education, teaching, learning, thinking and combine it somehow with my thinking about yoga, meditation, being and overall zen! Quite a tall order wouldn't you say? And yet is it?
It is my humble opinion that we are so lost on so many levels right now that it is scary. My belief is that our path was carved out for us on September 11th and that as a nation we have reacted kneejerkingly with fear. Fear has driven us as a people to make choices, give up freedoms and lose our collective and individual voices as never seen in this country before.
We are the land of the free, the home of the brave and yet they blow up our towers and we cower to whatever it is that we are "told" to do! And with the giving up of our power we have handed it willingly to those security guards at the airports and the people who are "above" who have NO idea what happens every day in a classroom and ultimately to those terrorists. They win.
We are so caught up in trying to walk the ever narrow tightrope of what everyone else has deemed important that we do not even see what is right in front of us and that is each other.
I see this most clearly in classrooms where teachers are teaching programs, curriculums, common core standards, GLE's, etc and not children. Lost in many cases is that human connection that keeps us all moving and wanting to live and be alive. A series of tasks to be completed, checklists to be checked, scores to be achieved takes all sense of wonder, curiosity, desire and the true beauty of learning.
Watch a person engage in something they are passionate about and you can see them glowing with that powerful yearning and desire to know more, do more, learn more. It is infectious. I watch my son Zachary as he spends hours pouring over my camera, reading the manual, experimenting with light, form, shape and color as a result of taking the one photography class offered at his high school. He is so in the zone that he can't even answer a question. Passion is driving him and it is a beautiful sight. A sight I have NEVER seen him have from taking any other class at school...ever.
One of his friends, has one of the most talented teachers I have ever had the privilege of having and knowing myself. Terry Moher was my writing instructor at UNH and working with her allowed me to free up my voice and to write that which needed to be written. Her open minded approach and remarkable conferring techniques allowed me to drive the bus of my own writing. Her questions and suggestions provocative, her manner accepting yet challenging at the same time. She also teaches here at Exeter High School and Zach's friend told me she is the best teacher he has ever had. In asking him to explain why he had to stop and think..
"Well, it is not that it is hard to get good grades, because it is not. It is more that it is the hardest class that I have because we have to think so much." He went on to talk about the choices that Terry allows these students. He talked about the choice she gave them to either write a paper or take a test. And if they did chose the test then they would also be responsible for helping her to come up with the questions for the test. You can see his mind working as he weighs these two ideas wondering if there is an easier way out...but he knows that either way he will have to think. And that leaves him thinking!! Thinking about his own thinking, learning and what it is that he has learned himself from reading Huck Finn. FABULOUS!!! Why? Terry teaches her students. It is that simple and that complicated.
So what does this have to do with my thinking? It is proof positive that when a teacher engages with students it matters. This does not mean that every teacher is going to reach every student, but it does show that if we try we can reach some of our students. I mean if there are more of us out there reaching out, trying to connect with students, work with students, be with children, curl up with a good book with kids, laugh with students, converse with kids, ask for opinions from our kid, LISTEN to them...and be human with them then we are going to see the change happen that we want to see in the world...thank you Ghandi! We need to break down the barrier of what came out of good intentions in the name of better education (based on fear mind you) and see our kids who are waiting on the other side. They NEED us as people. They NEED us to listen. The NEED us to be there for them for more than the basics. They are a very sensitive generation. They are the generation that is going to stop chasing the all mighty dollar and move to work in a more global world, and most of our schools are not in step with them on this journey. They will move on without us, but just imagine if we could facilitate and nurture all that they have to offer. They are brilliant. Their minds work differently having grown up as natives to technologies and yet we, the dinosaurs of technology bawk at it and try to find things wrong with it instead of accepting that is who they are, for better or worse and working WITH them and what they know! I believe in my heart of all hearts they are lightyears ahead of us all...but stuck in a system that models it's education after an industrial model...of which we no longer are!!
I worry that in my work as an educator for the past 20 plus years that we do NOT talk about kids anymore. The conversations, if led by the professionals themselves, tend to lean on what programs they are "doing", what scores their students are getting and not getting, and how little time they have in the day. When I used to sit down with teachers the conversations often started something like this, "I have this one student, James who hates to write..." Our conversations need to come back to those we are teaching because in the process the education system is becoming something that is nothing more than a series of checks and balances, as sterile as a hospital room, white, stark, blinding. It is less and less accessible to our students because they want more. They need more. They deserve more. It is no accident that the percentage of medicated kids is on the rise. I would need medication to stay awake in some of the classes I have observed as well...but WHY anesthetize our kids to cope with a system? Why not teach aesthetically and work to engage our students? They are smarter as a generation than we give them credit for. If we could all just take a collective breath together and begin to contemplate and see all of the insanity that is going on around us then perhaps we could begin to move our thinking back into the realm of humanity. We need to stop "DOING" school in the name of programs and test scores and all out systems failures. We need to jump out of the boxes we have put ourselves in and see that this is a system made up of people, not products and that people thrive and grow and change because of relationships and connections and thinking and curiosity, not because they happen to fill in the right or wrong dots with a number two pencil on a computer generated and scored tests.
And yet I also feel the need for a disclaimer to all of those dedicated, amazing, wonderful teachers out there(You KNOW who you are!!) who work to fight against all of these ideas and others as they slog their way through a confusing labyrinth of expectations, goals and trying to do the jobs that are expected of them and balancing that with the needs of their students. It is the ultimate juggling act with a million plates in the air and I admire you and know that I could not do the job that you do right now because for many of you there is so little freedom. My hope is that one day we will all return to the freedom to teach as we once knew it and that this "system" we are all in will find it's way back to humanity and out of the insanity it is in!! We need to stand up to fear and return to what we KNOW is good teaching and that begins with starting each year out getting to know our students, NOT testing them and placing them on a grid that means, ultimately, nothing to that child who is there and wanting to learn and often means even less to those who are teaching them!
Stepping down from the Soapbox...thank you for indulging me!
