Letter to a new teacher:

I'm hearing it a lot these days. It goes like this:

How can I stay or even go into teaching when I am being asked to do things--like prepare children for and administer standardized tests--when I know these activities are not helping them learn, are furthering an agenda that is exploitative and perpetuates a view of education and teaching which is inimical to everything I value and learned about in school?

Good question. 

Nay. This is the ultimate question, the answer to which will decide the fate of America's schools for the next decade, maybe even, given the huge conglomeration of economic and military might in this country, eventually, the fate of the earth.

But it is not a question that I or Jonathon Kozol or anyone can answer for you.  It is a question every teacher must answer themselves.  It is, in fact, a question that probes individual conscience, a place, hopefully, beyond the reach of me, the state, or even, any repair to a material calculus. 

Teaching is, at long last, still an act and an art fully within the sphere of an individual's conscience and control.  Nowhere in the contract does it ask you, as a professional, to hand over your intellect or your heart to the service of an institution.  

Does this mean that you can do whatever you want? 

No.  Nor should it. 

Teaching is a collaborative activity.  You are part of a team trying to deliver high quality services to young people.  You have responsibilities within that and you need to be able to do them well, work effectively with others, monitor and adjust your practice based on feedback, then continue to improve, grow and provide input into instructional and climate issues in your building.

But, you also have to be a full human being within that collaborative process.  You have to be able to fully invest yourself in what you are doing, so as to demonstrate to children that passion, quality relationships and excellence are products of a fully engaged human being.  Without modeling these to young people, how can we honestly expect them to reach their own full potential?   

All too frequently, of course, teachers have no input into the instructional and climate issues in their building.  They are asked to enforce policies, inflict punishments and execute functions which are, too often, personally repugnant.

This has gone on for a long time, in many subtle and not so subtle ways.

As a new teacher, I was once asked to enforce a "no hats" policy in the hallways of my school.  I didn't agree with it, but I did it: tapping the top of my head if I saw a hat, communicating that it was time to remove it.

What I objected to was that, frequently, I did not know the kid in question, and so I had not even the leverage of their name to get the job done.  Further, as time went on, I realized I could spend my entire school day chasing kids with hats, dragging them to the office and enforcing a policy that students and staff subscribed to with the kind of half-hearted reluctance that is the mark of something no one really believes in.

What I said to other faculty was this: 

Is this really the battle we want to be fighting with our students?  Here we are struggling to get them to invest in their own learning, in many cases, just to come to school, and then, the one thing that they will consistently hear from us is that they are not allowed to wear hats in the hallway, before or after school or in-between classes?

Let's put aside for a moment that this is Minnesota and for most of the school year a hat is something every one of their mothers--those that have them--would insist they wear and take to school.  The basic question is:  do you really want to use your staff's time and energy to fight that battle every single period of every single day?  And, at the end of the day, does it contribute to the outcome that you want for the students in that building?

I didn't feel that it did.  But, I, like the rest of the staff, when traveling the hall, would tap the top of our heads, kids would generally take hats off, then, after we or they were around the corner, put their hat back on.  A wink and a nod and that policy was properly executed.

But, I didn't lose sleep over it, and I did not have to think about giving up my chosen career.

Standardized testing is fundamentally a different animal. 

So are things like discussing the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

The Supreme Court recently declined to hear a lower circuit decision in which a teacher was disciplined--was it fired?--not for sharing her personal opinions about the war, but rather, just for mentioning it and the fact that there was debate in this country about whether the war was appropriate.  Apparently, the superintendent had put out a memo ordering all teachers to not discuss the war in any way.

So much for teaching our children about free-speech and democracy.  

So, essentially, between standardized testing and this recent court decision, the law of the land is that teachers are merely executing the policies, accepted range of discussion, and curriculum of the entity for whom they work.  And that, any deviation from that, is grounds for punishment, censure and possibly, termination.  There is not such a thing as free-speech for teachers while performing their official duties, nor is there room for acts of conscience, like the recent case of David Wasserman in Madison, Wisconsin, who refused to administer NCLB exams and was threatened with firing and the loss of health coverage for his family.

We are at a crucial point in American educational history.  I know that things have been bad before.  For instance, my mother, as a teacher in Enderlin, North Dakota in 1946, could not go downtown, day or night, without a female escort, so concerned was the public that her honor be unimpeachable.

Yet, I do think that this latest tendency to "obey authority" is something that needs to be questioned, confronted and resisted.  It is the very heart of a liberal arts education and good citizenship to ask questions, engage in debate and articulate dissent, when an individual feels it is warranted. 

If, in fact, standardized tests are harmful to children, are against the ethics of our profession, and represent the interests of the state or the corporation more than the people we are supposed to serve, then, at some point, at least for me, I need to take a stand.  

This is my country, too.  I know I am one voice in a sea of millions, but I do pretend to be a leader--every teacher does.  When we show young people that we as individuals do have a conscience, do have free-will, and are capable of acting in a way that in consistent with what we know to be right, we are setting a powerful model before them.

I don't like to engage in apocalyptic conspiracy theories, but given our country's willingness to bomb and invade other countries, to burn and consume fossil fuels, to demonize and threaten force instead of engage and negotiate, at some point, I think a conscientious teacher has the ethical responsibility to show kids that going along with such a system, when you feel it is morally wrong, means abdicating your rights and responsibilities as a citizen in a country that depends on good citizens.

I would rather defend that principle then go to sleep at night knowing I was contributing to the diminishment of the one core principle that does make this country great.

As for you new teachers, just remember:  the children are watching.  They are watching what you do, not just what you say.  Neither the state, nor the school district own who you are or what you believe.  Nor should you communicate to children that the highest form of obedience is to governmental authority or the corporate dominated economy.  Neither of these is the ultimate receptacle for the human heart.

Shakespeare said it best:  To thine own self be true.