Every employer I know of (and I would assume that you are no exception Colin) wants engaged employees who are passionate about their jobs. Most employers do not want employees who hate their work but persist through it anyway. It is a fallacy to believe that we are teaching our kids that the heart of innovative capability (and therefore their future job prospects) is best served by doing something you hate for an extended period of time no matter the consequences.
But I have to focus on what will get them work, even if that will hurt them, society, the companies that hire them and everyone around them.
"Why are you so convinced that my son is going to be an academic or an investment banker?" Because as far as I can tell, those are the only two things that schools prepare kids to be.
and that the stuff that he loves (art and music and video games) will be a great future for him and the stuff he hates (math and science) is something he will never compete in, never have a chance at.
But school doesn’t care, because school does not have the objective of helping my son produce the maximum amount of value in the future that he will probably encounter. School cares about ensuring that he knows how to take tests, follow directions and can do math that he will never have to care about for the rest of his life.
Most employers do not want employees who hate their work but persist through it anyway. It is a fallacy to believe that we are teaching our kids that the heart of innovative capability (and therefore their future job prospects) is best served by doing something you hate for an extended period of time no matter the consequences.
As a result, we’ve wasted 15 years avoiding incremental improvement, and instead trying to upend a reasonably successful school system.
But the reason it hasn’t narrowed is that your profession has done too good a job — you’ve improved white children’s performance as well, so the score gap persists, but at a higher level for all.
Policymakers, pundits, and politicians ignore these gains; they conclude that you, educators, have been incompetent because the test score gap hasn’t much narrowed.
If you believe public education deserves greater support, as I do, you will have to boast about your accomplishments, because voters are more likely to aid a successful institution than a collapsing one.
In short, underemployment of parents is not only an economic crisis — it is an educational crisis. You cannot ignore it and be good educators.
equally important educational goals — citizenship, character, appreciation of the arts and music, physical fitness and health, and knowledge of history, the sciences, and literature.
If you have high expectations, your students can succeed regardless of parents’ economic circumstances.
That is nonsense.
health insurance; children are less likely to get routine and preventive care that middle class children take for granted
If they can’t see because they don’t get glasses to correct vision difficulties, high expectations can’t teach them to read.
Because education has become so politicized, with policy made by those with preconceptions of failure and little understanding of the educational process, you are entering a field that has become obsessed with evaluating only results that are easy to measure, rather than those that are most important. But as Albert Einstein once said, not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted, counts.
To be good educators, you must step up your activity not only in the classroom, but as citizens. You must speak up in the public arena, challenging those policymakers who will accuse you only of making excuses when you speak the truth that children who are hungry, mobile, and stressed, cannot learn as easily as those who are comfortable.
An important read for anyone who truly wants to understand what's really important in education and the false reform strategies of our current (and past) administration.
Really liked this! I sent it to all my teacher friends. She does a good job addressing a much better way to enact change in our districts than the method used by media and Hollywood. I think Waiting for Superman is a cop-out. A bonafide cop-out. It's so easy for the media and entertainment industry to just throw sticky-bombs at public schools. The ironic thing is there are so many privileged individuals in the media industries that were taught in elitist environments. When is someone going to make a movie bashing parents who do nothing to help their children succeed?
Lastly, I loved her comment about the decision being dumber the further the person making is from a real classroom. Classic. Thanks again for sharing.
Glad you found it helpful. I thought it was very clear, well written, and offers some solutions... solutions that require social and moral change, not just political and hegemonic change.
Excellent perspectives here! Love this concluding line:
"Beware CEOs who say teachers are the problem. And beware CEO solutions. You might find yourself in a room without windows."
For most of my life (along with millions of other students) I have been taught to believe that the secret to a successful life is to get outstanding grades. Slowly over the years however, I have discovered this premise to be completely false.
"I'm done talking ... it's time to take this training into the classroom - that's where the teaching is going on. Besides, you need to build your local capacity."
f the large group is "the lecture," the CWT is the "lab."