The traditional, patronizing view of teachers, that they are to be treated like saints and paid as if they'd taken a vow of poverty, has lately gone through a schizophrenic inversion. Open the newspaper most any day and you'll read about "bad teachers" who are holding children back and, through their unions, conspiring to remain well compensated.

I have to agree that school reform involves a lot of key players inside and outside of the classroom. Kennedy mentioned throughout her text this notion. I liked how she mentioned that teachers feel a lot pressure from within their own schools and by their teammates. During our professional development meetings, I can see the gears going amongst my colleagues as we are listening about RISE, SLO, and even the many other acronyms of RISE. They are feeling the pressure to develop realistic but achieveable objectives. Third-fifth grade teachers are beginning to look combative towards the primary grades as the younger grades don't have the pressure of ISTEP. However, K-2nd grade teachers have the pressure of preparing these students early so they CAN pass ISTEP. It seems like this could be a vicious cycle and it's only in the beginning stages. I think it would be more of a relief for teachers if they had that reassurance and support from districts, government, and other reformers - instead of feeling the pressures and responsibilities within the school walls.

Article abstract: This article explored "the personal and professional changes experienced by a teacher education faculty who embarked on a joint project relating to urban education. The faculty members committed to write book chapters applying their areas of expertise to the challenge of preparing teachers for urban schools." With a qualitative research design, the results showed a detailed description of the staff's "discoveries, thoughts, doubts, and reflections at three points during the project" The study's results revealed "an evolving perspective on urban education focusing upon understanding the lived experiences of the children" as a means of implementing meaningful education for these urban students.

The qualitative study found that teachers demonstrated both commitment and excitement. However, these educators were faced with hesitation and confusion, "because of the lack of personal or professional experiences in urban schools, the complexity of the issue, and/or the cohesiveness of the [study's] book"

I think what I'm starting to see is that the essence...is not developing recipes, quick fixes and a how-to-do-it book as much as it is to begin to talk about the need for understanding such issues as passion, resilience, compensatory kind of skills...I'm getting more to the point of talking about what a person takes into the environment...So if we try to just give our students a whole lot of tricks saying this will work and that will work I think we're setting them up for failure. So we've got to try to turn some of their attitude into philosophy and understanding of the urban setting. It's more knowledge and attitude than it is a skill. That's a change. That's not the way I was approaching it (ST, 11/6, pp. 1-2).