Rewinding a Year

Just one year ago today, everybody in our class was surviving the intensive Teach for America summer training program called Institute. I thought back to that time, when I was so full of hope, so full of inspiration, and so full of the belief that students everywhere can achieve. Fast-forward a year, to this School Reform class, and I hear on a daily basis the same complaints that cynics everywhere shower upon our inner-city children. If it isn’t being short on resources, it’s having an under qualified administration, a central office that makes poor decisions, or a curriculum that doesn’t make sense. What happened to the belief that our children can achieve?

I stumbled on this story earlier, about a woman named Dr. Camika Royal, who was a TFA Baltimore member in 1999, and gave the speech at the opening ceremony of induction recently in Philadelphia. Speaking of school reform, Dr. Royal has kept a close eye on the happenings in Philadelphia, where they are completely eliminating the school district in favor of charter management organizations. Her point is that, as teachers, we are the ones who, in her words, “control the weather.” Educators, she says, and I agree with, are not bad, but they are tired and reform weary. And our students are more than test scores, subgroups, and graduation rates- they are human beings, who want the best for themselves and for the people around them.

A year later, I feel that a part of me forgot that simple truth.  The simple truth that, despite the challenges we face as educators on a daily basis, we are here because we believe that our students can do well for themselves and for the world. Maybe there are some things that schools or school districts can change along the way to make our jobs easier, such as creating smaller schools, supplying us with more resources, etc. But, in the end, our job is to teach. Whatever reform the school districts have in store for us shouldn’t effect our simple ability to teach to our fullest.