After reflecting on all that happened during my first year teaching, I found myself puzzled as to why I did not incite more change in my school. Yes, it was my first year; I was learning the curriculum and figuring out how to teach at the same time, but I questioned why I spent so much time noticing the problems that existed within the walls of my school and very little time changing them. Because of this, I was intrigued to be thinking
about the teacher's direct role in school reform.
I was thinking about my experience and how
there are so many things at my school that I would be interested in changing. Yet, do I even have the power to do that? What if no one will listen to me, and
what if they don't like what I have to say? Will I eventually be hurting my own
career as an educator by trying to advocate for change for the good of my
students? These are all questions that I had as I sought to improve upon all of the structures that were put in place for my students to "succeed." Yet, I never stirred the pot. I voiced my opinion in a submissive way that never really encouraged change. Reform needs to start somewhere, but if the people who are working most directly with the students don't do it, who will?
This is why I believe KIPP has been able to find so much success. Both David Levin and Mike Feinberg, the founders of the Knowledge is Power Program, fought for their students. They went over people's heads to get what they wanted, and they were not backing down from anyone...all in the name of advocating for their students. In order to incite change, you have to be willing to take risks. This is something that the KIPP founders are famous for, and their grit and determination has enabled so many students to now have the quality education that they deserve.
So, as I think about all that Levin and Feinberg did, I start to think about what I could do, what my co-workers could do to improve the situation for all of the students in my school. I'm not suggesting that we start going over people's heads and going straight to Dr. Alonso for what we want, but demanding a better education for our students is not only our job, but it is our duty as educators. Everything that we are trying to instill in our students - resilience, persistence, drive - needs to first be engrained in teachers. If there is something at your school that needs reform, make it known. If we do not advocate for the changes in our schools that our kids deserve, who will?
5 comments:
Really great post, Courtney. I had many of the same thoughts over the past couple weeks. I find it both interesting and saddening that at my school there seems to be a culture of keeping quiet and going with the flow. For example, I overheard my colleague tell a new teacher, "Don't raise your hand during staff meetings, the principal will just shoot down your question or comment." As with so many other things, I think this comes back to leadership. Ideal leadership would encourage teachers to raise questions when something is not benefiting students or when they have a new idea. Finding that leadership - and keeping them in Baltimore - I think is the key.
I also thought that this was a really good post. I had the same thoughts about my role at my school. One of the things that I noticed this year was that the sixth grade team was very cohesive and strong, and ran very smoothly. They also planned really great programs and field trips for their students. But I also noticed that my team, the 7th grade team, was much less organized, much more independent and divided, and way less innovative and idealistic. And I felt that our children got cheated because of this. The 7th graders had no end of the year trip, the discipline structure was all over the place, and the end of the year awards assembly was just thrown together. I did not feel comfortable taking a leadership role because I was still getting acclimated to my students and to my curriculum, but I really do not want to watch this happen again next year. I just thought that our student deserved more than what they got and if no one else will step up and help plan better, I feel compelled to step up on my own and rally other people to help me.
This makes me think about how the culture of a school impacts the students. Similar to Shantrez, I felt as though my team was pretty independent, although there were other grade level teams that worked well together, and had good culture among themselves and their students. One of the teams devised grade-level-wide systems of behavior management, incentives, and consequences that worked very well with their students. But it seemed to me like everything went back to culture. Without the proper rapport between teachers and administrators, it is difficult to implement and maintain systems that work in the interest of students. It seems like there is this culture in Baltimore of tension between teachers and administrators, and between administrators and the central office. And I won't put all of the blame for insufficient advocating on administration, but I do think that Mallory is right and that leaders must be the catalysts of positive school culture. Our schools are about children and not about adult egos, and I believe that when the egos get in the way such that a school culture is no longer positive and supportive, it can discourage us from advocating for our students as we should. Perhaps school leaders should be evaluated on the culture that they build within their schools...
I think the most important thing an educator can do is be an advocate for reform within their own classroom. If we can make our own classrooms the model of what we thing a school should look like, folks will take notice. My principal in particular is always asking for the evidence of what's going on and evidence that something will change it for the better. As such, I've been able to work with my school administration to create a more holistic and comprehensive approach to behavior management because of the things they saw that were working in my own classroom. Ultimately we need to be confident in our abilities to promote change first within our own locust of control: our classroom, and then branch out to more comprehensive reform.
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