Teachers Know

First day of school.  Parents don’t know what is in store for their children this year.  Principals kind of know, superintendents don’t know, school boards don’t know, legislators don’t know and billionaires for sure don’t know.  Teachers know.  Only teachers know.  Teachers have the map, they know the journey of this year, and they look at their students as passengers and fellow-travelers on this journey.  Teachers will quickly learn where the journey starts for each student and how far each must go to successfully arrive.  And in that way a relationship is formed with each student.  There are some who will promote high priced computer assisted instructional programs for kids.  Alas and alack, those may help somewhat, but they are incapable of forming a relationship with the kids and are, in my humble opinion, mostly a waste of money.  Teachers do not survey their classroom and see the kids as a lump, as a group, as a large blur who somehow represent lots of little data sets.  Teachers see each and every student.  Only teachers know the necessary journey in each class with each student.

In addition to teaching kids the actual content, teachers learn that some kids may have a tough time growing up as they need to this year.  There are steps, there are milestones, kids need to accomplish.  Some kids will have a tougher time taking the next step than other kids.  Most likely those kids will have it harder because their parents really do not want them to grow up.  They want their children to remain dependent on them.  They want to protect their kids, spoil their kids, earn the love of their kids and hopefully their kids will return to the roost and take care of them in later years.  Parents like these want to be the first line of defense against a teacher who does not understand their child and somehow their child feels unappreciated and non-rewarded by some task-master teacher.  Sadly, the teacher will know that child better in many ways than the parent.  Whatever the crime perceived by a parent from picking on my kid, to failure to turn in an assignment, the teacher will view the crime as an instructional and emotionally developmental issue, not some kind of personal affront.  I remember my guffaw when a parent said, “But Johnny never lies to me!” and/or, “Sally would not be caught dead with a boy like that.”  And, if the parent appeals a ruling and explanation beyond a truly professional teacher, woe to a principal who backs the parent and not the teacher.  Why?  Because teachers know. 

When a parent or a community member or a board member approaches a principal or a superintendent regarding the performance of a kid, or an issue with the kid, or the performance of a whole group of kids, the principal and the superintendent do not know the setting, context and events leading up to the incident.  He or she has no clue what has transpired in the classroom, what the teacher expects and what the student has done.  Superintendents and principals tend to be risk avoidance type folks and do not want to make parents mad or board members mad or legislators mad, so the administrator is likely to say he or she will look into it.  If they are really wimps they worry about making the athletic director mad.  But that’s just silly.  The AD works under the supervision of the administration.  Supes and principals that support AD’s over teachers end up all tangled up in complicated mixed loyalties.  I have actually heard of athletic directors who would call an ARD to change a kid’s IEP just so they could play Friday night.  Such bastardization of the purpose of schools is both sinful and illegal.  Athletic Directors do not know.  Superintendents and principals should simply say, “Talk to the teacher first.”  Why?  Because the teacher knows.

Every day, likely for at least an hour, this highly trained and educated adult interacts with a group of kids.  Some of these groups are way too large, some are small.  Some are 4 years old, some are 18.  But in every single instance, the teacher knows what is to be done, what is to be learned, what is to be experienced, what is to be thought about, what is to be created.  And in every single instance the teacher monitors the progress of these 20 or 30 or (Lord help them) 40 or more kids move from step 1 to step 2.  The teacher sees those who leap.  The teacher sees those who do not want to go on and want to retreat.  The teacher sees those who move only if cajoled, bribed, or threatened.  The teacher sees.  And the teacher knows.

Somewhere, way outside the classroom, a school board member is saying not all kids need to go to college.  He is wrong in the sense that all kids need to be prepared to go to college.  The gap between middle class and upper middle class is drawn by those who have a college degree.  The days of earning high income via a skilled trade are virtually gone, and if we are not preparing every single student to attend and be successful in college we are doing a terrible disservice to those kids and their parents.  We need to totally debunk the argument that "some kids are just not made to go to college."  That is BS.  Successful college grads do not all love college, reading, writing, thinking, homework and long essay tests.  Saying kids should be exempt from college preparation because that is outside their make up is equivalent to telling Uncle Sam you did not file a tax return this year because math is just not your thing.

Somewhere way outside the classroom a school board wants to see standardized test results assuming that somehow that is good measure of what the teacher did.  They are wrong.  Teachers do not take those tests.  And the results for students are spurious at best.  The linkage between the teacher and the student's performance is mostly poppycock and balderdash.  The strongest link we know relative to student performance on a high stakes standardized test is not the teacher-student link.  It is the parental income link, the zip code link, the racial identity link.  To argue that a great teacher failed to get all students to pass the test is as silly as arguing that the oncologist did not prevent lung cancer in all his patients that smoke. 

Somewhere way outside the classroom a legislator is thinking public schools would be better if they competed with charter schools.  He or she is wrong.  Teachers frankly do not worry about nor care what is going on in the next wing, much less what may be going on in some other facility designed to make entrepreneurs rich at the expense of public schools.  There is no sense of competition because we all know who works in those schools, and we know they could not hack it in our school.  We know at conferences we do not come to sit at their feet to learn.  It is the other way around. Somewhere, way outside the classroom, multi-billionaires sip brandy and decide to fund their own little experiments in schools, all of which, again I say, all of which have failed.  Making money does not make one smart or a skilled educator.  Getting elected does not make one smart or a skilled educator.  Being a teacher makes one smart.  Being a teacher for a while makes one a skilled educator. or a teacher drop out.

Teachers know. They know the kids, the curriculum, the challenges, and the measures.  No one knows this better than that teacher with those kids in that subject this period.  Period. 

So before you propose some cock-a-mammy cure or program for public education just shut up and ask a teacher.  And if you are making plans to "improve" a school you better ask the teachers.  And if you are even building a new facility you better ask the teachers.  Why?

Because teachers know.

Have a great year.