FROM THE EDITOR: How Teaching Changed Everything
Effective May 24, I return full-time to journalism. After two years as a teacher at James Monroe High School, however, my reporting on education will never again be the same.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
When classes end on the 23rd, my career as a teacher — for now — will be over. I’ll now be fully focused on the Advance and journalism.
It is in one way a welcome change, as these are the two great passions in my life. I am a journalist, not a professional teacher.
I return to full-time journalism, however, a changed man because of teaching.
Reality Hits Idealism
When I learned two years ago that I would be teaching social studies at James Monroe High School, I was immediately confronted with two competing thoughts:
I am Ready for This — For a decade, I was a university instructor, where I cut my teeth on introducing freshmen to the dizzyingly complicated world of European History from, as we liked to say, “the cooling of the earth to the Reformation” — all in 14 fast-paced weeks. For more than 15 years, I wrote in depth for a range of national publications about education policy. For a decade I traveled the world visiting schools and learning how other nations educate their students. And as of this summer, I will have been married to a teacher for 40 years, who has shared the highs and lows, frustrations and celebrations, laughter and heartbreaks of her journey. I certainly had a lot to learn, but I was coming to teaching with important experience. I could handle this.
I am Not Ready for This — As the day to report grew closer, so too the realization that I had not interacted with high school students in any meaningful way since my own kids had been in high school — four years past. So, too, the realization that the education I received growing up and the education I witnessed as my children went through school, were vastly different from the education that I would be expected to deliver. I wasn’t sure I could handle this.
Meeting Ms. Rackley
Reporting for work a week before returning teachers, I sat at the too-large-for-the-space conference table in the office at James Monroe High School, my new home, surrounded by boxes, reams of printouts, and my new colleagues.
And there was Ms. Rackley.
The value in public schools rests with the teachers. We need to hear less — much less — from the administrative leaders, and more — far more — from those who are on the frontlines doing the work.
Audrey welcomed me and the others into the room, and she then promptly dropped on the table a three-ringed binder thick enough to be confused for an Apollo 11 flight manual at the Houston Flight Center in 1969.
Every page of that manual, it seemed, was a reminder of the difficulties to come, and the dangers at every step, as well as the preparation awaiting me. From syllabi to schedules, model lesson plans to calendars, resources to forms, processes to phone numbers, Audrey had put two-plus decades of experience in my hands. Beautifully designed. Colorfully illustrated. And utterly impossible to replicate for my situation before school began in two weeks.
I froze.
At some point in that first meeting, where I uttered nary a word as I contemplated what I’d just gotten myself into, Audrey asked — “Are you OK?”
“Yes,” I responded, “just a little overwhelmed.”
Over the following two weeks, I learned just how overwhelmed I would be.
Welcome to High School — I Just Need You to Survive
There is much I would like to forget about those first three months of school.
The first time a well-planned lesson went awry (Day 1 — we couldn’t get through the course requirements due to talkative students and a teacher struggling to figure out what mattered and what didn’t.)
The first time I was cussed out by a student (Day 2 — let’s just say I didn’t handle it particularly well. I got better with practice. And I got lots of practice over two years.)
The first time I realized there were students who were going to test me (Day 2, also — I got the silent treatment as students refused to respond to simple requests: “Please don’t touch the Smartboard, please put your desk back in its proper place, etc….” The challenges grew worse, my ability to deal with them improved, and by Christmas it was basically a non-issue.)
The first time I realized that teaching involved much more than imparting knowledge (Day 3 — When I realized that many of the terms that I assumed they would know, like “archaeology” or “elusive” or “AD” and “BC,” and place names I was sure they would know, like Iran and Iraq, they clearly did not know. My advanced classes were little better. There, students struggled with taking notes and explaining terms in their own words. For the first time, I connected the dots and began to understand the importance of “scaffolding.”)
The first time I realized that the administrative obsession with data and paperwork would utterly deplete the time I had to plan for teaching, and that my class time would be routinely interrupted multiple times by phone calls asking for this form or that document (Day 6 — It would take another article to detail all the administrative details and “student tracking” demands that were thrown our way, revised two months later, abandoned for something else, only to be returned to later.)
The day that good people realize they can’t do this — (In the first month or so, two of my colleagues simply quit. By Thanksgiving, that number was four.)
Heaping social service requirements on teachers, while expecting them to teach kids to regurgitate unconnected facts on an endless series of mandated tests that people use to accuse them of failing has, for a quarter-century, not worked.
I also got great advice and support.
The day I left for the first day of school, my wife calmly said, “I know you’re nervous, but don’t let the kids know that. And show no fear.” In two years, I never did. It remains the single best advice I every received for the first day of work at any job I’ve had.
And then there was the day in October when I was ready to simply walk away and quit.
That day, I went to Audrey and, nearly in tears, confessed that it was all too much.
Two years in the classroom have only made me more passionate about the need to reform—or eliminate—standardized curricula and high-stakes tests—from public schools and prioritize a more well-rounded approach to education.
I don’t remember every detail of that conversation, but it went something like this (the profanity I used that day has been edited out — I note this because those who know me best, know that my use of profanity rises as my stress and frustration levels rise):
Me: Audrey, I can’t do this.
Audrey: Why do you say that?
Me: I’m not connecting with my students, my lessons are a mess, the administrative demands are absurd, my students’ reading and writing skills are so low that they are woefully unprepared for this work — and I don’t know how to help them. I don’t feel I’m making any difference.
Audrey: On the teaching front, that’s not what I hear. On the administrative front, let it go. You focus the time you have on preparing for class. We’ll deal with the rest of it together, later. Right now, I just need you to survive.
Audrey did not know it then, but she was the reason I returned to school the next day. And the day after that. And the day after that.
A Changed Man
I did survive, and some would even say thrived. I’ll settle for “survived.”
Like most every first-year teacher, my first time around from an administrative point of view was a royal mess. Daily lesson plans posted? Nope. Heavy use of computer technology in the classroom? Absolutely not - indeed, I’ve come to believe that computer technology in the classroom is a significant hinderance to learning. Limiting the time I spend lecturing to 15 minutes? Are you kidding me? No.
My second year was marginally better.
The administrative demands didn’t feel as burdensome, though many of them continue to strike me as unnecessary, and at their worst, foolish — checking boxes for some bureaucrat who will check more boxes and shove it up the line. Student behaviors, while challenging, get easier to contend with as one becomes more experienced. And I began to discover the joy in helping students wrestle with new material and succeed.
Teachers deserve respect before ire; deference before demands; compassion before disdain.
Above all else, however, I came to appreciate both the importance of the challenge before us as a society to prepare children for their adult years, and the dire need for better discussions among parents, citizens, and schools about the realities of public education today.
That discussion — like most every public policy issue — has devolved into a mindless series of recriminations among Democrats and Republicans that have more to do with their own inabilities to dialog like adults than with making things better for students.
To those who insist our public schools are failing and will hear nothing to the contrary, and to those who would circle the wagons and scream “all is well,” and for those who want a better understanding of the issues, I offer the following thoughts.
Give teachers their due and respect their judgment until given reason not to. Unless one has actually taught, there is no way one can fully understand both the enormous pressures teachers feel, the number of people who place unrealistic demands on their time, and the amount of abuse (a word I do not use lightly) teachers endure. Not all teachers are great (every institution struggles with under-performers), but I can assure local citizens that the vast majority of teachers that I worked with at James Monroe are talented, hard-working, and care deeply about the success of your child, and — this is important — every other child in their care. These teachers deserve respect before ire; deference before demands; compassion before disdain. I’ve walked many miles in their shoes these past few years. Trying walking a mile or two before telling a teacher they’re off-course.
Don’t fill heads; light fires. For decades I have written at a policy level about the ways standardized, mandated curriculum and high-stakes exams are destroying the very fabric of education. Two years in the classroom have only made me more passionate about the need to reform—or eliminate—both of these from public schools and prioritize a more well-rounded approach to education. As my friend Shaun Kenney frequently says, “Education isn’t about filling a head, it’s about lighting a fire.” If the solutions to our problems aren’t lighting fires, then scrap them and find ones that will.
Make teaching a teacher’s primary job. Teachers have federal, state, and local officials demanding accountability for an ever-expanding range of tasks that they were never meant to handle. And there’s an overabundance of administrative leaders riding herd to make sure teachers follow these mandates. The range of responsibilities is truly staggering, running from social work to data collection, nurse to mental health case manager, and housing assistant to food resource manager, to name only a few. These tasks lead to still more regulations and online trainings that only feed teacher frustration and lead to burnout, while doing nothing to improve education. All these challenges are real. And we must find a way to address them. Dumping all of it on teachers, while expecting them to teach kids to regurgitate unconnected facts on an endless series of mandated tests that people use to accuse them of failing has, for a quarter-century, not worked. Let teachers teach. Find someone else to deal with the other, serious issues.
Marginalize administration, prioritize teaching. Administration in great companies and organizations exists to make it easier for those who actually do the work to showcase their talents. Today’s public schools are top-heavy on administration. Leaders are good at making demands, not so good at hearing teachers who know best how to help them meet those goals. Most teachers I know don’t fear high expectations. They are frustrated by leaders dictating demands from on-high, and ignoring their voices.
Flip the script. George Will said of baseball that he’s a semi-Marxist, because no one would pay today’s outrageous ticket and concession prices to see a bunch of owners. The value is in the players. The value in public schools rests with the teachers. We need to hear less — much less — from the administrative leaders, and more — far more — from those who are on the frontlines doing the work. This means:
Empowering teachers to speak freely and honestly about the challenges educating today’s generation of children presents.
Empowering teachers to lead — in their buildings and in their classrooms.
Empowering teachers to adopt the curricula and tools they need to do their jobs effectively.
Empowering teachers to mentor younger teachers and bring them along.
Empowering teachers to deal seriously with the students who would get in the way of other students’ learning.
Teaching these past two years has forever changed the way I approach, think about, and will now report on education.
I encourage those concerned about schools to reach out to teachers — the ones in the classrooms doing the work, the ones who really know, not the administrators — and talk with them.
Doing so will change you.
It’s the only thing that will change education for the better.
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I've ready many of your articles over the years. This is, hands-down, my favorite. Thank you.
"Make teaching a teacher’s primary job." Amen
Thank you for sharing these important realities!
Are you listening, legislators and citizens? Visit schools. Empower teachers!