Dear TSU followers–

I’ve been developing this website for nearly a year now. Lots of people tell me it’s great . However I haven’t seen it lead to many more teachers writing and publishing pieces that better inform the public about our work. Or if it has, then people aren’t telling me. Yes, I’ve shared lots of examples of the stories teachers have told, and I’m glad to do that — but those were already happening anyway.

So I think it’s now time for this site to find a new strategy for teacher voices. I believe the effort needs to focus more on a single issue that impacts teachers & kids, plus a specific place to gather teachers’ comments on it, and then some specific way to get the comments out into the wider world. I have some ideas, but I sure could use your input.

Here’s what I’m thinking. Focus on OVER-TESTING CHILDREN. Ask teachers to complete the following starter:

If we weren’t spending so much time prepping for and giving standardized tests, here’s what I’d be doing with kids, and what they’d be learning.

I’d ask that the writing focus on an especially powerful classroom activity or strategy & how it affected one student or class. Additional reflections on the limitations of the tests could be added — but this approach keeps the writing positive. Meanwhile, I’m working on finding a good media outlet for the pieces.

SO PLEASE RESPOND AND TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK OF THIS STRATEGY AND WHAT YOU THINK WILL BE THE BEST ISSUE TO FOCUS ON.

(If you have any trouble entering a comment, you can also use the link to the TSU gmail account provided on the homepage.)

Wow! I’m stunned! Dozens of New York Teachers are writing to critique a new ELA test created by Pearson publishers. Their comments are posted at a new website created by Lucy Calkins and the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. Judging from the teachers’ copious reports and analyses (we counted 59 teacher responses plus a number of principals just in the category of “multiple choice questions”), the test was a disastrous fiasco. Perhaps the best thing that can be said about it is that it’s so badly designed it will be useless and ultimately discarded.

So considering how little time teachers have to write and their general tendency not to speak out, we want to consider why so many have done so. We have three hypotheses:

1. If teachers and kids are made totally miserable the teachers will be stirred to write.
2. If the issue is highly focused and a very specific forum is created, many teachers will respond.
3. New Yorkers are more outspoken than the rest of us around the country.

Perhaps the answer combines all three possibilities. In any case, we hope the conversation will reach a wider audience and not be confined to only the world of educators.

It’s still Teacher Appreciation Week, and people can hear great teacher stories at Story Corps so go to their site and listen now. And you can record still more of these at the Story Corps booths in Chicago, Atlanta and San Francisco. Just make a reservation on their website.

We especially like these because most include a teacher and a student or two, so it’s not just the teacher bragging. And what’s great is that these are seen by people throughout the country — though it’s a good idea to alert your school community to go online and watch, to make sure you get seen by the people you want to influence.

on Teacher Appreciation Day, what better activity than to get parents, friends, community members, legislators, and others to learn from teachers about why they teach. So go to the Learning Matters website page on “Why I Teach,” and enjoy, add your own explanation — but also use Facebook, Twitter, email, and any other tool you have to get these testimonies out to the wider world.

Here’s a blog post by Joey Starnes, a teacher who goes to Washington to make her voice heard there. And she keeps her blog going, as well, to talk to the world about education. I’m not sure how many people in the general public read such teacher blogs — but at least she’s putting her voice out there and growing accustomed to it.

Imagine what would happen if thousands of teachers descended regularly on D.C. to demand more resources for education. Yes, the Save Our Schools group has done this once. But it will take lots more.

OK, I know I just put up a post. But Rita Pierson tells exactly what to appreciate in teachers, and I couldn’t wait to get this out to everyone, in her TED Education talk. Listen and watch her and know that indeed you are appreciated, if it’s only by your students. (Thanks, Marilyn Hollman, for sending this link to me!)

May 7th is supposed to be Teacher Appreciation Day. If only we were! In any case, this would be an excellent occasion to explain to the community just exactly what we should be appreciated for (and if you’re a Teachers Speak Up follower, you know exactly what I’d like you to do).

In an op-ed on the “Take Part” website, Greg Mullenholtz, a math coach in Silver Spring MD, touts the new RESPECT program sponsored by the US DOE as the voice of 5700 teachers advocating for what teachers need in order to be supported in their work – and thus truly appreciated.

We’ll admit that we don’t love everything about the RESPECT initiative — it seems to start from the assumption that teachers are a rather weak bunch at this point. And it seeks such a broad range of improvements in our schools that it’s hard to know where to start. The Take Part website is a bit mixed as well, with some posts and articles that defend the most draconian of policies. And we can’t see who guides this site. However, at least teachers’ voices can be found there.

So besides receiving some cookies in the teachers’ lounge, what will you do to help people appreciate what you REALLY do?

It’s great to see that at least sometimes good schools and teachers are appreciated in the press. Here are two great school stories recognized publicly.

First, a whole school district in Hartsville, SC, is working with community partners and a retired corporate CEO to implement a whole-child approach to kids’ learning (developed by child psychologist James Comer).

And first-grade teacher Carol Hines in Farmersville, PA, gets lauded in the local paper as she had her students study about, write letters to, and finally interview a local marine corporal who served in Afghanistan.

We are always curious about how these stories come to light. Anyone connected with a school can get it started, of course. But it sure would help if teachers were taking the lead.

I spent last weekend at the National Writing Project Urban Sites conference in Birmingham, AL, and what a weekend it was. Along with the usual events at a conference of educators, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute held its own convention. So we heard about the city’s history of civil rights action from people who participated — who joined thousands of children to march in 1963 and go to jail. Probably the most inspiring conference I’ve ever attended.

And what lessons about civil rights we do not learn in history books — extremely smart organizing, courageous teachers who taught the kids to seek their rights, and a level of violence and intimidation to try to stop them that was far higher and more brutal than I had ever imagined. There was also the silence of many good people, until things got so bad that they couldn’t be ignored.

The theme of the NWP conference was “Writers of Social Justice: How One Pen Can Change the World.” But my question in my speech was: “Whose pen?!” And the answer: Every one of us must know it’s OUR pen. The budget cuts and school closings and narrowing of curriculum and attacks on teachers are today’s version of social injustice because they hurt poor children the most.

So you’re busy, you’re overwhelmed, you have no time. But you know what you really need to do.

Here’s a guest blog by our TSU partner Marilyn Hollman:

Tell your stories. That’s what Teachers Speak Up is all about.

Teachers are optimists or they would never be able to return on Monday. But to spend time writing, whether a letter or a speech, takes energy. A burning purpose or question and an audience make that “energy expense” worthwhile if there is some possibility of an open-minded listener and even the faintest trace of an avenue for change.

Sometimes some outsider clout can corral that listener and widen that avenue. RESPECT is an educator led movement initiated and supported by the Department of Education,  that provides some outsider clout. In this forum you will actually hear and see and read about classroom teachers from around the US, K-12.

This group’s first recommendation is to complete the RESPECT Self-Inventory with a group of fellow teachers. The Inventory contains the following critical components:

1. A Culture of Shared Responsibility and Leadership
2. Top Talent, Prepared for Success
3. Effective Teachers and Principals
4. Continuous Growth and Professional Development
5. Professional Career Continuum with Competitive Compensation
6. Creating Conditions for Success
7. Engaged Communities

“Ah,” you may say, “I’ve seen those words before.” Well, yes, you have. But have you decided to tell people other than your colleagues or family the stories about what an effective teacher looks like, what can result from shared responsibility, what a difference no playground duty can make in your professional teaching life? What RESPECT feels like?

The RESPECT site provides a structure to begin, again, the conversation, as well as some specific action plans.

A personal note — I am a cynical optimist; I taught in a public high school over 35 years. This advocacy stuff is all SO hard. However, as one teacher on the site says, this seems to be a good time to try again. A summarized story follows.

One of the statements in the Critical Component #1 reads, “Shared decision-making structures empower principals and teacher leaders to develop school goals and strategies for achieving them.” In the darker ages, I had a principal who fell in love with Quality Circles. There it was, folks, shared decision-making, empowerment, labor and management working together. We’ve heard that before — in fact, right here in RESPECT. The Circle’s members (mostly volunteers) inventoried problems that everyone wanted solved. They took on a biggie: the school schedule that allowed 22 minutes to get your food and eat, teachers and students alike. Principals had all the time they wanted, but this principal really wanted to do Quality Circles. This First Circle (thank you, Mr. Solzhenitsyn) gathered information, analyzed it, found a solution. And implemented it! No fairy story, folks. It made an enormous change in teacher and student lives.

  –Marilyn J. Hollman