Category / teacher professionalism

by nflanagan

Are You an Instruction Geek?

I generally don’t pay much attention, anymore, to the rightwing young guns who dominate edu-social media. Mostly this is because they’re not providing any new content about what you might call school improvement—genuinely interesting or useful ideas for making lessons interesting, building curriculum that makes sense in 2024, figuring out better ways to assess student work and encouraging students to get excited about learning.

You know, the things that support the people actually doing the work of teaching in the public schools—where 82% of our K-12 students are educated. Instruction.

In the five decades since I started teaching, reading and writing about all aspects of schooling and education policy, there have been hundreds of such new ideas. Some were genius, some fizzled out, some—annual standardized testing springs to mind—are now part of what everyone thinks is normal, maybe even essential. Even though these ideas may have harmed many children.

The yappy bow-ties posting on the regular about how public education is a big fat failure aren’t offering us genius ideas. They’re focused on vandalizing one of America’s great strengths: a free, high-quality public education for every child, no matter what they bring to the table.

Prime example: Daniel Buck, whose X-label is “Instruction Geek.”

Buck actually did teach for a few years, shifting from public education to private, three schools in what looks like six years. Then he wrote a book and informed his following that he was, sadly, leaving the classroom to put his intellect to better use, writing blogs—as a ‘policy and editorial associate’ for a conservative non-profit.

For a guy who pretends to have cool, juicy ideas about instruction, lots of his posts seem pretty rigidly political and not about teachers’ professional work at all.  A sampling:

  • Conservatives need to start thinking about, building, and regaining control of our education institutions after school choice becomes the law of the land. Won’t do much good if all charter and private schools are stocked with teachers, curriculum, and policies out of ed schools.
  • Teachers, stop voting for Democrats. Their education policies sound nice but again and again just make our schools worse.
  • Once again, I repeat: MORE MONEY WILL NOT FIX AMERICAN SCHOOLS.
  • Students should be expected to obey their teachers. Seems pretty common sense to me but sadly, a statement that must be made.

The last one made me think that perhaps Mr. Buck’s former students had ideas of their own about, umm, instruction, but maybe I’m reading too much into his little outburst.

A couple of days ago, Mr. Geek Buck posted something that’s actually about instruction:

Sorry but one teacher cannot differentiate every lesson for 27 different kids whose reading level ranges from 1st to 11th and account for 6 different IEPS. The inclusion/no-tracking push is simply unworkable.

There were a few affirming responses—because clearly, classroom teaching is impossible; the only way to give each individual child precisely what they need is one-to-one tutoring. And, by the way, that doesn’t work so well either.

I started thinking about differentiation in my own classroom. My typical class size hovered around 65 middle school students. Their reading levels ran the K-12 gamut, and I frequently had a dozen or more special education students (with varying disabilities and strengths) in a class. Some students were inclined to disobedience, things that couldn’t be remedied by mere expectations. Oh—and they were all holding expensive noisemakers.

My job was teaching them to make pleasant and accurate musical sounds, then combine those sounds, using an entirely new symbolic language, into music, with regular performances for their parents, their peers and the community. I also had to weave some cultural and historical information into the instructional mix—things that would help them see the beauty and value and joy of what they were (inexpertly) crafting.

Everyone was included. Nobody was tracked (beyond being in the band with their grade-mates). Some of my band-teacher colleagues had auditions and sorted their students into a top ensemble, and lesser-light bands. The drawback to painstakingly dividing groups by “ability” is that ability is really hard to measure, and students who are deemed sub-par often drop out. Students also learn at different rates. The kid who’s way behind in September may be caught up in January and at the top of the class at the end of the year.

I’m fully willing to admit that there are many ways to teach kids important content, but I never met anybody who made 27 lesson plans for a single class. Most differentiation happens across the instructional cycle—presenting new material multiple times in multiple ways, offering different forms of an assignment, assessing work based on what you know about that student. Student choice can be a big part of differentiation.

And sometimes, of course, they all take the same 10-question quiz, so you can get a handle on who’s got it reasonably well, and whose understanding just isn’t there. That’s OK, too. You don’t have to divide them into tracks. They already know who’s smart and who is struggling.

I love nothing more than talking about instruction. Pedagogy is my jam. And I resent people self-appointing as instructional leaders and experts, when all they’re doing is using public schools for target practice.

Here’s one more from the iGeek:

Advocates are trying to retrofit schools to do all that families should / used to — from feeding three meals a day to teaching basic behavioral norms. They are failing at doing so. No public institution can correct for the breakdown of the family.

Be wary of the word “should”—always—but take a look at what teachers are accused of here: teaching good behavior and feeding kids. Maybe no public institution can truly fix the breakdown of families. But don’t schools get credit for at least trying?

by nflanagan

What Do Parents Know About Public Education?

Not much.

But don’t take my word for it. Kappan recently took a look at American adults’ knowledge of public schools:

Our findings shed light on a key question: What do adults know about U.S. education? Specifically, what do they know about what is taught, who makes decisions, the role of parents, and the belief systems driving education policy? Our results have important implications for how we might support children and improve the education system.

No kidding, Sherlock.

The survey results would come as no surprise to veteran public school educators: Half of adults don’t know what is/is not taught in their local school. Most are unsure about who’s making curricular decisions. Most are unclear on the impact of privatization on their public schools. Some of the surveyed issues (Critical Race Theory and learning loss) revealed a complete lack of understanding.

Least surprising finding: Adults’ perceptions of what’s happening in public schools mainly come from their own personal experiences (and this includes people with no K-12 children in the home). The percentage of people who read books or articles, watch cable news or videos, or listen to podcasts about education is small. People who get their education news from newspapers? Fifteen percent. Second highest source of ed news? Social media.

That’s a lot of guesswork, memes and faulty memories.

Kappan makes the case that more information means that the general public will make better choices around education—correctly evaluating the corrosive impact of privatization, say, or understanding why a teacher can’t create 30 different assignments, or seeing the benefits of teaching real history. Better communication will lead to better schools, they say.

Well, maybe.

As Larry Cuban says, we’ve been fixing public schools again and again and again, frequently with little or no evidence that our bright ideas will be effective:

Ideologies and political power matter far more than research-derived evidence. Very little evidence, for example, accompanied the New Deal economic and social reforms to combat the Great Depression in the 1930s. Nor did much evidence accompany the launching of Medicare or the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in the 1960s. And very little evidence drove federal oversight of U.S. public schools in No Child Left Behind (2002). Reform-driven policies are (and have been) hardly research-based.

Again—anyone who’s worked in a school for years can testify that, yes, ideologies and political power matter more than research or concrete evidence. And much of that local political power (elected boards, school administrators, influential parents) yields decisions based on personal experience, decades earlier. No evidence or data in sight.

Here’s an example. Some years ago, the curriculum director in my district proposed a new student reporting system for all our elementary students. Instead of grades—a single grade for each subject, plus a checklist for appropriate behaviors—he created a complex system wherein teachers would evaluate multiple objectives for each subject. The number of objectives would increase, in each of the six reporting cycles, until the final report card, which would include the entire years’ curriculum, laid out in sequence.

It meant the teachers would be evaluating—from introduction to mastery—well over 100 skills and knowledge nuggets. Six times a year, for 30 students. Parents would be given several pages of personalized data, a detailed guide to the entire grade-leveled curriculum, as laid out in the district’s master plan (which the teachers called ‘the black notebooks’), and concrete evidence of their children’s progress.

He actually got this plan through the school board, buoyed by professional journal articles about standards-based assessment. Teachers were less than enthused.

But the plan ultimately failed because parents emphatically did not want pages math and language skills. They wanted grades. They knew what a B+ meant. They did not want to know whether their child could calculate a percentage or identify the subject of a sentence. That was teachers’ work.

Another example: How do we cope with teacher shortages? States and districts all over the country are scrambling to fill positions. Any teacher could give you the right answer: Pay teachers more. Provide adequate resources. And give teachers control over their professional work.

Why are we even talking about reducing qualifications for teaching? Do parents want under-qualified pseudo-teachers heading their kid’s classroom? I doubt it. Recent surveys asked students which quality made teachers “good.”

If you’ve been a teacher, you know the top—73%–answer: They cared about me, as a person. If a would-be teacher cares about students and their learning, they’re willing to jump through the hoops of certification and preparation. They’re willing to invest in a professional teaching career.

And—what do parents know about college? That college is the path to a better job? That getting into the ‘right’ college means everything? Not so fast. College loans burden 43 million Americans who might otherwise be investing in housing. Or—attn, JD Vance!—starting a family.

Parents who support public education by putting their kids into neighborhood schools, then paying attention to what comes home—stories, student work—are doing exactly what makes schools community centers and produces good citizens.

My story about the Report Card from Hell is evidence of this. Parents felt free to critique a new plan (based on their personal experiences and preferences)—to the point that the plan was scrapped. Administrators got over their ‘research says’ biases. Teachers weren’t spending additional weekends cross-referencing student work and checklists, for information that could change tomorrow. The community was satisfied.

What communities need is not more information. It’s trust in their public schools.

by nflanagan

Hysterical Women

Truth nugget: Education policy is 100% shaped and impacted by the fact that three-quarters of the education workforce is female.

Another truth nugget: After Trump was elected in 2016, over a million women descended on Washington DC to march against what he stood for.

And now, after the events of Summer 2024? Well, do your own math, draw your own conclusions. Maybe start your own organization and host a national call.

As the inimitable Dahlia Lithwick noted: The court granted itself the imperial authority to confer upon the president powers of a king, but although Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson said as much in their respective dissents, it fell to Big Daddy Chief Justice Roberts to intone to his readers that their aggregated dissents strike “a tone of chilling doom that is wholly disproportionate to what the Court actually does today.” Implying that the dissenters were overreacting, and without ever attempting to address the substance of their claims, Roberts accused them of “fear mongering on the basis of extreme hypotheticals about a future where the President ‘feels empowered to violate federal criminal law.’”

In other words, sit down ladies. You’re hysterical. We don’t appreciate your chilling doom or your extreme hypotheticals. A President who feels empowered to violate federal law? Hahaha! That could never happen!

This type of response could come in handy for pacifying those whose policy/practice wheelhouse is education. It’s a familiar tone policing strategy for those of us whose professional lives revolve around the classroom, especially in public schools. You’re overreacting! It’s only bus duty! What’s one more kid in your class? Why can’t you maintain control over 24 second graders on Zoom?

But. What if women were united to push the ed policy envelope?   Connie Schultz, wife of the SENIOR Senator from Ohio, Sherrod Brown, has some wise words about what happens when women organize: I know that something else—something glorious—often happens when women gather for a cause. I think of it as coming home.

More wise words, these from Kate Manne:

Many of you are now in the same position I am in: all in for Harris as the person who can beat Trump and head off the incalculable threat facing our country. We are terrified as/for girls, women, and any person who can get pregnant. We are terrified as/for the racially marginalized people who Trump has firmly in his sightlines. We are terrified for trans and queer folks who would face existential threats to their well-being and very existence under the next Trump administration. We are terrified for whatever semblance of democracy that remains and might perhaps be rebuilt. The list goes on. There is no question that Harris’s candidacy will open up a torrent of misogynoir, the intersection of misogyny and racism (particularly anti-Black racism, although Harris is also of course South Asian). It’s our job to fight it in our circles and even ourselves.

Do women have the power to transform thinking about the bedrock value of a strong public education system, in the face of Project 2025? Just a reminder:

Trump tells voters on his campaign site a few ways he would manage education:

  • Cut federal funding for schools that are “pushing critical race theory or gender ideology on our children” and open civil rights investigations into them for race-based discrimination.
  • End access for trans youth to sports.
  • Create a body that will certify teachers who “embrace patriotic values”.
  • Reward districts that get rid of teacher tenure.
  • Adopt a parents’ bill of rights.
  • Implement direct elections of school principals by parents.

That last suggestion is sheer folly, by the way —any teacher OR school administrator will tell you that it’s a recipe for never-ending chaos and enmity in schools. Besides, parents can run for the local School Board or elect people to that Board who will select appropriate school leaders for the community. I personally have seen, on multiple occasions, a group of parents make things hot for a principal, via a democratic process involving their elected board. I have also seen good administrators protected—by the same Board—from a single outraged, vindictive parent.

Kate Manne is right when she says we need to fight bad policy and reprehensible candidates “in our circles” and even in our selves. And nobody is going to fight against misogyny and racism more effectively than the people who are impacted. Therefore, protecting your public school may be most effectively accomplished by women, gathering for a cause.

Don’t want public education to be taken down by the slings and arrows of Moms4Liberty and Project 2025? Talk to your friends. Put up a sign. Donate. Volunteer. Organize in Zoom circles. Repeat vigorously for the next 82 days.

Derek Thompson of The Atlantic points out, in a revealing column that …parties aren’t remotely united by gender. After all, millions of women will vote for Trump this year. But the parties are sharply divided by their cultural attitudes toward gender roles and the experience of being a man or woman in America. When the VOTER Survey asked participants how society treats, or ought to treat, men and women, the gender gap exploded. Sixty-one percent of Democrats said women face “a lot” or “a great deal” of discrimination while only 19 percent of Republicans said so. In this case, the gender-attitude gap was more than six times larger than the more commonly discussed gender gap.

With a majority-female workforce, change will come only when women demand policy that invests in public education. Women teachers, often working mothers, value tenure. Women teachers do not want mandated certification of their “patriotic values.” And they don’t want a President or Congress that embraces the horror show of Project 2025, especially when it comes to education.

Reminder: The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court called his female colleagues “fear-mongers, on the basis of extreme hypotheticals.” In writing.

by nflanagan

Critical Issues and Minutiae of Public Education

I have been fascinated, in the past 48 hours, by online conversations about the tumultuous political week we have just lived through—especially the comments and questions generated by teachers.

Non-teachers are heartbroken or thrilled or both, by the Biden step-down. They’re nosing out the negative PR and potential VP picks of the presumptive new nominee. There are running threads and analyses around the assassination attempt, a mass shooting where everyone knew the intended (again, presumptive) target, a change from the faceless victims—many children, damn it—of other mass shootings.

So much is in flux. So many building blocks of democracy, teetering on the edge. Including public education.

But we’re approaching (in many parts of the country) the beginning of the school year. Much of the ongoing cyber-conversation around public education centers on clearing back-to-school lists (i.e., teachers begging for essential supplies the school can’t afford), the futility of professional development for yet another silver-bullet reading program, why teachers aren’t paid for setting up their classrooms and other garden-variety School Stuff. The kinds of issues and beefs we see annually.

There are a hundred things that weigh heavily on teachers’ minds as they prepare for another year. What I’m wondering is if teachers are focused on the trees, rather than the destruction of the public education forest. Because focusing on bulletin boards and class lists instead of the section of Project 2025 that deals with education feels do-able, not overwhelming. Or terrifying.

Washington Post advice columnist Carolyn Hax posted a letter about a “rude” teacher who created individual certificates for each of her students at the end of the year. The mother who wrote the letter was upset that individual kids were nicknamed Class Clown and Social Butterfly and–gasp!–her daughter was designated “Miss Manners.” So upset that she reported her ire to the superintendent, after the principal gently suggested these certificates were warm-hearted, not criticisms of children’s character.

Aside from the fact that many parents would be delighted or relieved were their child awarded recognition for having excellent manners—the letter bothered me way more than it should have. Because I have been that teacher, striving at the end of the year to recognize and acknowledge students’ achievements, but also their individual quirks, their signature traits, their contribution to the musical community we built.

Hax rightfully chides the mom for attacking a well-meaning second grade teacher, on the last day of school, no less. But what most folks—non-teachers—will miss is that the success of any teacher, broadly defined, lies in building honest relationships with kids who bring varying intellectual and emotional strengths to school.

Not everyone is an academic superstar or natural helper. Many students will need to be coaxed or cajoled into effort, participation and belonging. Those skills are just as important as content expertise, a full toolbag of instructional techniques and endlessly logged data.

My own end-of-year awards included every band kid. Now—decades later—I still hear from students who remember the last full day of school (after the instruments were all oiled and stored for the summer, the music sorted and filed, and the sink—yuck—cleaned and shiny): The thank-yous. The in-jokes for band members. The Jolly Ranchers. The camaraderie. I recently heard from a woman who remembered winning the “Most Improved Section” award—and she was the only oboe. She included a smiley face.

The Hax column drew hundreds of responses from teachers.

Today, I have been watching teachers on social media saying:  Be kind to the social studies teachers in your building. We’ll be working on overdrive!

Well, yes. You go, teachers. The world is on fire, and your job is to pretend that the only thing that matters is following the prescribed curriculum and keeping your head down in the classroom. We get it—and we love and support you.

But as we launch 2024-25, it is incumbent upon all of us whose livelihoods are not threatened by free speech to keep education policy and the very real threat to public education bubbling up every day on social media and in our friend groups.

 It’s been a wild couple of weeks. But keep your eyes on both the threat and the prize.

by nflanagan

I am a Patriot

I am a patriot and I love my country. Because my country is all I know.

Jackson Browne

Of all the things manifested by the upheaval dividing this nation politically, the appropriation of the concept of patriotism by the right wing troubles me the most. Why? Because my country is all I know–and I am loyal to its virtues and principles, while fully recognizing its many tribulations.

I’m sure that every citizen registered to vote in November feels the same way: they’re voting to save the country from sliding into despotism, to secure freedom, the blessings of liberty, yada yada. The fact that the two distinct roads to said patriotism diverge in a black forest of confusion, even violence, is terrifying, however.

Who’s the patriot? And who deserves to have their lives and values suppressed?

Watching the news, and reading—one laborious, revolting chapter at a time—Project 2025, it’s pretty clear that the authors of that document feel that their activist zeal to change the nation is driven by patriotism, their love of country, And if that drifts over the line to white nationalism, well… many of our leading Senators are down with that, too.

It’s funny. One of the things I was never uncomfortable teaching or promoting in the classroom was an explicitly pro-America, patriotic point of view. Musically, and culturally, I endorsed patriotic traditions and celebrated the musical innovations that sprang from so-called melting pot.

Kind of ironic, considering how I felt about the Vietnam war, and the arguments I used to have with my father, a WWII veteran. My country, right or wrong, was his modus operandi. But I thought then, back in the 1970s, and even now, that loving the place where you live, where your ancestors settled, where you’ve put down roots and built community, means you can also be clear-eyed about mending  its every flaw.

I am a patriot. And I love my country.

I love the idea that it took decades of discourse for the early, 18th century Rebels (by no means a majority) to organize in resisting colonial rule, fighting the imposition of taxation without representation (which still resonates today). I think all children in America should know the truth about our Founding Fathers, and their multi-racial legacies.  I think elementary schools should hold mock elections and HS Social Studies teachers should organize voter registration drives. I think flying the national flag—right side up—is everyone’s prerogative.

I also think the Superintendent of Schools in Norman, Oklahoma, who declared “We’re not going to have Bibles in our classrooms”—after a memo from Ryan Walters, their moronic State Superintendent specifying that all OK classrooms will offer Bible-based instruction—is a patriot.

A patriot who understands our foundational principles–the separation of church and state, for example. Perhaps even a patriot who sees citizenship-building, not just job training, as a core purpose of public schools.

Can patriotism be taught?

E.D. Hirsch just published a book in which he states that we can:

 “…transform future citizens into loyal Americans.” Hirsch feels that “patriotism is the universal civil religion that our schools need to support on moral and pragmatic grounds as the glue that holds us together.” He believes the foundation of patriotism is in a shared knowledge base, which all citizens must have to participate together in a community or engage in communication. Hirsch states, “we can create specific standards, so each classroom becomes a speech community whose members all understand what is being said, because they all possess the needed relevant background knowledge.”

This is classic, evidence-free Hirschian blah-blah. If only everyone analyzed the Articles of Confederacy together, or memorized the Gettysburg address, or studied Julius Caesar in the 8th grade (using Hirsch’s handy-dandy curriculum guides, of course), we’d all get a boost of love-yer-country loyalty? Because we’d all be on the same academic wavelength?

Having spent decades hanging out with actual middle schoolers, who were taught a fairly universal set of ideas and skills, I can tell you that more standardization will not make anyone more aware of the virtues or drawbacks of real life in a diverse democracy. Furthermore, the whole idea is vaguely reminiscent of other, failed social movements.

You can model genuine patriotism. You can teach patriotic–and protest–arts and literature, to enlarge students’ perspectives on what it means to endure hardship and sacrifice in the service of one’s country. You can toss out provocative ideas—Should everyone be compelled to recite the Pledge of Allegiance?—and your average fourteen year old will undoubtedly have an opinion, which you can then dissect and examine.

But you can’t make kids love the United States of America.

No T-shirt or baseball cap, let alone a traditional school curriculum, can do that. It comes from maturity, and the heart.

My Country ‘Tis of Thee (Land of Inequity)  Song by Reina del Cid

O Christmas Tree

… A Fox host said this weekend that more Americans need to buy artificial Christmas trees because tree farms are needed for AI data centers: “There will be transmission lines that have to go through developments and farms. That’s the nature of a growing economy. Everybody needs to get on board. Buy a fake tree.” …

nflanagan's avatar by nflanagan

Are Schools the Problem?

I was somewhere between irritated and curious when I saw the headline: America’s Children Are Unwell. Are Schools Part of the Problem? The subhead: From A.D.H.D. to anxiety, disorders have risen as the expectations of childhood have changed. Well, yeah. A.D.H.D. is now better defined and diagnosed. And I certainly believe that anxiety is on…

nflanagan's avatar by nflanagan

Youth. For Christ? At School?

I should probably preface what I’m about to say by noting that I self-identify as a liberal Christian. Without getting too far into the theological weeds—or alienating those who are rightfully skeptical about some current Christian churches’ lack of commitment to feeding the poor, etc.—I have been a church member and/or employee for decades, off…

nflanagan's avatar by nflanagan
by nflanagan

What Schools SHOULD Be Teaching

…that isn’t in the regular, designated curriculum.

So many things, right?

You’ve undoubtedly seen the memes: Why aren’t schools teaching personal finance, including credit cards and taxes? What about home and car repairs? Insurance? First aid? Time management? Study skills? Stress relief? How to find a job, feed yourself and do your laundry?

Frequently, the post will draw supportive comments, ranging from unwarranted criticisms of what schools actually DO attempt to teach, to nostalgic memories of the days when all the boys had to take woodshop in 9th grade. There was never a shortage of handcrafted birdhouses in those days, by golly.

And—dipping into fantasy here—wouldn’t it be great if schools picked up responsibility for teaching all the life skills one needs to be a fully functioning adult? In addition to math, languages, history, sciences and literature, of course.

The ones that really get to me are the folks begging schools to teach good interpersonal communication and conflict resolution, with maybe a dash of leadership thrown in, but then picket the school board because Mrs. Jones has launched a social-emotional learning through mindfulness (SEL) program for 4th graders, and you know what that means.

A friend just posted a meme reminding us that 100 years ago, students were learning Latin and Greek in high school, and now, high school graduates are taking remedial English in college.

There are multiple responses to that one, beginning with an accurate explanation of just who went to high school in the 1920s—and what percentage of students go to college today.

The utility of studying Latin and Greek (or Logic and Rhetoric) in 2024—as opposed to, say, Spanish or robotics—is debatable, as well, but everyone understands the underlying purpose of such a meme: Schools today are failing. Tsk, tsk. Discuss.

If you’re a long-time educator, you learn to take these comments in stride. Just more evidence that everyone’s been to school, and thus believes they understand what schools and teachers should be doing. It’s an evergreen cliché that happens to be largely true.

But there are a couple of points worth making:

  • The required curriculum is overstuffed already. Way overstuffed, in fact. Michigan—which has a tightly prescribed “merit curriculum” for HS students– just added a requirement that all students take a semester-long course in personal finance. This can take the place of a math course—or a fine arts course, or a world languages course. Every time a requirement is added via legislation, students who want to take four years of a foreign language, or play in the orchestra for four years, have to juggle their schedules and make unpleasant choices.

There simply isn’t enough time in the day to cover everything—and it’s maddening to have someone at the state Capitol directing your path by limiting your choices.There are lots of important things to know about adulting, and you only get so much time to go to school for free, in the U.S. Expecting schools to teach things that used to fall squarely into the purview of parent responsibilities, without providing additional time and resources, is unfair.

  • This is educators’ professional work. Let’s take Mrs. Jones, the 4th grade teacher who decided to incorporate an SEL program into the daily life of her class. She’s doing that for a reason, I can assure you. Either these techniques have worked in the past to create a happier classroom atmosphere, or this class is particularly conflict-prone. She’s trying to make it possible for students to learn the other (required) things, by focusing first on communication and techniques that calm students, helping them focus.

Do educators sometimes get students’ curricular and personal needs wrong? Sure. But they are the first line of defense, and best positioned to incorporate non-disciplinary work (like time management, stress relief and how to properly thank someone) into the classroom. And all of them appreciate these things being reinforced at home.

  • You can’t get away from teaching things that fall into the wider scope of how to be a successful adult and citizen, as a schoolteacher. You’re always, always modeling, correcting, observing and suggesting behaviors, whether your students need help getting into their snowsuits or help in getting over a failed romance. Even if you’re teaching AP Calc, there will be inadvertent lessons in addressing challenges, persistence and the value of studying something so abstract and elegant.

There is a prevailing belief, especially in the past couple of decades, that the only way Americans can compete in the global economy, maintaining our preeminent position, is to “raise the bar.” This usually translates to harder coursework, required earlier in a student’s academic career, monitored by increased testing. More top-down control. More competition.

When you drill down far enough, what’s missing is a clear objective for public education. Are we, indeed, trying to help every child reach their full potential (in which case, bring on the handcrafted birdhouses and mindfulness)—or are we trying to strengthen the economy by creating skilled and compliant workers?

by nflanagan

The Grinch Who Stole Teacher Appreciation Week

I’ve always been of the opinion that teachers get so few routine perks in their professional lives they deserve every random treat or award that meanders their way–from sticky little misspelled mash notes to free use of a leased SUV.

After all, there aren’t many workplaces where professionals end up providing their own materials, cleaning services and professional development. There aren’t many college-educated specialists who gladly share their expertise for free–or attend a weekend conference on their own dime, then arrive at work on Monday morning, without a thought for “comp time.” Because if they didn’t show up, someone would have to pay. And it shouldn’t be the teacher next door, or their students.

For these reasons, and a hundred more, nobody begrudges teachers the tokens of appreciation that come their way this week, from the handmade construction-paper cards to the potluck lunch from the PTA. I love it when teachers invite their former students to check in on Facebook–or when they post their stats (years of experience, states/countries/schools, degrees, subjects and so on). It’s good to see colleagues reclaim their honor or share a few points of pride.

But it’s time we asked ourselves just who gets ‘appreciated’ once a year–and whose work is considered vital, essential, and fully professional year-round, with no need for annual symbolic gestures. There’s something about Teacher Appreciation Week that smacks of a pat on the head for being willing to go the distance without adequate compensation or support. We’re supposed to persist and excel ‘for the kids’–a phrase that teachers rightfully perceive as specious and manipulative.

It doesn’t help that National Charter Schools Week is scheduled right after Teacher Appreciation Week (not an accident, folks). The Center for Education Reform, an organization that promotes charter schools, posted the following about Teacher Appreciation week:

‘Rather than evolve and adapt to changes in the 180-year-old factory model system of education, rather than create a new path for teachers that supports their growth over mandating uniformity and lock step acceptance of rules, [teacher associations] have dug in their heels and decided character assassination and anti-charter propaganda is best.’

So much for boosting the spirits and self-respect of teachers during their special week, eh?

Actually, I don’t know a single teacher who isn’t interested in growth–or doing a little rule-breaking, evolving and adapting. In fact, the current walk-outs, anti-voucher campaigns and eloquent education blogs are evidence that teachers are no longer satisfied with flowery sentiments or coffee mugs.

Teachers are telling their communities and state leaders that they’re sick of being underpaid do-gooders and want not only adequate salaries but control over their professional work. They want the resources necessary to succeed—but also a measure of autonomy, acknowledgment of their acquired expertise.

Perhaps teachers are tired of waiting for policymakers to speak to the fact that their working conditions and public respect–measured by classroom authority, as well as wages and benefits–are diminishing every year. Maybe teachers are ready to demand what they need and deserve, rather than hang around hoping to be ‘appreciated’ every May.

Is this a lasting change? Will exasperated teachers not rest until they’ve transformed public education?

Here’s a few crucial but often forgotten facts: In number, teachers are the largest profession in the United States. And collectively, they have the power to demand and win changes to funding and salaries. It’s a stark reminder in our post-Pandemic revival of labor influence.

Policymakers have long relied on teachers’ hearts growing three sizes through the magic of watching children light up with the joy of learning, yada yada. But as the Grinch himself might say–magic doesn’t pay the rent.

by nflanagan

The Return of the Tradteacher

Been reading about the tradwife lately? Although explicit definitions vary, the general gist is returning to a post-war conception of a stay-at-home wife, most likely with children (or planning for children), in relationships where men make all the family decisions, and control the finances. Reinforcing patriarchal norms and glorifying the satisfying and ‘natural’ role of housewife.

If you’re hearing a touch of cynicism there, well—I lived through a time when the tradwife, even if she was working, could not get a credit card or substantial business loan. While I certainly defend any woman’s right to stay home and support her children and spouse in places other than an outside workplace, the whole “tradwife” schtick (especially combined with the rollback of Roe) makes me itchy.

It also strikes me that tradwives are just another glitzy, social media-driven facet of a larger wave of backlash against a whole lot of un-trad trends in American society: Full-blown reproductive freedom. The continued shrinkage of mainline religions. Honoring personal sex/gender choices. Women running for office and corner offices–and winning. And so on.

I also see lots of pushback against untraditional teaching, curriculum and school organization models. The whole “Science of Reading” battle rings very familiar to those of us who started teaching in the 1970s, when teachers were pushing back against the “Why Johnny Can’t Read” –because teachers theoretically weren’t teaching phonics–crusade in the late 50s.

Nearly all of the folks who taught me were tradteachers, using trad methods, and when I entered the classroom, many of my teaching colleagues were 100% traditional-minded as well: Straight rows, direct instruction, textbook-based, daily homework, and off to the principal should you disobey orders. And some of those folks were effective teachers.

But lots of the opinion writing I see from Moms4Liberty, NYT columnists, conservative politicians and ed-bloggers focuses on how different education looks and feels from the classrooms they remember, decades ago—classrooms that may have been racially and economically monolithic, and headed by a series of teachers who did things in the same way.

Peter Greene recently had a good piece about Gloria Jean Merriex, a Florida teacher who broke out of her traditional mold and had some great success. A couple of lines jumped out at me:

Once she had her degree, she chose to teach at Duval Elementary, where for about twenty-five years she was a middle-of-the-road, competent-but-not-exceptional teacher.

Then came No Child Left Behind, and with it, high stakes testing. In Florida, that meant the FCAT, used to give each school a grade, with rewards for A schools and punitive “interventions” for F schools. In 2002, Duval was rated F.

Merriex was troubled. She concluded that if the school was going to be transformed, she would have to transform herself. She dumped the state pacing guides and teaching materials. When she got caught, she begged Duval principal Lee McNealy for a chance to give her methods a try, and McNealy had the guts and trust to give it to her.  Merriex developed materials and approaches of her own, and for the early 2000s, her choices were unconventional. She wrote raps and dances to do with her students for learning math vocabulary and basic processes. She used call and response, movement and arts in the math and reading classroom. If some of her techniques seem less radical twenty years later, that is in part because of her influence.

For many, perhaps most, teachers, their first years in the classroom might look very much like the way those newbies themselves were taught. It was certainly that way for me, wanting to be the World’s Greatest Band Director and following the exact procedures and ideas I had experienced in bands and at music camp in high school. For many years, I too was a competent-but-not-exceptional teacher, like Ms. Merriex.

I also broke out of the traditional mold, and while not all of the things I tried were big successes, I was able to redefine what I wanted students to take away, for the rest of their lives, from being in my classroom. I accomplished many of those goals. I read social media for music teachers now, and I see great changes in thinking about the Big Ideas—from competition to creativity—in music ed.

Traditional teaching—and like tradwives, the definitions are murky—is not always or even often the best bet. Especially if that teacher’s goal is to move every student under her watch forward.

Stanford Professor Jo Boaler is something of an iconoclast in non-traditional math education, and recently–no surprise–there’s been yet another dustup over Boaler’s ideas.

She advocates for ending tracking by ability in math classes, getting rid of timed tests and starting with conceptual understanding before introducing procedures. Most importantly, she wants to elevate the work that students tackle in math classes with more interesting questions that spark genuine curiosity and encourage students to think and wonder. Her goal is to expose students to the beauty of mathematical thinking.

Right there in the first sentence, there are three uber-traditional practices—tracking, timed tests, and doing a series of problems to iron in an algorithm, to get the right answers rather than seeking to understand the concepts underlying the calculation. And who’s out to get Boaler? Well, men who have been the beneficiaries of understanding and excelling at traditional mathematics.

It’s an enormously complex endeavor, teaching. Sticking to the habitual, and ignoring students who check out, only works for awhile. BUT—listen to legislators and parents talk about schooling, and a lot of what you’re hearing is somewhere between nostalgia and flat-out misinformation. The book-banning, faux CRT, Tik-tok blaming, skeptical-of-teachers crowd hasn’t got a clue about what it’s like to teach kids in 2024, beginning with some clarity about the purpose of public education.

As Jess Piper says, in a wonderful column called You Don’t Like It? Move!:

None of us is safe so long as there are folks living in states that are unsafe. They will roll over us first, and you next. The billionaires are using my state AG and other regressive state AGs to file suit to dismantle public schools. They sue to ban abortion and the medicine for self-managed abortions. They sue to stop college loan forgiveness. They sue to overturn civil rights and anti-discrimination policies.

As Piper says—hey, we can’t all move, or teach in a private school where we can craft our own processes, research and convictions. But returning to traditional methods isn’t the policy answer. You have to move forward. It’s the way of the world.  

by nflanagan

Do Core Democratic Values Belong in Schools? Some Say No.

I try, when thinking about the path this nation is currently on, not to immediately jump to worst case scenarios or inept comparisons. The uptick in the language of fascism shouldn’t be ignored, however—comparing certain people to Hitler or bemoaning the loss of democracy might not be overkill in the political soup of 2024.

It’s been sneaking up on us, like the proverbial frog in hot water. When looking at curricular change over the past five years—immediately preceding the onset of the COVID pandemic—it’s easy to see that there were plenty of precursors to the anti-woke, book-banning, teacher-punishing mess we find ourselves in as we slowly recover from that major shock to the public education system.

The scariest thing to me about the abuse teachers are taking, across the country, is its impact on curriculum. Here’s the thing: you really can’t outsource teacher judgment. You can prescribe and script and attempt to control everything that happens in the classroom, but it doesn’t work that way.

Several years ago, my school district brought in a Big Famous Ed-Presenter to do an August workshop on lesson design. Because she was expensive, surrounding districts were invited to send interested teachers, those who wanted to learn how to craft engaging lessons and units with aligned performance assessments and instructional strategies. All the teachers would be creating their own curriculum using the MI Grade Level Content Expectations—the standards documents issued by the MI Department of Education.

Once we had been seated in rounds by subject area, the presenter asked us to come up with a common, overarching topic to turn into age-appropriate instructional sequences. We at the humanities table quickly settled on ‘Core Democratic Values’ which were part of the MI Social Studies standards. We then went around the room sharing our chosen topics.

The presenter held up a hand when she heard from our table. No—you’ve misunderstood, she said. I meant something like “Westward Expansion” or “Industrial Revolution”—a topic that’s a key concept in your state Social Studies standards. We all believe in core values, of course, but this is about disciplinary content.

All the K-12 teachers in the room hastened to assure her that Core Democratic Values were indeed a key topic in the state standards, pulling up documents and published units to prove it. The presenter conceded, saying that she did this work all over the country and had not yet encountered such a broad concept—open to a range of interpretation and uses in instructional practice—anywhere in the country.

It felt like a point of pride, really, having these core democratic values as an anchor in the Mitten State standards. I’m not even a Social Studies teacher, and I could think of a dozen ways to insert the core values into lessons in the band room.

Here’s the official definition: Core democratic values are the fundamental beliefs and Constitutional principles of American society, which unite all Americans. These values are expressed in the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution and other significant documents, speeches and writings of the nation.

And here’s a list of those identified values: Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, justice, the common good, equality, truth, diversity, popular sovereignty, and patriotism.

Things we all agree on, right?

Not so much, anymore.

Speaking of precursors, when Michigan was updating its Social Studies framework, back in 2018, there was a major kerfuffle over Core Democratic Values (and a bunch of other hot-topic stuff):

References to gay rights, Roe v. Wade, climate change and “core democratic values” have been stripped from Michigan’s new proposed social studies standards, and the historic role of the NAACP downplayed, through the influence of Republican state Sen. Patrick Colbeck and a cadre of conservatives who helped rewrite the standards for public school students in kindergarten through 12th grade. “They had this term in there called ‘core democratic values,'” Colbeck said. “I said, ‘Whatever we come up with has to be politically neutral, and it has to be accurate.’ I said, ‘First of all, core democratic values (is) not politically neutral.’ I’m not proposing core republican values, either.”

This wasn’t only about rhetorical confusion between ‘Democratic’—the party—vs. ‘democratic’ (the time-honored. foundational principle of our government), although that’s the first thing that comes to mind with the protestors. In fact, reading the article would be a great classroom exercise for older students. The assignment might be: Read and discuss the diversity of opinions shared here, in a representative democracy with a free press.  Who should determine what students learn in a public school?

The proposed conservative edits went deep. They were about redefining concepts like equality, diversity, justice, the common good—and truth. ‘Civil rights,’ for example:

A high school standard about the expansion of civil rights and liberties for minority groups cut references to individual groups, including immigrants, people with disabilities and gays and lesbians. The new proposal includes teaching “how the expansion of rights for some groups can be viewed as an infringement of the rights and freedoms of others.” Colbeck told Bridge he added that phrase.

Surely, most public-school social studies teachers aren’t down with suggesting that not everyone deserves equity and civil rights, because granting those rights might infringe on someone else’s beliefs or “freedoms.”

After months of wrestling over these—yes—core values, the State Board adopted new Social Studies Standards in 2019. The changes they made were reasonable—you can compare the old and new. And core democratic principles and values are woven throughout the curriculum. Surprised that this story turned out OK? The battle is far from over.

The original definition and explication of core democratic values Michigan schools adopted were spot-on, nested in that most traditional American ideal: a free, high-quality fully public education for every child. One that would prepare them for active, informed citizenship. To become good neighbors, stewards of our collective environment, smart consumers and engaged voters. Community builders.

Aren’t core democratic values just about the only thing worth fighting for, in 2024?

by nflanagan

Quote of the Day

Sometimes, Facebook bubbles up a worthy glimpse of the past. This awesome quote– from 12 years ago– appeared on my page this morning, causing me to reflect on how much we’ve lost in the past decade. Wood is reflecting here on a remarkably different era– where Michelle Rhee was on the cover of TIME magazine, brooming out “ineffective” teachers, and Teach for America was growing, not shrinking and re-branding. His school was building on the reforms of the 1990s, with student-focused programming and the valuing of teacher expertise. If nothing else, it rebuts the tired cliche’ that “factory model” schools have not changed in the past century– schools have changed radically in just a dozen years. George Wood’s school was in Ohio, where “reformers” see their #1 goal as expanding private school vouchers.

“For the past 18 years, I have worked as a HS/MS school principal alongside a dedicated staff and a committed community to improve a school. In that time, we have increased graduation and college-going rates, engaged our students in more internships and college courses, created an advisory system that keeps tabs on all of our students, and developed the highest graduation standards in the state (including a Senior Project and Graduation Portfolio).

But reading the popular press and listening to the chatter from Washington, I have just found out that we are not part of the movement to ‘reform’ schools. You see, we did not do all the stuff that the new ‘reformers’ think is vital to improve our schools. We did not fire the staff, eliminate tenure, or go to pay based on test scores. We did not become a charter school. We did not take away control from a locally elected school board and give it to a mayor. We did not bring in a bunch of two-year short-term teachers.

Nope, we did not do any of these things. Because we knew they would not work.”

George Wood