One Teacher's Manifesto, or, If You Don’t Like That Title: The Teacher You Won’t Hire

A week before the end of Semester I, two sets of parents met with me to discuss (Or was it to change?) their child's grade in their particular English class. I suspect they had spoken with the principal prior to our meetings because directly after the meetings, I received an email message, regarding one of the meetings, from the principal tersely asking me “Did this meeting happen? Where did it end up?” As an English teacher who understands that language mirrors the mind, conscious or unconscious, I couldn’t help but immediately notice the use of “end” because, to my mind, “end” means “product” and product can mean—and I believe that it does in this Freudian slip—something that is created by a person or machine and offered for sale—as, in this case, the product “grade.” I would not have been alarmed if the principal’s message had read “How did your meetings go?” because the intransitive and therefore product-less “go” in this context can mean to move toward a place, or, better yet, “a progression,” which, I believe, is a term better suited to an “authentic” educator’s mission: dynamic student learning.

In both parent conferences, I intimated that learning is developmental, that students learn at different rates and achieve success at different times according to their work ethic and motives, and that I thought their child was progressing accordingly and that we need to be patient. I also stressed that if students’ motives are directed towards learning rather than directed towards “grade,” that the grade would follow and consequently reflect genuine learning. Professional responsibility prevented me from opining—or rather telling the truth— that if the expert guru administrators, some of whom have turned author— who laze the education landscape all the way to Washington D.C. and who are nowhere near a classroom, or who once were but bailed out of the classroom on the pitifully arrogant cliché “I just think I can make a bigger difference in students’ lives” hear me now, I would be summarily deleted with a large black marker because I am blaspheming the sacrosanct “differences” they have perpetrated: 21st Century Learning (a euphemism for removing intellectual development out of learning so that students can play on computers because they don’t like to read, write, or think but they are happier), teach-to-the-test standards based education, How to Grade for Learning (a cover for a pretty book that masks its intent to remove behavior from grade and promote standards based learning), a US 27th ranking in education out of 33 developed countries but blame it on teachers, and a significantly higher salary but a cheaper seat. Nice work!

I continued my silent sacrilegious rampage. I outlined a plan for their child’s “long term” improvement—discovering and nourishing a desire to learn, reading to learn, studying to learn, getting off grade as a surrogate for learning, and moderating the politically correct and tech heavy 21st Century Learning paradigm because it has been proven to have negative effects on the brain. I was adamant in my claim that there are no quick fixes unless “I” resort to gimmicks that would artificially inflate their grades (Thereby creating unwanted disparity between the school’s grading scale and externally moderated assessments like IB, AP, SAT, ACT, etc. that gets me, the teacher, in trouble), and that I would not do that because that places the onus squarely on me rather than on their child who is the one who needs to experience the influence of consequence—that immutable law of nature that allows me to write this rather than a trilobite—if their child is to legitimately learn and achieve excellence. I know of no other bona fide means to learn than the unadulterated prick of consequence, although I am aware of a surfeit of illegitimate and sordid means that are often used not for the sake of students’ learning, but for the comfort, convenience, and purse of those interlopers mentioned above. I am not of that ilk.

I told the parents that I am sympathetic to their plight, that I understand that their child’s performance and progress in English weighs heavily on their future in terms of university acceptance, but, and I did not say this to the parents for the sake of the professional obfuscation that holds me hostage, I also understand and maintain that these students—and perhaps their parents along with the advice and influence of those hysterical actors mentioned above—likely made some regrettable choices that have brought them both to the moment. I am a parent, too, and I, without question, want the very best for my children and I will work doggedly to that end. However, I also recognize that resolute “want” most often blinds us to reason at the expense of what began as good and pure intention—and that it takes courage, work, and fidelity-to-mission to resurrect that good and pure intention and to see it through triumphantly, while gimmick and quick fix beget an endless legacy of enabling, the “easy way out,” although, paradoxically, there is no easy way out of ignorance’s most loyal subjects: sluggardism, servitude, jail, untimely death, or all of the above. Sound familiar America?

At the conclusion of both meetings, I did tell the parents that I wholeheartedly believe that their child will realize their version of success at some time but that may not be our version in our time.

I did not change grades. There were tears. I opted for early retirement.