Taylor the Teacher

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Ken’’s post, “What is School?” should be a meme. It’s dead on. School is all that and so much more. I alluded to something similar yesterday: we do not and will not know what we’re doing until we, well, know what we’re trying to do. The goal determines everything. School can only be an effective means to a clearly defined end.

Defining this end has nothing to do with standards. Standards are a means as well. Standards are somebody’s attempt to break down the complex process of thinking into measurable bits. Why is this helpful? Who knows? There’s no way to measure the helpfulness of any particular method of doing anything when you don’t know what that method is trying to accomplish.

As a teacher, my goal is to be a resource to the next generation of learners in whatever way I’m needed. What I want is for them. I want them to learn, to learn to love learning, to love what learning does to them, for them, in them. And then I want them to do it some more. On their own.

But some want skilled workers who can help them make a profit. Some want people who are too stupid to think through their sales pitches or understand the consequences of their own personal financial decisions. Some want them to grow up and be successful in outward measurable ways so they can have something to brag about at the Country Club. Some want to assuage their own fears of having screwed up their most important responsibility in life: raising their kids. Some want to dismantle our democracy. As far as I can tell, somebody wants to turn America into a toilet that nobody would want to live in. Some want us to stop looking at dirty movies and worship the way they do. There are people on several sides of the table who are very concerned about how the curriculum will reflect on their ancestors. Some want to keep collecting pension checks for their teaching jobs with the state.

And many of these groups have an interest in the status quo. But they holler all the while about “fixing” schools.

Many of us have valid concerns. Some of us are full of shit. Some are out for no good. But everyone is playing their cards so close to their chest that nothing is getting done. It would be a lot easier to determine who was full of shit if everyone would just lay their cards on the table.

Why can’t we talk about what’s really going on here? I am sick of purveyors of bullshit defining the debate. If we all refuse to be honest, nothing we do will matter long term.

We cannot make even one more educational decision until we decide what the Prime Directive is.

Yes, I know as a teacher I’m supposed to say, “If I just touch one life, that will be enough.” Bullshit. Helping one person while doing nothing for all the others is no good. Not even close to good enough. Helping one person while actually causing harm to the others is unconscionable.

My goal is to send kids out into the world with an Rx for a thinking brain with instructions that read: apply as needed. Wherever that goal is being addressed is where I want to be.

When Ken said, “school is the safest means of travel out there,” does he mean to say that it’s the best way to succeed in American life?

Because I am far from convinced that is true. Otherwise, I would agree that it’s all perception and lenses. But I’m honestly afraid of letting a couple of frog dissections keep me from seeing a greater harm.

There’s no question that learning is the answer to a lot of our problems.

The question is, can we get there from here? The best, quickest way to get back to the objective of learning is the most humane. If that way means dismantling the current schools, I say, bring on the Pink Floyd kids and tear this bitch up. I’m not attached to “School” — I only got into teaching school because I was attached to learning. I’m sticking with my first love.

Dragging this thing out will only make it worse for everyone. Especially the students. We have to rethink this thing now. This is much more urgent than people seem to realize. I have no faith in ten year plans. That’s 10 more years of graduating seniors? No thank you.

I think most people agree that we’re barely reaching them now. So, something has to be done. And what I want them to see me doing is 1) deciding what’s important 2) sticking to my guns 3) taking some kind of action based on that. Even if I’m wrong on the details. Letting them see me learn from my mistakes isn’t a bad idea either.

I wish we could talk about Hamlet. But the road to Hamlet is a long way from tea bagging under the tilt-a-whirl. So the most teacherly thing I could do right now is take some action.

What I do not want is to have them wondering in 20 years what their teachers were doing while “the system” was ripping their learning to shreds and realizing that we, the teachers, were making another 10 year plan, portfolio, or bullshit paperwork achievement goal so we could document all that we weren’t doing for them in order to cover our asses.

As I see it, quitting the profession might be the best thing I can do for them. Either I suck as a teacher and they’re better off without me, or I’m a good teacher and I’m using that skill to further serve an institution that doesn’t have their best interests at heart.

Was this the position the American public intended to put teachers in?

But these kids are important to me. I want to help them. For me to do that, everybody’s going to have to put their cards on the table. What, exactly, do you want me to do? When I know that, I’ll decide whether or not I’m willing to do it.

When we all decide what the objective is here, I’ll step down sweetly if I’m not the woman for the job. I’ll take it with grace. But I will not believe you when you tell me I suck unless you admit your true agenda and listen to mine.