Why I am no longer a teacher… but an educator.
educate |ˈejəˌkāt|
verb [ trans. ] (often be educated)
give intellectual, moral, and social instruction to (someone, esp. a child), typically at a school or university : she was educated at a boarding school.
ORIGIN late Middle English : from Latin educat- ‘led out,’ from the verb educare, related to educere ‘lead out’ (see educe ).
teacher |ˈtē ch ər|
noun
a person who teaches, esp. in a school.
dailycensored.com http://dailycensored.com/2011/05/27/how -do-teachers-matter-not-as-cause-agents-but-as-learning-opportunities/
How Do Teachers Matter? Not as Cause Agents But as
Learning Opportunities
Written by Paul Thomas
Lost in the exaggerated claims of “bad” teachers being at the core of all that ails education and the
concurrent calls for greater teacher accountability, often linked to student test scores, is a careful
consideration of why we have universal public education in a free society and what the role of the teacher is
within that purpose.
Debates about teacher quality and education reform are doomed to fail if we do not first place both within our
purposes for and beliefs about education, human nature, and our culture. Universal public education, in its
essence, must rest upon a commitment to human agency and autonomy as well as a full and complex faith in
and support for democratic principles.
Once we embrace human agency and autonomy–everyone is born equal, including the rights of life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness–we have chosen a definition of “education” that rejects indoctrination and
enculturation, although these two purposes have dominated how and why our schools have functioned for
over a century. A people who believe in individual freedom must cherish the empowerment of every human
mind. To distrust human autonomy is to reject freedom and to call for some authority to determine the lives
of others–and thus either to diminish some people’s access to education or to reduce a system of schooling
to oppression through indoctrination and enculturation.
If, then, we are truly a people who believe in human freedom and thus appreciate the role of universal public
education as an opportunity for individual empowerment, agency, and autonomy, we must acknowledge the
complex and important role of a teacher within a commitment to individual freedom and democracy.
Let me clarify here that I have been a teacher from the middle school level through graduate education for
27 years now. In that time, I have taught thousands of students of nearly every possible ability, background,
and level of commitment. For the record, I have not caused a single one of those students to learn.
Teachers in an education system designed for a free society and people are not cause agents but
mechanisms for designing, providing, and enhancing learning experiences for every student regardless of
that student’s station in life. Ultimately, a student who is free is the final determinant of whether or not
learning occurs–as long as that student’s life allows that choice.
Calls for teacher accountability tied to student outcomes, such as tests, misrepresent the ethical role of a
teacher in a free society. Few people take the time to consider that viewing a teacher as a cause agent
(holding a teacher accountable for the behavior of another free human) and viewing learning as the mere
transmission of knowledge from a teacher-authority to a passive class of students are antithetical to our
beliefs in individual freedom and democracy.
Can a teacher through coercion, threat, bribe, or force of personality demand from a student a behavior that
appears to match a learning outcome? Of course.
But that is indoctrination/enculturation–not education. It denies the dignity and humanity of the teacher and
the student; it rejects the sacred faith in individual freedom and democratic principles.
Teachers of free people cannot and should not cause learning to happen; thus, we must focus our concern
for teacher quality exclusively on the characteristics of that teacher and the quality of the learning
opportunities that teacher provides. [As well, the pursuit of teacher quality must be situated appropriately in
the larger picture of what influences impact student learning, acknowledging that the quality of the teacher is
a small percentage (about 14%-33%) of those influences that are dominated by factors beyond the walls and
control of the teacher or the school.]
So, how do teachers matter, and how should we seek higher quality teachers, holding them accountable for
providing every child access to the learning opportunities all humans deserve at birth?
Teachers must possess and constantly enhance their knowledge base–the content they teach and their
pedagogy–by being life-long learners in formal classroom settings, such as graduate courses and degrees,
and by being scholars, actively engaged with the fields that they teach (the first is typical of K-12 educators
and the latter, of professors, but both should be elements of all teachers).
Teachers must be reflective and transparent practitioners of their craft, and here is a key element of the
debate about teacher quality that we are consistently failing to recognize. Teacher quality is not revealed in
student outcomes; in fact, student outcomes tend to mask and distort the quality and role of the teacher.
Teacher quality is best revealed in the act of teaching itself–although complicated and time consuming to
capture and evaluate, the act of teaching is the single best evidence of the opportunities a teacher provides
for all students. And those opportunities are the only rightful things for which teachers can and should be
held accountable because it is the act of teaching and creating learning opportunities that is within the
teacher’s power to control (although our bureaucratic approach to schooling has historically denied teachers
the exact autonomy that would support that accountability).
Rightful accountability must be limited to that which a person controls–all other accountability is unethical,
oppressive, and corrosive.
Yes, every child deserves a high quality teacher, one who is in a constant process of growth as a teacher
and not fixed at the moment of attaining a prescribed quality or goal. One truism that should guide how we
evaluate teacher quality is seeking ways to determine the difference between a teacher who teaches one
year twenty times and a teacher who teaches twenty years, informed by an equal commitment to being a
scholar.
Focusing on prescriptive and external data points (student test scores) works to insure that we create and
reward the worst sort of teachers–fixed at a point in their growth, teaching one year twenty times. Teacher
accountability linked to student outcomes reduces teacher quality to raising test scores–a misleading and
minimal expectation for teacher quality in a free society.
Teacher quality matters, and we can identify and foster better teachers. But that process, if we truly value
individual freedom and democracy, must exist in a spirit of community and with a commitment to human
dignity and empowerment–for both teachers and students.
A system of self-evaluation, peer-evaluation, and supervisor-based evaluation–designed to support and not
punish or reward–that addresses teacher competence (content and pedagogy) and, above all else, the
quality of the educational opportunities offered to students regardless of their background is the sort of
teacher accountability and education reform we must seek.
However, any commitment to teacher quality and education reform for individual freedom and democracy will
not produce the results we seek for our children if we continue to see raising teacher and school quality as a
silver bullet and as an isolated avenue to social reform. Social reform must precede or occur simultaneously
with proper care for teacher quality or we will persist in our greatest failure of all–pointing an accusatory
finger at teachers and schools while the rest of society crumbles over our shoulders.
Finally, while clichés can fail us, let’s consider and revise a familiar one as we face teacher quality:
You can lead a horse to water, but can’t make it drink. And if you do find a way to force the horse to drink,
and the horses die from drinking poisoned water, it may be time to stop focusing on who’s leading the horse
and attend to the source of the poisoned water.
This comment on her blog by a high school English language arts teacher created a virtual flurry. The water cooler wag went from executive boardrooms to teacher lounges. She was suspended from her job (with pay) while her school district investigated. A debate ensued centering on two themes: 1.) That her comments were unprofessional 2.) That her censure by the board violated her right to free speech
Natalie will have her provoked fifteen minutes of fame. The debate will quiet. To me though the essential issue will sit under a rock, still unexamined. The important question (a key concept in learning theory) has not been addressed.
Natalie Munroe asked no question. She stated an opinion, or rather assigned blame. She judged and chastised the individuals to whom she is obliged not only as an educator but as a citizen. Natalie by her action volunteered to be sacrificial lamb to a world that fears for its children and their futures.
(We are all so overwhelmed that we protect ourselves with ennui yet clearly from the hyperbole surrounding this event we all care, passionately about our children’s education.)
Natalie has right to voice but the student’s would have been better served had she not laid the blame on them. She may have served cause better had she posed the question, “Why am I not able to motivate, engage the student’s? What are the obstacles? How can I design my instructions to facilitate accountable?’’ Etc. So she set off smoke bombs when what are needed are fireworks and a whole parade.
In my years as a teacher I often felt shackled to a covert silence. If you say anything, look with too much scrutiny you may violate the sacrosanct system of school or union. We are a family. We do not take our business to the streets. Weird message when our purpose is to serve the intellectual, academic and citizenship needs of our student’s.
We must design for learning, equality. We must equate funding with civil liberties and assure that equal monies and time be spent with and for all student’s.
We must ask thousands of questions about structural inequities. Communication with families and communities must bridge the school experience to the greater world. We must tend to the disconnect. Learning is not something that begins when the bell rings, it begins at birth. Those we have rendered powerless must have voice to their vision and dream.
Teachers are called. We have a vocation. Our expertise and commitment must be solicited on behalf of the organization and those we serve. Our training in the essential skill set of technological literacy should be the cornerstone. We must stretch our thinking.
When Natalie bellowed her angst perhaps this was our call to action. This is not a time for polarized, politicized posturing. Now is the time to adapt and revision.
It is an emergency…we must react to this eminent disaster…
Let us all exercise our right to free speech. May we speak resolutely on behalf of children?
“No matter what happens keep on beginning and failing. Each time you fail, start over again, and you will grow stronger until you find you have accomplished a purpose-not one you began with, perhaps but one you glad to remember.” And who shall count the innumerable times that she tried, failed, and conquered.
Helen Keller quote Annie Sullivan in the Biography
