A Reason for Blogging

I have shamelessly stolen the title of my blog from Deborah Meier's book called In Schools We Trust. In her book, she reminds us that there is an alternative vision for education and schooling that is not based on high-stakes testing and top-down reform. She gives a definition of the kind of trust we should have in our schools and in our teachers: "It is a hard-won, democratic trust in each other, tempered by healthy, active skepticism, and a demand that trust be continually earned." As a teacher, I feel that this trust is hard to come by in many urban, public schools. There is little trust among the teachers, no trust between the teachers and the administration, and increasingly less trust of teachers from city and federal government leaders.

I believe that we as teachers are as much to blame for the lack of trust in our profession as are the politicians in DC. Very few of the debates on education reform are driven by the people who know children, who see how they learn and interact with each other, and who struggle with the myriad of challenges in the classroom. I hope to shed some light onto what it means to be a teacher. This blog is more for my benefit because I am constantly asking myself (and reminding myself again) why I teach, especially when it gets tough, but I also hope that people will begin listening to teachers again. Indeed, trusting them in the way that Meier suggests.

I like how Meier's definition of being trustworthy involves being open to skepticism. I plan on being very critical of teachers - who we are and why we do what we do. I know that politicians have sometimes labeled us as incompetent, lazy, and unwilling to change, and I disagree with these labels since they are untrue for the most part and are used to push a political agenda. But in my mind there is no excuse for teachers who have lost sight of why they are in the classroom or never had a good reason in the first place.

Some groups of more vocal teachers have shifted the debate away from educating children to saving face and saving their jobs. I'm talking about how teachers' unions have battled for shorter workdays and better pay but ignored taking part in any real curricular or instructional reform. This brings me to another point. Yes, I wish we were paid more as are other professionals, but I'm not sure teachers who do the bare minimum and show no real commitment to the job are deserving of such pay. Instead of becoming defensive at the negative name-calling, I think it is a good opportunity to ask ourselves what it means to be competent, professional, and open to improving our practice. We need to demand respect for being a teacher. That means no longer being complacent about our job, how schools are run, and what it means to educate a child.