This morning was some of the bad—an annual 504 review for my son which involved a lot of stonewalling and foot dragging, and a lack of transparency, on the part of the administrators at his school. Fortunately, because my wife and I are both educators, we possessed the knowledge to be able to compel these colleagues of ours to be more proactive in their response to our son’s educational needs. We were able to demand alternate tests to the DRA, insist that moving up a grade level for reading was legal when it was suggested it might not be, and that sort of thing. Once we started throwing around familiar acronyms like RTI and DI, suddenly the other teachers in the conference room sat up and paid attention. Unfortunately, I walked away somewhat discouraged because the meeting made me realize just how easily a parent without our insider knowledge of the profession could have been intimidated by the roomful of teachers (seven in all) and by the casually thrown-around jargon, and how easily equivocal or evasive responses from the teachers could cause misleading ideas about their and their child’s rights. It was very discouraging.
On the other hand, I had several very pleasant experiences throughout the week. I met with a colleague in Lebanon to plan some professional development for her school, and she and I got to talking about our kids (our biological ones). Her daughter is a middle-schooler in my wife’s system, and she was telling me about how much her daughter loves her new English teacher, and then it turns out that the teacher is one of my former students and advisees. I even was one of her references for the job. It was very nice to hear that.
Another inspiring experience came from the course I’m teaching. I have an advisee working on a paper on Huck Finn for my American Lit class. She wants to write about the challenges of teaching the work, so I gave her the email of Craig Hotchkiss, the Education Program Director at the Mark Twain House and Museum. Craig was at the center of Manchester High School’s response to two parent challenges to Huck Finn back in 2007-08. Craig granted my advisee a lengthy interview that filled three single-spaced pages of notes on the events of the challenge and the district’s response. My student was delighted and even overwhelmed, in a good way, by Craig’s generosity.
And then today I learned that another current student, a very charming and articulate psychology major, grew up in my home town and is good friends with one of my youngest cousins (I am the fourth oldest of 20+ cousins, and at least a third of us went into education), and so he also knows my aunt and uncle really well. The uncle is a now-retired special education teacher from New Haven. Such a very unexpected coincidence.
I also learned that two close friends from the 1999 Summer Institute have returned to school for advanced degrees, which is really cool. They are two of the smartest, hardest working teachers I know, and that is saying a lot because I know so many smart, hard-working teachers. I hope they’re reading this and know I’m talking about them! Both will wind up in administration, which is a good thing. We need more talented administrators.
Perhaps my most enjoyable encounter, however, came on Tuesday night when I met with four of the five teachers who will be accompanying me to the National Writing Project Annual Meeting this November in Orlando. The three veteran teachers joining me are of course very excited to attend the meeting, but I am also taking two former undergraduate students, one who is a first year teacher in Colchester and one who is in her fifth year of the IB/M aktivitas and doing a graduate assistantship in the English department. The two young women are just beside themselves with excitement to attend their first big national conference. Their excitement is just infectious.
I guess this exchange was as inspirational as it was because the current climate of hostility toward teachers and our profession had been so discouraging. I need to see new teachers like these two still feel and express so much excitement and enthusiasm for the profession. It’s uplifting and encouraging to hear how popular and successful some of the new teachers are, like my former student who is teaching my friend’s daughter, or to see a pre-service teacher get jazzed up from talking with a retired teacher about teaching a controversial book. I need that sort of affirmation.
I also had paper conferences with half of the twenty students in my class this week. It was pretty hectic to meet with so many students in between meetings and teaching and other appointments, but it is very fun and cool to sit and talk with all these bright young students, to talk about books with them and help them plot out their papers. Mostly they are just smart and excited to learn, and like the two young women coming with us to Orlando, they are just infectious. It’s invigorating to meet and talk with them. Truly, it boggles my mind when I think about how much so many of my colleagues in the English Department really don’t enjoy advising or meeting with students. Some like it, but many—too many—do not. I don’t get it.
I have a friend I used to teach with at RHAM High who, whenever things began to look gloomy in the profession, used to say, “The best thing is when you close your door and it’s just you and your kids.†And that’s exactly it, isn’t it? Sometimes we have to just shut out everything else—hostile journalists, uninformed legislators, unrealistic parents, unsupportive administrators (or micromanaging administrators, or, well, you can choose your own adjective!), and even ineffective colleagues, and just teach our kids.
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