Month: August 2022

Is It Already Too Late?

Phto by Ivan Aleksic on Unsplash

I fear for the future of public education in this nation. These forces fuel my angst:

  • Students, teachers, parents and administrators are dealing with lost learning and lost connections from the pandemic.
  • Public support for education seems less reliable. From my first teaching experience in 1970 until my retirement, I saw a shift from teachers almost always being right to teachers almost always being wrong, neither of which seems right to me. The assault on teachers’ choices and on school board decisions suggests an us-you dynamic instead of collaborative support.
  • Micromanaging public education by non-educators has become a costly epidemic. From the days of “No Child Left Behind” to now, legislators have been setting rules and guidelines that may not align with known “Best Practices” and that disempower teachers and teacher decision-making.
  • People using the “culture wars” for their own political purposes are polarizing communities and hurting support for schools. They are robbing schools and educators of decision-making, hamstringing their ability to teach students to think and learn.
  • Critical thinking, perhaps the most important life skill schools should nurture, cannot be taught without exploring more than one side of an issue. Unfortunately, too often today adults want kids to parrot their beliefs instead of developing their own.

I hold core values that matter here:

  • All students can learn given good teachers and appropriate materials and lessons. One size has never fit all, and well-trained teachers are best equipped to figure out how to reach a wide array of students.
  • Educators have a moral responsibility to nurture students thinking, especially critical thinking. We seem to be living in a time when many don’t value critical thinking, when many adults want students to toe their line of thinking instead. How can we solve the great problems facing our world if we can’t think about them openly and explore possibilities collaboratively?
  • Educators can – and should – be responsive to parental concerns about curriculum on a case-by-case basis, thereby honoring their family values without dictating them to everyone else. When I had a parent concerned about controversial content, I could offer alternatives without the entire class being deprived of an important experience or exposure to ideas.
  • Educators, especially when they work in teams and have their curricula evaluated by their administrations and boards of education, are by far the most qualified to develop curricula. Teachers have been trained to evaluate material and put it in a meaningful context. Working in teams, they are best suited to identify what is appropriate and provides an opportunity for learning.
  • Winston Churchill [and/or George Santayana] supposedly said, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” How can we teach history from which we can learn valuable lessons if we continue to sanitize it and dismiss uncomfortable past realities?

I knew I wanted to spend my life teaching and learning by the time I was in sixth grade, and I loved my career most of the time. Now, though, I’m less convinced that I would choose it. The politics in Florida may be among the more extreme, but their policies are catching on in other states. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s “Stop WOKE Act” regulates what schools can teach about race and identity [washingtonpost.com]. Although the law is currently being challenged in court, it should still strike fear in proponents of public education. Critics warn that the efforts in Florida are a harbinger for other states [Ibid.]. “’Florida may be leading the charge,’ said Fairfield University mathematics professor Irene Mulvey, the president of the American Association of University Professors, adding that Texas is not far behind and that many other states are following suit. ‘It’s a trend in the larger culture wars … where you see these politicians trying to throw red meat to the base and stir people up’” [Ibid.].

Florida is trying to control every aspect of education and to focus on a sanitized and Christian worldview. “The DeSantis administration has decried teachings on race, suggested civics instruction that downplays the historical separation of church and state, told school districts to ignore advice from the federal government that guarantees civil rights protections for LGBTQ students and, on Wednesday, asserted that children in elementary schools are being told they are the wrong gender” [washingtonpost.com]. The vagueness of the rules and the conflicting instruction from the state and federal governments are sowing fear and confusion. According to Michael Woods, a Palm Beach teacher and member of the Classroom Teachers Association, “’The vagueness of these laws is doing exactly what it was intended to do. It’s silencing teachers… I have grown people coming up to me worried about what they can say’” [Ibid.].

Florida also requires new civics training for public school teachers that includes the statement that it is a “’misconception’ that “the Founders desired strict separation of church and state’” [washingtonpost.com]. This flies in the face of the First Amendment, which prevents the government from “respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” which scholars widely interpret to require a separation of church and state. Broward County teacher Richard Judd, who attended the three-day training on the new civics curriculum, said the trainers told teachers, “This is the way you should think” [Ibid.]. Anna Fusco, president of the Broward Teachers Union, said, “Then they kind of slipped in a Christian values piece, ignoring the fact that this country is made up of so many different cultures and religions” [Ibid.]. If teachers can only present one view, how can students learn to think critically and evaluate the information offered?

And this same state has flip-flopped over the use of a specific textbook in health and still hasn’t made a decision for the start of this year’s instruction. Health professionals are alarmed, especially in a state with the third-highest rate of new HIV infections in the country according to the CDC, in a state ranked 23rd for teen pregnancies. They point out that public opinion surveys show significant support for sexual education [Ibid.].

If these actions were limited to one state, I would be less concerned. But they are not. Lawmakers across the country are proposing bills like these: “’First Florida. Then Alabama. Now, lawmakers in Ohio and Louisiana are considering legislation that mimics the Florida law,’ according to NPR” [catholicvote.org]. After Florida passed the Don’t Say Gay Bill, 19 other states have introduced similar legislation [nbcnews.com]. For this issue alone, The Guardian identifies Georgia, Louisiana, Kansas, Indiana, Tennessee, Arizona, Oklahoma, Ohio, and South Carolina as states emulating the Florida Don’t Say Gay Bill. Education Week shows similarcontagion from state to state [theguardian.com].

Sexual orientation and gender identity are not the only flashpoint. Since January 2021, 14 states have passed laws prohibiting “critical race theory, even though that term refers to post-secondary scholarship. Legislators want to sanitize the nation’s history of slavery. These laws and orders, combined with local actions to restrict certain types of instruction, now impact more than one out of every three children in the country, according to a recent study from UCLA [edweek.org]. Education Week analyzed active state bills and warns that “Republicans this year have drastically broadened their legislative efforts to censor what’s taught in the classroom. What started in early 2021 as a conservative effort to prohibit teachers from talking about diversity and inequality in so-called ‘divisive’ ways or taking sides on ‘controversial’ issues has now expanded to include proposed restrictions on teaching that the United States is a racist country, that certain economic or political systems are racist, or that multiple gender identities exist, according to an Education Week analysis of 61 new bills and other state-level actions” [Ibid.].

Teaching has always been hard, and other factors [like the pandemic and verbal fights at school board meetings] have only increased its difficulty. But this national movement to disempower educators, to take away their decision-making, to make them fearful of lawsuits as they try to determine what subject matter is safe in their state, is crippling their ability to teach. A survey of members of the American Federation of Teachers shows dramatically increased job dissatisfaction, up from 27% in 2014 to 79% in 2022 [AFT Member Survey]. That news should be especially concerning given the existing shortage of teachers and the insufficiency of the pipeline of teachers in training.

Publishing my teaching memoir this year reminded me of the joys as well as the challenges of my career. Would I choose it now? I don’t know. Will others? The current climate hardly encourages the best and the brightest. Don’t our students deserve them?

“The Children Are Our Future”

While many complain about teens, my problem-based learning elective class, which fostered service projects for the school and larger community, taught me that teens can and will make major contributions to their community. Right now, when so much education news keeps me awake at night, I loved reading about the high school senior in Olivia, Minnesota, who did just that.
 
The son of a military veteran and relative of others, Dominique Claseman grew dismayed that his small town didn’t have a veteran’s memorial. Although some residents of this farming community of 2500 people 90 miles from the Twin Cities had put up a few rocks and signs in recognition, that didn’t seem adequate to Claseman. He was ready to design and enact his Eagle Scout project, and his veteran father was his scoutmaster. Claseman and his parents toured war memorials in other towns. Then Claseman began his own PR campaign to raise funds. He sought interviews at local radio stations, handed out brochures, and went door-to-door to local businesses. He offered families the opportunity to sponsor stone pavers engraved with their veteran’s name. Although his initial goal was a modest $12,000 – 15,000 dollars, donations came not only from Olivia but from surrounding towns, hitting almost $77,000.
 
Claseman drew up a sketch inspired by memorials he’d seen. His contractor grandfather helped with the design. By May, the finalized blueprint showed “a long walkway leading to a stone monument and four granite benches in a 21-foot circle representing the 21 boot steps the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns walks. The memorial also would include flagpoles and Army helmet sculptures in honor of two local men who died in Iraq. A local crew volunteered to pour the concrete if Claseman would purchase the supplies. Then his dad walked across the wet cement in his Army boots to complete a walk of honor with 21 footprints” [washingtonpost.com].
 
Over three weekends, Claseman and his family, along with other members of his scout troop, installed the landscaping and 280 inscribed pavers. “’There were about 10,000 pounds of rock, so, yeah, it was a lot of work,’ Claseman said’ [Ibid.]. This past Memorial Day, two years after Claseman began fundraising and designing, the monument was dedicated. Jon Hawkinson, mayor of Olivia, said, “’Dom’s project proved to us that when creativity meets ambition, wonderful things can happen’” [Ibid.]. Several hundred people attended the dedication and grew quite emotional. 91-year-old Marjorie Barber came to honor her uncle who died in World War I at the age of 21 along with more than a dozen relatives who served during World War II, including her late husband. “’We have 17 members of my family on the memorial — almost all are gone, a few are still living…We never had a place to remember our veterans before, so what Dominique did is really wonderful and uplifting for our town’” [Ibid.]. Kim Wertish, whose 20-year-old son James was killed in a mortar attack in Iraq in 2009, bought markers for her son and some of his comrades. She called the Olivia memorial “extra special.”
 
Claseman expects his younger brothers to add to the memorial for their own Eagle Scout projects. He said he was thrilled to see his friends and neighbors paying their respects on the Fourth of July. “’Everyone came together for the veterans,’ Claseman said. ‘That’s what this is all about’” [Ibid.].
 
This heartwarming story feels remarkable, and Dominique Claseman is an admirable young man, but I feel confident that his story is not unique. While the news is full of grim updates about the concerning state of education, some young people continue to rise to the occasion and even to exceed anyone’s expectation. We should learn more of these stories. I find myself humming Whitney Houston’s song:
“I believe the children are our future
Teach them well and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside
Give them a sense of pride
To make it easier
Let the children’s laughter remind us how we used to be.”