I am not a natural storyteller. Often, when I tell my husband about something that has happened at school, he will nod expectantly and say, slightly impatiently, “And...?” to hurry me to the point because he knows it might take a while. I’m tangential.

And that is one reason I believe that writing is a good thing in my life. It allows me to rant, cry, pout, veer off into vectors, and spiral back to what is essential. Revision (i.e. chopping down ideas and putting them in an order that makes sense to someone) is a good thing. In my (wonderful) graduate program, I took a class called “Rewriting a Life” by the wise and lovely Tilly Warnock. The premise of the class was that the act of writing out our lives reshapes them, and makes meaning from our memories. One of our texts was You Must Revise Your Life by poet William Stafford, from which I stole the title of this entry. It helps my stories make more sense to my husband if I go through a bit of a selective process before I tell them.

I remember in my teacher ed classes way back in the early ‘90’s, we were advised to keep a reflective journal. It was a great suggestion. But it is quite a commitment to say you will write each day about your teaching. Hats off to those who manage it. I mean, really. Hats off. It is a courageous act, much like videotaping oneself, to keep a teaching diary. I think if I did that I would never re-read it. It’s too terrible to see who we were yesterday. But, for me, it is incredibly helpful to take stock of who I am today.

I have greatly enjoyed keeping both a personal blog (which often veers toward professional issues) and also contributing here. I think it is good policy for teachers to be writers, and here’s why:

A. Personal and professional development. Much like practicing any art form, writing will shape you and your identity.

B. Learning real writing processes. Writing helps us relate to the writing processes our students go through and become better teachers of writing (which most of us, ultimately, are at some point). (For more thoughts on this, see a speech I delivered about the National Board writing process.)

C. Entering the conversation. If you blog your reflections, and read other ed blogs, you will soon find other voices who enrich your professional life. Also, having readers is nice.

D. Creating a diverse chorus of teacher voices which will at some point take out the Death Star (however you define the Death Star). Many policy makers still have a dim idea of what life in the classroom is like. Ideologies drive much of the public conversation. Ideas can be argued, but it is hard to argue with your experiences. The stories of teachers and students are the reality of education today.

Take some time this summer to jot your thoughts. Join the conversation. Have a great summer!

 

 

 

I recently had the opportunity to attend NBC's Education Nation Summit in downtown Phoenix with a group of teachers from my school. You might have seen me on TV; I was the guy one day removed from the stomach flu whose skin tone matched his grey suit. But I, and those sitting near me, came away unscathed. The anchor's comments, however, did get me thinking.

We sure talk a lot about talking.

At the end of the town hall, NBC host Rehema Ellis thanked us for our attendance on a busy Saturday, but cited that it was exciting to see us, "beginning to have the difficult conversations in education." This, I've concluded is code for, "Nobody in this room is really going to do anything, but let's pretend we will."

Remember that famous scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where the guards at the gate of the castle see a knight charging on foot at full gallop, yet not actually getting any closer?

Yeah, it's kind of like that.

In America, talking heads will tell you that it's important to begin to have the difficult conversations about mental health. That we need to begin to have the difficult conversations about entitlement reform. That it's time to begin to have the difficult conversations about modifying the tax code. Well, you get the picture. None of these issues are even close to the reform they so desparetely need and beginning to have the difficult conversations is what people suggest when they aren't interested in actually trying to do anything. Or, they sense that the challenge is unsurmountable due to partisanship, differing idealogy, or political fallout. I'm pretty sure that education is trapped in the webs of all three.  

I'm also confident that Rosa Parks didn't begin to have the difficult conversations about bus seating.

At some point, could we actually do something? Anything? We encourage teachers to take risks in the classroom, yet, as a profession, very few want to take that precarious first step.

Perhaps there is hope. Monty Python fans might remember how the aforementioned scene ends. After seemingly going nowhere, the knight that had been simply running to stand still, somehow covers the entire field in a blink, slays the guards, and successfully storms the castle.  

I'm certainly not advocating impalement. But it would sure be nice to stop applauding ourselves for considering the potential for involving ourselves in considering thinking about the difficult conversations. 

Maybe it's time to propose, try, advocate, or challenge. Maybe it's actually time to do.  

"We did not put our ideas together. We put our purposes together."  Adam Kahane, Solving Tough Problems

John Prosser is there. A teacher leader involved in policy-making. He began as a middle school teacher in the Seattle Tacoma area, then went to law school, then back to the classroom. During a strike in 2011, he and his twin brother became leaders in their union by supporting the lines and eventually serving on the team that resolved the action. He is now a facilitator implementing the policy the strike resolved: how to fairly find the best match between displaced teachers and receiving schools. 

In Part One I asked how teacher leaders will walk the talk when we finally get a seat at the policy making table. John revealed in recent phone calls that policy-making requires an intense level of responsibility, a spirit of conciliation, an unyielding obligation to get the facts right, and an inner knowledge of what it will take to change your mind. 

When his committee began to negotiate teacher placement, those who had been adversaries in the strike had the eye-opening revelation that although the strike had served as a catalyst to get them together, they needed a new approach. They placed everything on the table and collaborated on setting a goal and finding a path. They were acutely aware that their decisions would impact every teacher and, by extension, every student in the district.

Solving Tough Problems, a memoir in which Adam Kahane writes about resolving problems from Apartheid to conflict in Guatemala, inspired the negotiations. John relates, "We said, 'After all, if they can solve Apartheid, we can solve teacher-placement.'" Listening to and understanding the needs of the other party opened their eyes; discussing the craziest ideas from each party opened their minds. Fidelity to the facts secured a resilient policy.

A self-described "intellectual mercenary," John is beholden to no point of view beyond that which the facts support. And sometimes that applies to his own views. A recent proposal that principals could use teacher evaluations in determining placement for displaced teachers seemed in direct conflict with the policy his team had crafted.  A divisive fight seemed inevitable and healing wounds could be reopened.

Yet, driving home one day, John realized that the negotiated agreement already included language that principals must consider teacher evaluations - if a teacher had a poor evaluation or probationary status, the principal couldn't displace them - thus avoiding a kabuki dance of the lemons. He wrote a memo that made it through the decision-making machinery and ameliorated the conflict before it began.

I do have a voice

It's easy to say "I don't have a voice," but John says there are ways to be heard - through social media, blogs, and the old-school means of calling and writing your congressional representatives. He also suggests looking for opportunities to sit down and talk with representatives or their staff - maybe at a rally or public event. In his experience policy-makers want to know what teachers think and keep track of our opinions.   

Yet John cautions that teachers need to do their own research and have a well-crafted message. Although politicians may listen, it's an informed, research-based, well-articulated position that they hear. 

Consider his experience after teachers at Garfield High in Washington state refused to administer a standardized test. Opinion leader and former Washington D. C. School Chancellor Michelle Rhee wrote an essay in the Seattle Times criticizing the boycott. John, acting in no official capacity, wrote a response on his personal blog that systematically deconstructed Ms. Rhee's arguments.

Imagine John's surprise when he received an email from none other than Diane Ravitch asking if he were real. She not only tweeted his post, but praised his essay in her own blog.  (John's a modest guy, but if you press him, he'll admit that she really did call his essay "brilliant.")

In summary, John says to inform yourself and act - make that phone call, write that blog - work on what most irks you, but work from knowledge and with an open-mind. Be prepared for frustration and hiccups in the process.  But be prepared, too, to find your power. 

What's next?

In the conclusion to How Will We Walk the Talk? you'll meet Holly Franks Boffy, a teacher leader who upon deciding that a personal life challenge would not become her identity, committed to train for and run in a 5K race. She ended up running all the way to a seat on the Louisiana State Board of Education.

 

 

 

“A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.”  Chinese Proverb

In 2004, Barack Obama introduced us to the phrase “The Audacity of Hope.” Audacity can be defined as the willingness to take bold risks. His implication is that in this society where it is so easy to feel lost in the machine, those who hope make a courageous decision.

The audacity of hope is what makes a great teacher, especially a new teacher. She tackles the problems of the world on the playing field of the classroom.

I propose another category of hope, a way of thinking about hope which might resonate with more experienced teachers exhausted at the end of each successive school year. Or maybe it’s just my kind of hope. 

Please bear with me as I offer to you one of the most overplayed poems in all of American literature. Bear with me, because I am betting there is more to this poem than you may have taken the time to think about before:

254 

“Hope” is the thing with feathers --
That perches in the soul --
And sings the tune without the words --
And never stops – at all -- 

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard --
And sore must be the storm --
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -- 

I’ve heard it in the chillest land --
And on the strangest Sea --
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.

                                                    by Emily Dickinson

Most students (and many teachers) interpret this poem in a syrupy-sweet kind of way: Hope as a birdie with a beautiful, eternal song. Which is why 9 out of 10 students with black nail polish hate this poem.

Hope is the thing with feathers.  I don’t know about you, but here in Southern Arizona, “THE THING” is a roadside attraction along I-10, so potentially terrifying that the billboard lettering evokes the title sequence of a dozen B horror flicks and looks as though it reeks with the stench of swamp-monster effluvia.

Dickinson could have chosen to call hope a songbird.  But she doesn’t call it a “Bird” until the middle of the poem. Not only does she put “Hope” in quotation marks (as though apologizing for writing about such a sappy topic) but she calls it a THING (with feathers). 

When I imagine a bird as a thing, I think about the creepiness of seeing a bird close up: the scaly skin around its small eyes, the unforgiving bone of its beak, its dry tongue and dinosaur feet. With talons.

We used to have a parrot. Rudy was friendly until I tried to put him away in his cage, and then he would clamp my shoulder with his sharp feet, rip out my ponytail holder and start nipping my ear. Not nice. He was determined to stay out of that cage. Obstinate fellow.

 

"Hope" artwork I made on a trip to the University of Arizona Poetry Center with students

 

My hope this time of year is the same. The exhaustion, the disillusionment of the batteries of standardized tests, the pressure to document every effort I’ve made to intervene with every struggling child, the referrals I have to write because students couldn’t keep it together for just two more weeks, the deadlines for paperwork, signing off on evaluations that do not fully represent me, documentation to potentially fail seniors, the grading. We’ve all got a similar to do list that we might finish by the end of the summer if we actually accomplished all of it.

The celebrations at the end of the year are necessary. The people being celebrated deserve it.  Great accomplishments have been achieved, and many people will be missed. But (am I allowed to admit it?) there are times when even these rituals feel like props to keep us going until the end.  Really, there is no time to properly honor everyone. There is no time for anything but intensively trying to get students the last of their feedback for the year in time to clean up my room and making sure I’ve given everyone enough opportunity for success.

Dickinson’s “Hope” reminds me of Annie Dillard’s weasel.  In an essay in which she asks us to live like weasels, she illustrates the weasel’s wild determination by citing the image of one latching its jaws onto an eagle and not letting go, and the image of the eagle soaring through its days with the skeleton of the weasel still attached. I believe Dickinson’s view of hope is similar.  And I as a veteran teacher am left wondering what to do with this dogged companion who will not let go of my neck.

However, unlike weasels or the freakshow in Dragoon, through the storm this feathered thing sings. The speaker in Dickinson’s poem does nothing to encourage this thing.  It perches in the soul and hops out along our arm. It asks for nothing and sings sweetest in the Gale. It keeps us warm, this thing, and never asks for even one little crumb. We need not feed it or nurture it. It exists because we are alive. It is a thankless job for a feathered thing, and the speaker of Dickinson’s poem can only acknowledge its unfailing song.

Even the least syrupy sweet among those of us who work with teenagers must acknowledge it. Somewhere in there, amongst the muscles and bones, the stray bolts and metal pins, around the worn edges of our battered teacher souls, even this time of year, is a thing. It’s a thing that keeps us going.  I look forward to next year, and even to tomorrow, when I can laugh with my students about how we are all ready for summer. Laughter which comes because even though we are ready for a break, we know the struggle to become ourselves continues. We and our things will return to teach and learn another day. And we will hope for more.

After 17 years, I am not pollyannish about education; however, I am not cynical either. I can’t see my thing with feathers ever going anywhere.  It perches in my soul, and sings the tune without the words (See? It doesn’t even know what it is trying to say!) and never stops at all. I didn’t ask for it. But if it ever, in Extremity, abandons me I will know it is time to leave the classroom.  I can’t claim that my kind of hope is audacious, or even eternal.  But I am grateful that it is obstinate.

“With a library you are free, not confined by temporary political climates. It is the most democratic of institutions because no one - but no one at all - can tell you what to read and when and how.”  Doris Lessing

When Margaret Thatcher passed away a few weeks back, just about every retrospective of her contributions included her strengthening of the “special relationship” between the United States and Britain. That got me thinking about the special relationships in a school system, those relationships that, while quantifiably hard to define, create a web of connections that build a true learning community. I hope that your school includes many of these.

Today, I honor the special relationship between our librarians and our English department.

To be fair, our librarians create special relationships throughout our school.  Throughout National Poetry Month, one of our librarians, Amy Rusk, sends out an e-mail each day that includes a timely poem.  Spontaneously, teachers and staff members from all disciplines and positions in the school send her poems in return, or appreciative responses to her choices.  Christie Friske-Daniels, our other librarian, teaches the library practice students important skills in managing the collection, regulating entry to the library, providing customer service, and problem-solving as well as a host of other skills, most of which transfer to the academic work they will do across the curriculum (not to mention boosting their resumes for after-school jobs). She gets to know these students and nurtures them.  

We are lucky to have two full-time librarians, even though our school is over 3000 students, and they have built our very special library into a vital organ of the school, and have rendered themselves indispensable.

However, I like to think that the English department has a very special relationship with our library. Here is an example: Last year, when Kore Press brought The Big Read to Tucson, Amy helped weave together collaborations with Kore representatives, Stories that Soar, and other local groups to create a showcase of student work and performances inspired by Emily Dickinson.  Most of the student work from Tucson High was completed in English classrooms during lessons that we developed and co-taught with Amy and submitted for the showcase.  Amy also worked with the student gallery specialist at our school to create a display honoring Emily Dickinson and even more student work inspired by her.  She partners with English teacher Kurt Garbe to head up the Poetry Out Loud effort at our school, resulting in two state champions out of the last six years. If it hadn’t been for our librarian, those community connections never would have synthesized within our school. Those showcases and displays inspired my students to read and write more poetry.  

Our librarians attend our English department PLC meetings and participate in our PLC.  Christie, an ex English teacher herself, has spent time creating proposals for vertical curriculum maps for research skills, helping our department to envision how the library could help us provide students instruction on the inquiry process and the evaluation and ethical use of sources.  She has worked with my classes (and others) multiple times teaching lessons that we developed together to meet students where they are and move them forward in their use of library resources to expand their understanding of research topics.  She even volunteers to score the worksheets they complete sometimes as they learn basic search strategies and library skills.  Christie also helps me create book lists based on units and research projects my students are working on, and prepare carts thoroughly loaded with the exact right resources for what I am teaching.

Our two librarians help to create a culture of voracious readers at our school. They generously stock the fiction, manga and comics sections and create policies that allow those resources to be widely utilized.  For manga, students can only take five at a time and can only have them for five days.  The students who read manga visit the library often, and use it well.  In addition, Amy heads up our school’s poetry club, who also creates the literary magazine.  Our librarians' curation of our collection, enthusiasm for good reads and welcoming smiles in the library make it a nurturing place for readers, and as an English teacher I greatly appreciate that.  

I could go on and on.  Each year, the library hosts the museum-style display developed by the Women and Writing senior class.  They make computers available to students as often as possible.  Amy teaches the Intellectual Freedom classes for parents and teachers. These classes qualify them to participate on committees to evaluate complaints against books which are on the shelves in libraries across the district.  In other words, she ensures that every book will get a fair consideration, and that the days of a few angry voices getting a book removed from the shelves will not happen.  This underscores most of our values as English teachers that students have as wide a range of reading made available to them as possible.

Who am I kidding?  The English department has no special claim to these remarkable human resources.  They host the science fair, provide support for research in the social studies courses as well as English, bring in community speakers such as Holocaust survivors and authors, arrange screenings of films such as a recent one we watched about the history and relevance of Wonder Woman as a superheroine, provide space and set-up for a plethora of meetings and trainings.... There is too much to list.   

The librarians at our school remind me what it means to have a vital library, one that becomes a beating heart of the school, a heart in counterpoint to the stadium, the cafeteria, the attendance office, the little theater.  Good librarians are irreplaceable, and yet so often they are replaced during budget cuts.  When they are replaced (or taken and not replaced), books disappear off the shelves, computers and furniture are not maintained, the collection and its use go into decline, a place of warmth and light on campus becomes a place of emptiness and sterility, poems go unwritten, and voices go unheard. Let’s do all we can to preserve funding for our school libraries, and to place them in the loving hands of highly qualified and passionate librarians.

 

Recently a friend of mine posted a link on Facebook to a political radio program in which the reporter was revealing the “danger” of Common Core.  Having implemented the Common Cores standards in my classroom this past year, I was intrigued by the comments below her video link.  Moms were asking how to monitor their children’s exposure to Common Core standards in the classroom.  I was curious, whatever do they mean?  My curriculum was explicitly aligned to Common Core standards, and I felt no moral qualms over my pedagogical decisions.  So I watched the link.  Here are the key quotes I listed from this radio program:

1. “Common Core is dumbing down America’s students.”
2. “Common Core encourages Communism.”
3. “Common Core’s New Math lessons are awful.”
4. “Elementary Literacy Curriculum is 70% Classics and 30% Manuals.” 
5. “Common Core is making our kids into slaves.”

Upon hearing this, I was definitely torn between 3 responses: throw up, laugh hysterically, or have a heart attack.  I replied to this post, providing my feedback as a seasoned teacher.  But what would I know?  The media must be the expert in education.

While visiting with friends at a dinner party a few weeks ago, the Sandy Hook school massacre was brought up.  People were passionately debating the issue of arming teachers in the classroom. They discussed how legislation  was introduced in about two dozen states, allowing school personnel to carry guns.  South Dakota has become the first state in the nation to ratify a law allowing school employees to carry guns on the job.  A few people asked my opinion about having a gun in my classroom.  I answered with, “As a first grade teacher who sits on the floor a lot, I would be concerned with accidentally shooting myself.”  That was debated with the idea of having the gun in a safe.  I answered back, "When would I have time to pull out a gun from a safe when someone is ready to shoot me?"  But what would I know?  The legislators must be the experts in education.

Arizona finally completed our week of statewide standardized assessments, otherwise known as the AIMS.  Teachers and administrators were nervous wrecks.  I helped administer the AIMS in several different classrooms this year, and there were 3 kinds of looks on the students’ faces: frustration, indifference, or excitement.  (Unfortunately I only saw one really excited student.)  Our school will receive its “grade” by the summer, and teachers will be contacted with a “grade,” based on the performance of their students on the AIMS.  The Department of Education and our school districts apply our students’ performance on standardized assessments to determine the teachers’ proficiency as educators.  This impacts our evaluations, which in turn affects our salaries.  Yet teachers have consistently communicated for over a decade the pitfalls of standardized assessments.  Teachers have provided administrators with alternative methods of assessment.  Have they been implemented??  Obviously the Department of Educations must be the expert in education.

What’s my point?  Is it to defend Common Core standards, propose school safety measures, or rebel against standardized assessment?  Not today.  I usually do.  But I am tired.  I’ve taught for 15 years in two different states.  I received my National Board Teaching Certification and attended countless professional development sessions, curriculum seminars, and teacher conferences.  I actively read the latest pedagogical articles and books to further myself as a lifelong teacher/ learner.  But am I viewed as an expert?  Unfortunately no.  The nation seems to want to appoint the media, legislators, and state administrators as the experts in education.  The next time you want to believe the “experts in education,” ask yourself, how often are they in the classroom? What makes them the experts?  Who is tuned in to the needs and wants of children?  Maybe it’s time to listen to the teachers.  We do have the answers.

You've seen the cartoons.  They're very popular on teachers' Facebook pages:

• A politician holding up a blank slate with the message, "This is the number of policy decisions teachers made when we gave them the chance."
• A teacher standing in front of a class of politicians, one of whom is asking, "How do I know a good teacher from a bad teacher?" 
• Two politicians at the water cooler, eyes downcast, with the caption,  "'I wish a teacher with no policy making experience would just come in and tell me how to govern,' said no elected official ever."

OK, not really. Each is the inverse of a real cartoon that actually does get passed around - like the one accompanying this post.  And each of the real cartoons expresses the frustration of teachers tasked to execute policies into which we had no say.  The cartoon above drips with irony suggesting that if teaching were so easy, even a politician could do it. 

But how good will teachers be at making policy?  Or, for that matter, even advising policy makers? 

Right now the message of the teacher leader movement, of which I consider myself a member, is that teachers deserve a voice, a place at the table. Heck, we deserve to set the table.  And the message is gaining ground.  Every teacher I know, upon hearing of the teacher leader movement, has been an instant and enthusiastic supporter, as has every parent. 

So I claim our time is coming.

The claim is not that we're near a tipping point in teacher-led education policy.  Nor is it that our efforts in claiming a voice should diminish.  Rather, the claim is that we should start preparing for the next step by paying attention to Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley.

In Chapter 2 of their book The Global Fourth Way: The Quest for Education Excellence, they review how organizational experts like Charles Handy and Peter Senge use the Sigmoid curve as a model of the growth and collapse of a product.  Initially, there is slow and unsteady growth, but as the product catches on, acceptance increases at a rapid pace before leveling off and finally collapsing. 

The key to avoiding the collapse is that, "It is before, not after an organization has improved its existing product as much as it has been able, that it needs to be inventing new ones."

What's true for products may be true for teacher leadership.  Our voices are growing and we are forming networks and exploiting social media to great effect.  Our means of advocating for teacher led policy continue to improve, but is not at its peak. 

Yet, now is the time to invent new ideas - about the policies we long to help craft.  Because if teacher leaders, local and national, don't have concrete and actionable policy ideas in hand and ready to promote, our movement will fall off the cliff.

Think of hot button issues in education: Standardized testing, teacher evaluation, Common Core, compensation, charter schools, and so forth.   It won't do to say we just want to do what's right for kids, or want policies that support and don't punish struggling teachers.  We will have to name them to claim them.

And we have to be ready to argue among ourselves, compromise, and make decisions when all options are bad.  And we have to be ready to do it all in public. 

Some teachers are already there, informing policy makers and serving on policy making boards.  I'm going find out what those pathfinders have to say.

 

 

 

It’s no secret that we are and have been experiencing teacher shortages for some time in education.  Something that is new and that we might not be prepared for is the loss of our district administrators and principals.  Each person that leaves the field of education leaves for their own reasons, but nonetheless they leave a gap.  We grow accustomed to building relationships and seeking guidance from those that “lead” us.  It is becoming too frequent that we are left without the human resource of leadership.  The feeling of frustration and possibly abandonment that is felt by teachers is creating uncertainty in our profession.  Teachers constantly have to figure out new systems for communication and new norms for interactions each time that there is turnover at their school site or district. 

It is possible for this frustration to come to an end.  Teachers hold the key to changing the structures that have been in place in education for far too long.  The time has come for we as teachers to stop tiptoeing each time someone new is put in place to lead us.  Why can we not lead ourselves?  We successfully lead classrooms each day; we lead meetings, professional developments and community events.  We are already skilled leaders.  We often do not recognize these skills in ourselves because we are waiting for someone else to recognize them in us and to grant us the title of Teacher Leader.  I challenge this idea, we are teacher leaders.  As a teacher, each time that we step out of your classroom to support a colleague, mentor a new teacher, create a piece of work or possibly design a PD event, we have stepped into the role of Teacher Leader.

Too often the traditional or well-defined role of teacher leadership will take teachers down a cookie cutter path.  This might include department chair, instructional coach, assistant principal etc… All roles that have been established having clear expectation, criteria and that have been used by many.   I think of this as ‘you can lead as long as you are following’.  For many years this has been the only path for teachers to take that might have been interested in becoming leaders.  I think that the time has come to explore the idea of informal teacher leader roles; they have served as the backbone of every school, yet often go unrecognized or supported.

Informal teacher leaders aren’t selected; they emerge on their own.  These teachers are able to identify needs, seek partners to support needs and create pathways for both teacher and student success.  This happens organically and usually includes a call to action that mobilizes a larger group to focus on a challenge or need.  Colleagues respect these teacher leaders, have the skills to communicate well and have the disposition to make things happen.  Often these informal teacher leadership roles are what keep many teachers in the profession.  These teachers are the backbone of every school.

Maybe the next time we are in search of leadership, we may only need to look in the classroom next door.

In a recent Gallup Poll teachers were found to have a relatively high sense of "well being" compared to other workers. In fact, teachers ranked second only to physicians on Gallup's "Life Evaluation Index" score. This score is a composite of self-reported ratings on a range of topics, including physical and emotional health, job enjoyment, workplace environment, etc. Over 170,000 people were surveyed including 9,500 teachers in grades k-12.

I'm not completely surprised by these findings. If I just use my own school as a case study, I see that my colleagues are happy, engaged, and laugh a lot. We enjoy each other's company and we love working with students. I did find myself wondering, however, about the issue of salary. Have teachers simply given up on getting paid more? Why are teachers not more frustrated and angry? How did our well being get so good?

And then I decided to poke around a little on the Gallup website and found an interesting excerpt:

Still, teachers report high levels of stress, second only to physicians, with 47% saying they experience it daily. This is unusual, given the fact that stress typically climbs with income, and draws attention to the potential emotional health burden that teaching carries for those who pursue it. It also suggests a bigger payoff for teachers who are able to incorporate regular exercise into their schedules as a means of stress reduction.

Hmmm. Unusual indeed. I wonder if anyone over at the Gallup offices ever stopped to consider that part of the stress may have something to do with NOT making enough money. We've all heard teachers say things along the lines of "I've been so stressed out, things at home are really hard, my son this, my mother that, my dog, my car.......but it all seems to magically go away when I get into the classroom with my kids. They really make everything so much better." 

I think we are in denial. I think that we think that if we complain too much about the lack of real commitment to the salary of the American teacher, that we will be accused of doing it for the wrong reasons. I think that Gallup's use of the word "unusual" when describing the stress level that teachers experience, considering their lowly salaries, should be changed to the word "wrong".

It is just plain wrong that teachers have to experience the stress that they do at work and NOT have the relief of a solid nest egg, a healthy paycheck, or a much-needed vacation (a real vacation, people, not the eight weeks of summer that many teachers spend planning or teaching summer school).

But who needs money when there's such a big payoff for those who are able to incorporate regular exercise into their schedules as a means of stress reduction?

Juan's mom shows up, make-up smeared, holding his younger brother. My Spanish isn't great, but I can understand the message. We're going to Mexico. And if they don't want us there, it's back to El Salvador. His dad works construction while his son constructs sentences and equations and whatever else it takes to build a dream.

Juan is a gifted mathematician. (Would it make it any less tragic if he couldn't do long division?) And today, he is running into his first inequality that he cannot solve.

As his class walks to P.E., I deliver the news and watch him crumple up like an old paper bag. He weeps. Big tears. Huge convulsions. And I wrap my arm around his hoodie, in an awkward camp counselor side hug. I'm weeping, too. It has been only eight months, but I care about this boy. 

It doesn't matter that he calls this place home after living here for two years. It doesn't matter that he has learned English and speaks it better than many native-born speakers. It doesn't matter that he is working harder than I ever worked in a land that was taken from his people by conquest. It doesn't matter that he is an amazing math student who is learning English at a breakneck pace, because his village was hit-up by drug violence fueled by a deeply American demand for narcotics.

He is, in the public's eye, an "illegal." And this is why I cannot treat immigration in a theoretical way. This is why I cannot treat it as if it is merely a political issue. This is why I refuse to stay quiet about this issue, as tabboo as it may be in our state. 

 I am convinced we have lost touch of the deeply human need for survival that drives a family to uproot their lives in a search for esperanza.

And this is why I will never be neutral on the issue of immigration. Because, ultimately, I believe in hope. I believe in my students. I believe that they are the future of our nation. We lost someone special when we deported Juan.