The Myth of the Unconnected Educator (part 2)

Mrs. M was my mentor teacher. I recall exactly three interactions with her:

1. She handed me the stack of forms from the previous year, giving me her templates for everything for my classroom and explaining how we were going to use Take Home Folders.
2. The faculty bathroom door, when locked and *then* closed, unlocks as a safety mechanism. Who knew? Not me.
3. She had been missing a filing cabinet that contained all her social studies resources. Turns out, the janitor put it in my room.

She went on leave by Week 2, and by Week 4 had taken early retirement. (Yes, I had an official mentor teacher for a whopping two whole weeks. No, I did not use Take Home Folders with 6th graders.)

I tried to go to her with questions during our brief time together, but she did not have time for me, ever. If she had answers or suggestions, they were not usable for me and were either sarcastic or mean. Her attitude sucked.

And I don’t blame her.

Well, ok, you can be upset and not take it out on everyone for days on end, but she was part of a team that disbanded, and she was lost, and her attitude I understand. Her team leader and friend retired in May, and now she had to work with a team she did not choose *and* mentor a young, pregnant, first-year teacher that she did not even want to teach alongside, let alone guide.

She had become unconnected. And she promptly went on leave and then left for good, and I never saw or heard from her again.

(Her replacement teacher, Mrs. K, is one of my favorite teachers -and people – ever.)

~~~~

Mrs. H was a middle school guidance counselor for 31 years.

Thirty.

One.

Years.

If you took all that middle school drama and lined it up end to end, it would circle the globe eight times.

When a new principal came in, she was moved to a content area. About this time, we started having quarterly (monthly?) district-wide meetings. We’d go around the room and talk about whatever it was we were supposed to be talking about.

And when we got to Mrs. H, this was her honest-to-God answer: “I haven’t the faintest clue what we’re talking about or what we’re supposed to be doing. I’ve been in this school for 31 years, and I retire in May. I don’t know what that number is you’re talking about, and at this point, I don’t plan to learn it. I’ve been thinking about what I’m going to do with that bulletin board for Christmas this whole time.” And she pointed to a bulletin board that students had written I think their future plans on, I’m not really sure what it was, but I do know that her students probably felt appreciated by her, despite the content they may or may not have been learning.

What I appreciate about Mrs. H was her direct acknowledgement of low morale. While my mentor teacher just snipped and kept to herself, Mrs. H. was the team player who let you know, in no uncertain terms, that she was not going to be a team player. (Her assistant principal was in the room at the time. He just smiled. I’m sure he’d heard the same answer from her sometime before.)

She actually retired in December.

~~~~

There are unconnected educators. They are educators who refuse to make connections with other teachers. They don’t seek out new materials or activities, they don’t want to help colleagues, and they really don’t want you to help them. They don’t last long.

Unconnected educators are not educators who aren’t using social media. I have worked with dozens of super awesome teachers who will never have a Twitter account, and I’m ok with that, and they’re ok with that, and you should be too.

So you might be wondering how I plan on celebrating Connected Educator Month.

I am probably going to celebrate Connected Educator Month, but not the way everyone else is. I’m not going to have a Twitter chat about being in a Twitter chat, despite how meta that is.

I’m not going to tweet about being connected because Twitter.

I’m not going to do anything on Google Plus, because why?

You know what I’m going to do for Connected Educator Month? Here are my goals:

• Talk to my favorite educators face-to-face (or Skype) once a week.
• Talk to my favorite educators via phone every day. (I have a lot of favorite educators.)
• Take another educator to dinner this month.
• Send an educator a care package, because I do care.
• Have coffee with an educator.
• Actually plan EdcampNashville (This has been unofficially on my agenda for a while now. I hear stating goals publicly helps you achieve them. I just have to find my edcamp planning box…)

I connect with educators via email and Twitter and Facebook literally every day. It doesn’t seem right to use October just to point out that I use email and Twitter and Facebook literally every day. It should be deeper than that. For Connected Educator Month, I’m actually going to go out and connect with educators as if we live and work in the same areas, because we do!

How are you celebrating Connected Educator Month?

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Teach Me How To Doggie

On Thursday, we adopted Callie, a pitbull/boxer mix, from a friend who got her from the Nashville Humane Society on Saturday. She’s around one year old and acts like you’d expect an animal raised in a shelter to act: scared and as inconspicuous as possible.

If you came into our house this weekend, you might have seen her ears perk up from the corner she was hiding in. While not confined by physical barriers, she at first would not explore the house. We had to lead her from room to room if we wanted her to follow us, including to her food and water, which were in the dining room.

She does not bark, she does not play, she does not lick, she rarely wags her tail, she doesn’t beg for food. She doesn’t chew. She doesn’t want on the bed. She rarely wants on the couch.

Callie does not know how to dog.

She got spooked on one of her first walks, so we had to carry her out the front door until Saturday night. She consistently relieves herself outside, so there’s the plus side. When she’s out on a walk, she does not inspect anything but interesting smells. She cowers from sounds and runs from surprises. She is not inquisitive and likes her route: down to the stop sign, back up to the house.

Yesterday, she started speed-walking (trotting?) while we were outside. She was so excited to “run” that she would walk all the way down to the end of our road, and then turn and look at me, and then start her run, and we’d run all the way back to the house.

Yesterday, she chewed on a bone for a few minute.

Yesterday, she shared some pizza with me.

Yesterday, she licked my foot once.

Yesterday, she wagged her tail twice when I called her name.

Tonight, Eddie gave her a bath, and everything changed.

She wagged her entire butt. She started to play with Vinci, our Chihuahua/Yorkie mix (yes, Vinci is the alpha female and it’s HILARIOUS to watch). She ran – really ran – outside, dragging me along behind her (much to Eddie’s delight). She and Vinci took turns eating my garlic bread. She really licked my face when I started scratching her back. She climbed up onto the bed and watched Band of Brothers with us (I swear she watches TV). She ate two bowls of food in an hour.
I think we may be on our way to teaching Callie how to dog.

The Myth of the Unconnected Educator

Image license belongs to Flickr user MonsieurLui.

Let’s talk about connectivity for a moment: what it is, what it isn’t, and how not having a Twitter account doesn’t make you a bad person.

The first instance of “unconnected educator” that I can find is from Tom Whitby’s blog in 2013, which describes the unconnected educator thusly:

“The unconnected educator is more in line with the 20^th century model of teacher. Access to the Internet is limited for whatever reason. Relevance in the 21^st century is not a concern. Whatever they need to know, someone will tell them. If they email anyone, they will follow it up with a phone call to make sure it was received.”

This sounds like the educator doesn’t connect on social media but uses word-of-mouth, email, and phone conversations to connect, yet is still labeled as “unconnected.”

I recognize that I am not the first to take a semantic issue. Sherri Spelic opined,

“As I read more and more posts concerning how to get more educators connected, the best way to initiate the uninitiated and essentially how to get more folks to jump on said bandwagon, I’m getting a little frustrated. I think it’s the labeling we are using to frame the dialogue: connected vs. unconnected or semi-connected, initiated vs. uninitiated.  After reading these terms I have essentially asked myself: What’s the price of admission?  At what level of output do I get to call myself “connected”?  How many tweets until I become “a really useful educator”?  It seems to me that the purpose embedded in so many labels serves to determine exactly this.  If I make enough of my learning public through particular online forums (of which there are many, many), then I get to officially board the bandwagon and become its latest new ambassador.”

Like Sherri, I agree that “connected” versus “unconnected” carries negative connotations and that being connected requires a certain output or number of followers.

But these are not my only issues. The assumptions made about “unconnected” educators are damning. These educators, Whitby states, do not care about relevance or growth. If you use social media, you are therefore relevant and are growing. You might be wondering, “Geez, Samantha, that blog post was, like, two years ago. Let it go maybe?”

I counter with these tweets from today:

In two years, this notion is still alive and well: if an educator does not use social media, he or she is digitally illiterate and irrelevant.

I wholeheartedly disagree, and here’s my analogy:

Let’s say I want to be connected to the Internet. How many ways can I connect to the Internet? My desktop at work is hard-wired into a network, but it also has wireless capabilities. My tablet connects automatically to the WiFi at work… and the nearest Starbucks. If our Internet is down at work (and Starbucks), I can use my phone’s 4G connection. If I choose to go home, my devices (Chomebook, work tablet, phone, TV, BluRay player, Chromecast, Wii, Xbox 360, broken iPad) connect wirelessly. If I want to connect to the Internet, I can do so in a lot of ways.

If someone were to then tell me that I could only connect to the Internet through my phone, and I wasn’t really connected if I didn’t use my phone, I would smile at that person and bless his heart. If that person then went on to tell me that because I didn’t use my phone to connect to the Internet, I was irrelevant and stagnant, I would probably stop talking to that person because my blood pressure doesn’t need people like that around.

Educators connected way before social media, and they will continue to connect using other venues in the future. I love networking at conferences, and I am still connected to educators that I met years ago at real-life events, no Twitter required. Lunch breaks and planning periods are some of the best times for colleagues to connect face-to-face and solve current, pressing issues. Social media is certainly not a requirement for effective teaching or collaboration.

Let’s stop using the term “unconnected educators” when we really mean “teachers who choose to connect in ways different than what I chose,” and let’s stop assigning terms to them such as “uninitiated”, “illiterate”, “irrelevant”, and “incompetent.”

For the second part of this two part rant, I’m going to describe some “unconnected educators” and then some actual unconnected educators so that we can clearly identify edu-hermits and be kinder to our colleagues who are, in fact, trying their hardest and doing their best.

Education as a Profession

For some background, this post is a response to a post from my beloved friend Art La Flamme, who posits that because teaching does not have one standard code of ethics and educators do not understand the whole field of education, it is not a profession. The references below to the military, law, and medicine relate to Art’s original statements.

A profession is a paid occupation, especially one that involves prolonged training and a formal qualification. That’s teaching. Teaching is a profession.

A military code of ethics is a little difficult to compare to education when you consider that of all the military branches, of all the fields, of all the differences, there is only one employer. So the US military has a code. Would you say that mercenaries also follow the US military code of ethics?

Most states acknowledge that teachers are local employees, and when you throw year-to-year contracts into it, there are many locals that do not treat educators as employees but contract laborers. So who makes the code of ethics? The employer? The state? A union? An association? The parents? While you cite a variety of codes and state that “there is no consistency, there is no commonality,” that’s incorrect. Teachers’ codes of ethics are very similar, and I think it’s unfair to say that teaching in one area is a totally different ballgame from another. Twitter PLNs wouldn’t exist if that were true. Educators connect internationally because, internationally, education is the same.

Once you get past having a code, enforcing the code is the next step. Lawyers can be disbarred. Doctors can have their licenses revoked. The military has dishonorable discharge. Teaching has code enforcement; while apparently we have no standard code, states have no problem revoking licenses for violations of their code of ethics. Teachers do not stand with those who cheat on tests, assault and molest kids, or otherwise violate ethical expectations.

The part-and-whole argument is difficult for me to grasp because that is something I can do, and I do it all the time. But before my day job required it, when I was becoming a teacher, I shared classes with elementary educators, high school educators, special educators, technology specialists, even a nurse. Our professors counseled us the way you counseled new recruits. When I taught middle schoolers, I could still tell you what tests the high school students took, what tests the elementary students took, what norm-referenced tests the special ed. department used, and what signatures IEPs and 504s require and who on the team needed to be at the meeting. I could tell a 6th grader who wanted to be a soldier that he’d better pay attention because the ASVAB was only five years away, and there’s not a lot of time to catch up, so you’d better pay attention.

Hell, I knew the field trip paperwork, bookkeeper, and transportation supervisor so well, for two years I filled out virtually every field trip request form for my entire middle school because I could do it the fastest. Now that I’ve taken the steps to become an administrator, I can explain central office workings as well. I can bore you with education law, professional liability insurance, and the difference between fiscally dependent and independent districts.

Now, you could argue that the profession needs more standardization, but so did medicine and law at one point. The difference between other professions and education is that in other professions, the expert is an expert in something that isn’t your child (law, military, banking) or obviously has access to tools that you don’t have (medicine). To think that someone is more of an expert in the topic of Your Child is insulting, and most people don’t realize the tools that educators have access to. But teachers are experts in learning and child development and child psychology. That’s the profession. We are experts in children, generic.

You talk about the point when it stops being a job and starts being a profession. Sometime around the time when a kid throws up on you, or you’re cleaning poop out of a keyboard, or you’re admonishing a thirteen-year-old girl about poor decision-making and “Do you plan to end up pregnant before you hit high school? Because that’s the path you’re on,” or you’re making a giant Get Well card for the student having major leg surgery so he can continue walking, or you’re planning a party because all of your students can read now!!! or you’re sitting in your classroom on your duty-free lunch crying with The Bad Kid about his alcoholic father, or you’re standing in a hallway for an hour keeping your students calm by explaining that in a real tornado situation, you’d be on the ground too and it must be those little kids not doing the drill right, knowing full well that your building is in the path of a confirmed tornado, or you’re explaining to the top student why he can’t say to his biracial friend, “You’re not very black,” or you’re attending a student’s funeral – at some point, education isn’t Just a Job. I’m told education has a really terrible retention rate; I assume it’s because the people who want an easy job hit that transition moment and run like hell. And I’m glad they do; the last thing I want my child experiencing is a hard year with a clock-puncher.

So you can equate your child’s teacher to a part-time mechanic at Jiffy Lube or a knowledgeable, ethical professional who would literally die for your child if necessary. I know which I prefer.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

Over the last few years, chambers of commerce have taken a more active role in public education. Some of their efforts have been applauded, while others seem to indicate an organization in search of a mission. It begs the question: what is a chamber of commerce?

 

The American Chamber of Commerce Executives defined a chamber of commerce as “an organization of businesses seeking to further their collective interests, while advancing their community, region, state or nation.”

 

That seems simple enough. Then they added, “While most chambers work closely with government, they are not part of government, although many consider the process of appropriately influencing elected/appointed officials to be one of their most important functions.”

 

So, in essence, they are a lobbying organization that functions to further their collective interests, presumably business interests. That sounds a lot like our organization, Professional Educators of Tennessee, with the one exception: we only advocate on behalf of public education. 

 

In 2007, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce released the report: Leaders and Laggards: A State-by-State Report Card on Education Effectiveness. In this report Tennessee received an “F” for “Academic Achievement of Low Income and Minority Students,” “Truth in Advertising about Student Proficiency,” and “Postsecondary and Workforce Readiness.”

 

Policymakers in Tennessee have called for specific education reforms ever since. We have touted this now seven year old report for the reason to enact reforms of every nature in our public education system, yet nobody has ever once questioned why we are following this specific report to change our state education system.  

 

Looking the categories that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce considered, they are all areas our state should analyze regularly: academic achievement, academic achievement of low-income and minority students, return on investment, truth in advertising about student proficiency, rigor of standards, postsecondary and workforce readiness, 21st century teaching force, flexibility in management and policy, and data quality. However, was this report the right measuring tool for Tennessee? By the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s own admission, they did not conduct new research. Instead they reported that they “organized and analyzed existing evidence to inform and promote reform efforts across the nation.” 

 

Therein lies the rub. The entire paper was a marketing piece by a business interest group to promote specific educational reforms. Certainly many changes in Tennessee were and are still needed. However, policymakers must ask themselves if the changes we have made were right for our children and if reforms were enacted for the right reasons.

 

Another consideration is that some researchers may purposely distort the statistics. As Mark Twain wrote, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” One must wonder which of these the US Chamber of Commerce relied on. Our data quality also was awarded a “B” in the 2007 report. It is not clear how we can score so high on data quality, and yet score an F in “Truth in Advertising” regarding student proficiency. If the data is there, doesn’t that tell the story? 

 

Why is the “Truth in Advertising” score discussed more often than the “Academic Achievement of Low-Income and Minority Students” score? Certainly the academic achievement of our most marginalized children has a higher significance than some formula utilized to determine the accuracy of our definition of “proficient.” And in calling our cut scores into question, were they calling state leaders liars? If so, which ones? Why didn’t they specifically name responsible parties at that time?

 

Additionally, grading on postsecondary and workforce readiness was tied to on-time high school graduation and college entrance rates. This area had already been addressed in the Tennessee Diploma Project in 2009, prior to the Federal Race to the Top grant being awarded to Tennessee. People going into college today may well be less prepared than those of an earlier generation, or acceptance rates may be higher in other states. Let’s also temper these scores with the fact that not every graduate desires to go to college, and not every job requires a college degree.

 

We must also consider the fact that policy changes in one area most certainly can impact or necessitate changes in the other areas. For example, our teaching force scored a “B.” In our frenzied effort to enact reforms, many educators are retiring or leaving the profession because of some specific reforms directed at them, namely tenure reform, licensure, teacher salary changes and teacher evaluations. Will that diminish the quality of our 21st century teaching force? 

 

As a Chamber of Commerce member, our organization would suggest the U.S. Chamber advocate for a reduced role by the federal government in public education. Directing education policy from Washington can create unintentional consequences, not to mention that states and local districts can be overwhelmed with compliance requirements created by federal programs, rules, and regulations. This takes away time and resources from our local schools and educators.

 

Stakeholders and policymakers should look at the data in their state or district for themselves. If the U.S. Chamber of Commerce really wants to make an impact for public education, we recommend that they include actual educators and stakeholders in that discussion. We would also advise a different approach to assigning grades to states based on an effort to inform and promote reform efforts. And policymakers should certainly consider the value and impetus behind such efforts in any single research study.  

    

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JC Bowman is the Executive Director and Samantha Bates is the Director of Member Services of Professional Educators of Tennessee, a non-partisan teacher association headquartered in Brentwood, Tennessee.

 

Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author and the association are properly cited.

 

Copyright © 2014 Professional Educators of TN, All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:

Professional Educators of TN, 1604 Westgate Circle Suite 204, Brentwood, TN 37027

How to Intelligently Engage in Debate About Serious, Controversial Topics With Strangers Using Social Media

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Being All That You Can Be

There are a plethora of teacher resignation letters on the Internet; I refuse to link to any of them, but they follow the same format: “I love teaching, I love my students, but I don’t like X, so I’m out.”

When I read them, I feel heartbroken that a dedicated educator allowed himself or herself to be pushed out of the classroom. One large problem is that teaching can be isolating; in my favorite dedication letter (or anti-resignation letter), Principal John Wick encourages teachers to support each other. Personally, last year I was ready to walk away from education. Thank God I had a supportive group of educators to give me perspective.

But in three weeks, I will no longer be a classroom teacher. I get my Masters in administration tomorrow, and yet I will be school-less. So why am I critical of quitters? Because leaving the classroom isn’t always quitting.

In any army worth its salt, you have multiple roles fighting on the same side. You not only have the soldiers, but you also have different ranks of leaders, logisticians, strategists, medics – there are different jobs even though the cause is the same. If everyone has the same role, you’re probably in a militia and not an army, and the odds are against you, my friend.

In education, we must have teachers, but not everyone can be a classroom teacher forever. Someone has to be the administrator, the superintendent, the commissioner, the director of special education, the RTI coordinator – we can go further into the edu-periphery if we get into teacher representation, lobbyists, legislators, education policy pundits, etc. One glaring issue is that many talented teachers refuse to leave the classroom, which leaves those with no teaching experience to fill the gaps of leaders, logisticians, and strategists – we call them Reformers.

When this occurs, despite the fact that the objective is the same, we vilify those who are not like us. The teacher says the reformer doesn’t know what teaching is really like. The reformer says the teachers are ineffective and don’t want to be held accountable. The teachers say the legislators don’t know what their laws look like in application. We’re losing the war against ignorance because we’re too busy to address legitimate issues that studies consistently prove are linked to achievement, like poverty and parent involvement; instead, we’re attacking each other.

I’m leaving the classroom to go fill a role that teachers want filled by teachers. I’m leaving to inspire maybe a little less friendly fire.

I hear so often, “I wish policy makers knew what it was like.” If you press many teachers to go take on that role, you’ll hear, “But I love the children; I just can’t leave the classroom.” Then what kind of administrator do you want? What kind of lobbyists should represent you? Someone who hates kids? Someone who sees these roles as better paying with longer lunches? Someone who equates education with a product that can be quality-controlled using value-added formulas? Or someone like you?

At every level I want to hear, “I _____ because I love children.”

-I supervise bus drivers because I love children and want them to get to school safely.

-I develop software because I love children and want them learning how to use technology.

-I supervise curriculum and instruction because I love children and want them to learn.

-I manage the district’s finances because I love children and want us to be able to afford supplies to teach them.

 

I’m leaving the classroom because I love children, and I want the teachers who work with them to be supported. I know what my talents are, and I see a need that I’ll fill well. I know how I want to support teachers, and I have an organization that is willing to let me try some new things.

I challenge you to examine your current role in education and determine if you’re filling the roles you could be. Could you be mentoring new teachers? Could you be sharing your resources better? Could you incorporate research on human development to design better schools or classroom equipment? Could you organize an edcamp? Are you in a leadership position and need to get back into the classroom or strengthen ties to classroom teachers?

If you plan to teach for forty years, I wish you the very best and I’m sure you’ll be amazing. But if any point you find another role you could fill, instead of hoping someone else would fill it, like I did for four years, I hope you take that opportunity yourself.