A Place at the Table

“So, I guess you’re enjoying summer vacation! It must be nice to have three months off every summer, huh?” they say--They being just about everyone I know who is not a teacher.

“Well, I’m looking forward to it, but I’m not quite through yet. I'll finish up July 2nd,” I reply.

“Oh, I didn’t know you taught summer school,” they respond.

“ I don’t, but I’m an eleven month employee and so I put in another two weeks at the end of the year and then before other teachers return in August. So actually, I have about five weeks off, not three months,” I explain.

“But if you don’t have any kids, then what do you do?” they ask, genuinely perplexed.

Most people cannot fathom that teaching involves anything other than classroom presentation hours and homework grading. Like an iceberg, much of what we do is not visible. Highly effective teaching and efficient school operation take a lot of time -- time invested in responsibilities and tasks other than student contact hours. As I work with new teachers, it is always what surfaces as the unanticipated demand of teaching. As I work with teacher leaders, time rather than money is consistently identified as a barrier. In the discussion of teacher evaluation, principals identify time as a major barrier to more meaningful assessment processes. American teacher have more student contact time and less time for other responsibilities than our peers in other equally developed nations.

Asking, “But if you don’t have any kids, then what do you do?” is a sort of like asking "How are you doing today?" No one really wants you to tell them, but I'll answer that question. You don't have to read this if you don't want to, so here’s what I’ve done in the last seven days:

• Three ovens, two refrigerators and four microwaves have been cleaned.
• Three full sets of kitchen cabinets are re-organized wiped down and straightened.
• The 36-page inventory has been completed and updated.
• The grade book is verified.
• The receipt books are balanced.
• 1,000 student competency records for all 7th and 8th graders enrolled in a CTE class last year are compiled.
• Fabric supplies for next year’s sixth grade projects have been purchased and prepared.
• Minor equipment repairs have been done and major repairs have been set up.
• Textbooks have been inventoried and scanned.
• The closets have been cleaned up.
• My office desk is close to being cleared.

Notice that those are all facilities and reporting tasks. I’ve also completed our school mentoring reports and summary, led the revision of the district Family and Consumer
Science Strategic Plan, coached a novice FACS teacher, kept up with a National Board candidate in another state, and reviewed grant applications for the Virginia Education Association. These have not been on the clock because they are tasks for which I am paid a stipend, given professional development or recertification credit, or I just volunteered to do.

Sometime in the next month I have some curriculum projects that need work and presentations for summer conferences that need to be developed. The Technology Resource Teacher (who is also an 11-month) and I had hoped to start work on a web-delivered asynchronous staff development idea, but it looks like we’ll do that on the web asynchronously ourselves, since we ran out of time.

Tomorrow I go home, and while I won’t be through with school or teaching, I will be declaring professional Independence Day! I’ll drag along a bag full of articles and journals that have been stacking up on my desk, but I'll read them on the porch. I’ll do some planning during lunch, but I won’t have to eat, go to the bathroom and return two phone calls inside a 20-minute time frame. I’ll communicate with colleagues, but I’ll probably be doing it on-line in the wee hours of the morning while wearing my PJs.

It’s summer time! I am fortunate that I work where my responsibilities beyond my face-to-face time with students are acknowledged and compensated. That’s one reason why I’m willing to invest even more hours of my own. But for the next five weeks I'm not going to work every day. Instead I'm going to lunch, to the movies, to museums, to shopping, to the theater, to the West Coast to see my kids. I'm going to control my own schedule. I'm going to take time to sleep, read, dig, clean, visit, travel, study, cook, plan, research, sew, write, paint and just sit.

Teaching requires intense intellectual work but makes physical demands that often compare to manual labor -- all the while performed on a schedule that resembles a high production industrial format. Although it feels like a marathon run from August to July, I love what I do and the challenge of keeping it all going at once.

But tomorrow? Well, tomorrow is my early Independence Day.

I'll be on the porch.

Posted by Susan Graham at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Anthony Cody asked, Do Teachers Lack Power and Self-Worth?
after his mom tipped him to a New York Times interview with Suze Orman that said

She has been reluctant to work on school curricula on personal finance, because she says students can’t learn empowerment from people who aren’t empowered, and teachers, she says, are too underpaid ever to have any real self-worth.

Hummm….So, if self-worth is proportional to what we are paid, it would follow that rock stars and professional athletes would have no need of Prozac and those who do volunteer work would be candidates for the psychiatrist’s couch? Now Suze makes the big bucks, so I’m sure she’s confident that her assumption that teachers have not self-worth is probably correct. But I wonder if that is a completely objective and data-driven conclusion that she can verify with statistical analysis or if it's just a reflection of a personal value system based human worth on net worth. But whether teachers are so unimpowered that they are incapable of empowering our students is a troubling question, . Because teachers don’t empower the next generation and the fully empowered like Suze walk away, then the future looks pretty grim. Since I’m not feeling real confident about the opinions of economists these days, I thought I’d ask around a little.

School was out on Wednesday, so I’ve had time to attend a communications committee, a mentoring committee, a grant committee, and a strategic planning committee. I’m pretty sure everything you ever needed to know about education is in the minutes of one of those meetings. Since that’s taken care of, I decided to use breaks and working lunches, to do a little informal field research on the topic. When I mentioned the article and asked Anthony’s question I got some pretty interesting responses.

Teacher One has been a well-liked and effective elementary music teacher for sixteen years. She makes a good income in an affluent suburban setting, but revenue is down and her longevity steps are frozen and and there was no cost of living increase this year. With a big sigh she said, “Well, I’m just glad I’m still employed. I’m staying right where I am and keeping my head down. I just hope they leave me alone and let me work with my kids.”

Teachers who are employed have a job with some nice benefits and pretty good job security. Most of them realize that, really care about their work, and do a good job. While they work hard, they often willing to live with limited career potential in exchange for stable career expectations. This teacher accepts the role of a somewhat passive contract worker who “holds" the job that the school system “gives” her. All the power is in the hands of others, but so is the responsibility. It represents a burden she’d prefer not to take on. Some would say this teacher lacks ambition. Some would say she needs and deserves an advocate to intervene for her. Others would say she has simply found her comfort zone.

Teacher Two came in hauling a bulging bag of printouts and notebooks. “My administrator made me leader for the Strategic Plan team for my grade level. He’s given me the school wide goals, the framework Central Office wants us to use, access to the disaggregated test scores for the last two years, and some of the research he wants us to include. I’ve got to talk some of the teachers into working on this with me and get started on it this month before we leave on vacation because he wants it ready for review by mid-August. It’s a lot of work, but hey, they’re giving me a stipend for doing it and it will look good on my resume.” He’s thirty-something and a ten year middle school veteran who recently finished his masters. He coaches two sports, teaches summer school and is looking into administrative certification.

This teacher has been recognized for his professional skills and leadership potential, and he’ll invest himself in involving his colleagues, managing the process and submitting the plan. He realizes that there is no guarantee that it will be accepted or implemented unless it receives approval at several levels. But, unlike a project manager in a corporate setting, his opportunity to advocate for its approval once submitted will probably be minimal. In the business world, some one who develops a project, defends it, and negotiates for its implementation is likely to be considered “a potential leader who is committed” in the business world. Teachers who do so are often labeled as “loose cannon who is argumentative.” To a great extent, being a team player means being compliant.

He probably doesn’t worry about being employed, but he has been “made lead” and “given a stipend.” He is enabled to develop skills and earn more income, but limited to delegated tasks and responsibilities. A limited amount of control has been ceded to him, but only at the discretion and under the close management of others. For him control, may be accessible within only the confines of an agenda and circumstances developed and defined by others. This is why some of the best and brightest burn out and leave the profession. This is also why some ambitious young teachers who love the classroom shift to school administration. This is why some stay put but become workaholics or cynics.

Teacher Three is twenty-six years and has been teaching for two years. She spent her first year as part of a sixth grade four teacher team. During her second year, she moved to seventh grade. Her partner is old enough to be her grandmother and has over twenty-five years of experience. We were in a discussion group related to block or flexible scheduling for middle school. She shared, “My new teaching partner and I wanted to try something new about when and how we met with classes. We worked up this plan to where we’d alternate which half of our kids we saw each day. She’d see half for a four hour block of Science and Math two days a week and I’d have the other half that for Language Arts and Civics and then we’d switch. Depending on what we were doing, we’d keep the same kids two days in a row or alternate days. On Fridays, we wanted to each see all of them for a one hour block in each content area. Our principal sort of raised his eyebrows, but we told him we really though it would let us integrate content better, give us more flexibility for projects and presentations, and cut down on the management issues that go with all those class changes. He said we could try, we’d have to survey the parents to see if they’d buy into something different before he’d agree and that we’d have to look at how benchmark test grades looked at the end of each quarter.”

This teacher is employed and given her choice of teaching assignment. She has been enabled by a principal allowed her and her partner to implement and test a new idea and provided resources. She is empowered to control how she teaches and to take on real leadership within her building and among her colleagues. Control is shared, but with checks and balances that reduce risk. It is based on respect, trust and good communication between the administrator and the teachers. It requires shared acceptance of risk and accountability. This is why some schools see empowering teachers as a dangerous gamble that may be a distraction in achieving an established vision and mission. This is how some schools attempt to recruit young teachers and retain experienced teachers. This is how some schools reinvent themselves.

Anthony asked, "Do Teachers Lack Power and Self-Worth? Are They empowered?" A reader responded

Some are and some ain't. Like people in any profession. Perhaps it's just that the question is not nuanced enough; for example, it doesn't acknowledge that empowerment is a spectrum or that the definition is entirely subjective.

Here’s my take on this. The variable is not whether teachers have power. Everyone has power. It may be kinetic or potential. It may be focused or diffused. Power can be negative or positive. Empowerment is not about whether or not one has power.The real issue is how power is harnessed, managed, and utilized.

When teachers talk about empowerment, I don’t think they’re interested in taking over the power grid of education. I believe what most teachers really want is some control over their options. They’d like to be consulted about whether they are most comfortable with accepting, conceding or sharing responsibility and control. They’d just like to have some control about where, when, with whom and how the plug their personal and professional energy into the power grid.

Teachers ought to remember that they are some of the most powerful people in the world. We are powerless only if we choose to concede control to avoid the risk of exercising our options as individuals. do have options if we choose to exercise them.

Policymakers ought to realize that hoarded power serves little purpose. Resisting power diminishes production. Misused power becomes a destructive force. Resisting power diminishes production. Consolidated power can be transformative.

Posted by Susan Graham at 5:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

For many of us who work on a traditional school schedule, this is it—the last week of school. I regret that we don’t end it with all the same little traditions that used to mark the end of the year. In the past we would have Field Day and Awards Assembly. On the last day of school, classes would have picnics in the courtyards, and the teachers would all gather on the bus ramp to wave goodbye for the summer as the intercom system blasted, “Na na na na, Na na na na, Hey, hey goodbye.”

Kids may love summer vacation, but the truth is, on that last day, it’s often the teachers who love it the most!

These days, instead of Closing Ceremonies, we have sort of a staggered retreat. We do all our state mandated testing on line, so for the last three weeks kids have been missing from one class or another as they have been pulled for testing. Instruction has been sort of catch as catch can. We “incentivize” our students by offering them exemption from exams if they score Proficient, and so most of them will be through with school two days early. This new regimen is a loss of some sense of school community as well as some silliness. It's part of the trade off that came with the "positives of verification of student learning" that accompanied our current emphasis on test outcomes.

There are fewer end-of-the-year teacher gifts of coffee mugs or apple and pencil notepaper. But there are still a lot of hugs and a lot of former students who drop by—now that they have a driver’s license. They still ask the timeless question, “Remember me?”

That “Remember me?” question runs both ways, because on my last test of the year, I ask my students, “If you were to attend my retirement party some day, what would you tell me that you remember about this class?” Sometimes it’s content knowledge, sometimes a skill, and sometimes a relationship. It’s not so much that they remember me, but that they walk away from our time together with something that was meaningful enough to stick. I have a hunger to know that I made a little dent in them.

I think that desire to make a difference is what draws people to teaching and what keeps them going. Six years ago I mentored a career switcher with a background in medical technology, cardiographic imaging and software development. As a kid in the 50’s he had loved Watch Mr. Wizard . He wanted to the share the magic and mystery of science with middle school students just like Mr. Wizard used to do on TV. He truly loves teaching, and he has turned out to be a fantastic educator. Last week he shared this student note with me:

Dear Mr. *******
I have so much to thank you for. I’ve learned so much, ever since I walked through your door for the first time. We’ve shared many laughs, many that I will never forget. It was either your psychology or just me that always made me determined to be the best I could be in your class. You have taught me so much besides science. Preparing me for life out in the big world was one of the biggest gifts I have ever received. Thank you so much for everything.

Your student,
***********

A note written on a page ripped out of a spiral notebook may not seem like a big thing, so I wonder if this young man has any idea of its value. Recognition that you have touched the future by engaging the mind of the next generation is a priceless gift indeed.

It’s why we teach.

That, and, of course, summer vacation.

Posted by Susan Graham at 12:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I was reading the Sunday paper, trying to wind down before I geared up for the last full week of school when I noticed Meredith Raimondi’s editorial essay entitled I’ve Got That Cap and Gown. Now About That Job…

After four years at George Washington University, I expected that my life would magically come together. I was aware that we college graduates often struggle to figure out what to do, but now we're struggling just to find employment.

Note to Meredith: We told you from the time you were in kindergarten “Set you sights high, work hard, and you can be anything you want to be.” Our intentions were good. We wanted you to understand that ethnicity, gender, and socio-economic background did not limit your options as it had for some of us. Somehow we got carried away or were misunderstood and that message morphed into “ If you set your sights high and work hard, you get to be whatever you want to be.” We should have made this part a little more clear. We didn't mean to mislead you, but the truth is there is no magic in a diploma --you get a chance to try, not a promise to be.

I went to college with dreams of working on government policy, writing for a newspaper or serving on a bioethics committee. Who knew that the economy would go into crisis while I was in college? After sending what seems like my millionth résumé and cover letter, I am realizing that I might need to go back to school sooner than I expected.

Note to Meredith: Graduate school will not fix this. It will postpone your entry into the job market; give you none of the experience that most job postings mention; raise your starting salary expectations; and put you deeper into debt. If you do go back to school, consider specific job skill training in a technical field. That’s where the jobs are.

Another option is an unpaid internship, which is rather unrealistic for anyone without a trust fund. Unpaid internships do offer great experience -- I worked for the Special Olympics -- but unfortunately they do not always lead to a paying job.

Note to Meredith: The reason that you cannot count on an unpaid internship to lead to a paying job is because there is always another bright, ambitious young person such yourself looking for an internship who is willing to do the job you’d like to have -- and do it for free. During the summer between her junior and senior year in college, my own daughter managed to land a paid internship with one of the better known historical sites in the country. She loved the work, and they loved her work, and when she graduated they offered her a job--at the same pay as her internship, which was about what she would have made working at a fast food restaurant. A friend’s son had a masters in archeology who worked for the same folks. They offered him the same deal--less than ten dollars an hour, but a “wonderful opportunity to build his resume.”

Among my friends, the few who have jobs next year have joined Teach for America, which is ironic because people mock humanities degrees as only being useful for teaching. The starting salary from Teach for America is higher than anyone I know with a full-time job right now.

Note to Meredith: How ironic that young people who seek Ivy League educations because they supposely value learning might see a course of studies that would prepare them to spend a career helping others to learn as something to mock. At the risk of sounding self righteous and a little prickly (and maybe I'm misreading your intent), you didn’t get where you are without teachers. It’s really not the job of last resort, and the pay and perks aren’t bad. But I hope your young friends chose TFA because they realized they might have missed their calling, not because "the job market is bad" or they are "just too burned out to do graduate school right now." Children deserve teachers who want to be in the classroom rather than people who really just couldn’t get a job doing anything else.

I thought that once college ended, all of my dreams would come true. Well, I'm not giving up yet because, as I learned in a book given to me at my high school graduation, "The Impossible Will Take a Little While." I guess it will just take a little longer than I expected.

Note to Meredith: I’ve checked out "The Impossible Will Take a Little While." Thanks for the recommendation. Loeb affirms what I believe when he writes,

My primary focus is on what moves us beyond mere personal survival, beyond carving out a comfortable private existence—to broader, more enduring visions that can help us tackle common problems and keep on doing so regardless of the frustrations we may encounter. We can’t afford the sentimental view that mere self-improvement, no matter how noble in intention, is enough. Nor can we afford to succumb to fear.

In many ways it sums up why I chose to teach and while I still choose it as a career. It is my vision of how we can make the world a better place. And by the way, I’ve discovered that it’s taken a little longer than I expected, too. After 27 years in the classroom, I’m still working at it. And while I have not single-handedly changed the world, I still believe it’s worth the effort to try to change a little piece of it.

I hope you find a job you love, and if you don't, I hope you learn to love the job you find.

"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might..." Ecclesiastes 9:10

Posted by Susan Graham at 10:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My 8th graders are driving me nuts right now.

“I ride an early bus, can I come in early to work before school?”
“No, I have a leadership team meeting.”
“Then can I come in during 7th period?”
“I’m teaching 6th graders during 7th, and besides, you have a class then, remember?”
“Well, then can I stay after school?”

We are finishing sewing projects and most of my kids (and by the way, just over half of them are boys) hustle into the room to get started and have to be reminded several times when it’s time to stop and clean up. While it might not be typical of a middle school classroom at the end of the school year, it’s pretty common in the Exploratory (formerly known as elective) wing of our school.

Let me tell you a little about what’s going on around me. This week, my teaching partner’s class is making pizza from scratch. They are applying concepts of asexual reproductive biology, and observing the impact of the Columbian Exchange on European dietary choices. In the art room kids are finishing up paper mache masks, but they are also writing about what their masks convey about themselves and talking about how images factor into myth, superstition, religion and power. Over in the Computer Applications room, students are busily working out how to use a new application as they build story lines and write dialog using a cartooning program.

Technology Systems classes got a little rowdy last week, but that’s to be expected when 8th graders are testing their hovercraft--floating down the hall in a chair mounted on a piece of paneling, levitated by an electric leaf blower, and steered with a small fan. The noise is more structured down in Chorus, Strings and Band as they read a little Italian and use fractions to the level of automaticity, while putting wave theory into practice. Physics, biology, geography, history, math, creative writing, and foreign language are all being used. Students are involved, engaged, and invested in the application of academic concepts, but none of them are in an official academic class.

That’s why, when Public School Insights asked four real live teachers “What would you do with the stimulus money?” I suggested organizing middle school academics around students' elective class choices. This is not a new idea at the high school level. We have Career Academies and High Schools That Work, but I fear that they may be too little too late. Researchers are confirming what teachers have been observing for years---the decision to drop out is usually made during the middle school years. For many of our children, the teachable moment has passed before they can access high school programs that are organized around the interests, skills, and innate abilities of so many of our students. They have disconnected with what school is offering.

I am substituting students for parents in this recent observation by Larry Ferlazzo

Merriam Webster’s Dictionary defines involvement as “to enfold or envelop.” It defines engagement as “to interlock with; to mesh.” ….When schools involve [students] they are leading with their institutional self-interest and desires…..When schools engage [students] they are leading with the [students’] self-interests (their wants and dreams).

Engagement crops up in education conversation frequently these days. We want to engage everyone--students, parents, teachers, administrators and policymakers. Involvement is primarily an attempt to sell what we’ve got to offer by getting the client to buy into what the education process is currently willing to put on the table. Engagement markets education, repackaging our education product to align with the client’s needs and wants. But engagement still comes with an agenda because the school is still doing the leading and the engagement tends to serve school purposes.

Stephen Hurley, writing about his school’s art-based curriculum for Edutopia says

When we talk about engagement, we are often referring to what we do as teachers to affect a positive learning environment.

Hurley wants to take that engagement a step further. As students engage, interlocking and meshing with what is happening in the classroom, the focus shifts to the learners’ perspective. But the inference is that responsibility for that interlocking -- and the purpose for which the meshing occurs -- still lies with the teacher, the hub around which the engagement takes place.

To speak of investment, however, is to speak of something that is more related to how a student responds to a task. When students are invested in the work they are doing, they become -- quite literally -- wrapped up in the design, implementation, and outcome of the task. It's quite a visceral response, one that may begin with engagement but becomes richly personal. When students are invested in a particular piece of work, it becomes something that matters to them.

I invite you to return to our Exploratory hall where most of our students are involved, engaged, and invested. Why? These kids have gone one level further. They are empowered. They chose their elective classes and they go home talking about what they did in their elective classes because, within a structured framework, they are in charge. They make the connection between informational concepts as they create tangible products. They seek information, apply what they find out, and retain what they learn during these classes because they are meeting their instinctive human need to produce something of value.

I fear that we spend far too much time and energy trying to teach young adolescents what we want them to know. What would happen if, instead, we framed school in terms of what they want to know? The other day I read an ASCD editorial on high school redesign by Gene Carter that addressed the question, “Is it good for the kids?” He said,

ASCD supports high school redesign that includes a rich and rigorous curriculum, meaningful and relevant learning experiences, and relationships with caring adults who know students well.

My question: Why wait until high school?

Posted by Susan Graham at 11:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I have a younger man in my life. He’s 21—handsome, funny, sunny and bright. But last week, as we chatted, he was worried and trying hard to hang onto his positive outlook on life. Bryan just graduated from college with a degree in business, and he can’t find a job. Another young friend is 26. She completed her masters in public administration. She did internships and volunteer work and community organizing and more, but she may be moving home to job hunt.

They are not alone. Yesterday I read about Michael Volpe.

After relentlessly pounding the industrial carpet at scores of job fairs, firing off hundreds of cover letters and knocking on dozens of doors since November, Michael Volpe was desperate. The 25-year-old college graduate with a degree in physics and a couple of years with the Peace Corps is learning that the nation's capital is also the networking capital. And if you don't know the right people, landing a job can be daunting. This week, he took his job search in a new direction, standing outside downtown D.C. Metro stops during morning rush hour with a sign around his neck reading, "ENTRY LEVEL JOB SEEKER."

We tell them from the time they are in kindergarten that a good education with a university degree is the key to a good job and a fulfilled life. This Volpe kid worked hard. He played by the rules. He went the extra mile. He signed the student loan papers. He did everything he was supposed to do. So did my two young friends. And now, after years of hard work, they proudly step forward to claim their prize---financial security and meaningful work. But they find themselves standing at the edge of a personal abyss instead.

My local newspaper reported that here, at University of Mary Washington,

Gary Johnson said the job market for newly minted college grads is leaner than he's ever seen it in his 20 years as a career counselor.

But in the same article,

Marie Hawley, career counselor at Germanna Community College's Fredericksburg campus, said that the college's nursing students have "excellent prospects right now." She also said a number of older students who have lost their jobs or want to hang onto them are taking courses at Germanna to enhance their skills--and resumes--in such things as computerized accounting. "These are people who have four-year university degrees who are saying, 'I need something new and fresh to make myself attractive in the job market right now,'" Hawley said.

I’m a family and consumer economist—a specialist in nano-economics, if you will. Unlike the macro or micro enconomists, I see economics not in theory, but in the everyday lives of individuals. And at the personal economic level, supply and demand are everything. So I keep wondering: Who promoted the false assumption that the demand for college educated job seekers would continually expand to meet the supply of college graduates?

It flies in the face of reality and experience. We’ve been hearing about boomerang kids who return with degrees to live in the basement and wait tables for years now. As parents, educators, and policymakers, how did we deceive ourselves into believing that if we tell kids to go to college, prosperity and happiness would be their guaranteed outcomes?

While the job market for recent college graduates may be weak, the unemployment rate for those who lack a high school diploma is abysmal. Even for the high school graduate, employment options are limited. Job growth and job opportunities are best in skilled and technical jobs that do require post secondary training, but do not require a four year degree.

"I naively thought I'd have my choice of jobs..."

I wish you luck, Mike Volpe. With a degree in physics and minor in math, plus your experience, your work ethic, and your determination, you're bound to find a job and I’m sure you’ll be successful. But I wonder how many of those young hopefuls with degrees in business may have to settle for retail rather than corporate level? What about those newly minted art historians, sociologists, literary analysts and psychologists who may be waiting tables in order to pay off student loans? When we told them to go to college, did we remember to tell them that it might be easier to earn a degree in communication and public relations or international affairs than to land a job in those fields?

We told them to follow their dreams, but did we mention that all dreams don’t come true and that they should be prepared to deal with that reality? Did we think to tell them to look at job prospects before committing $100,000 and four years to job preparation? Did we mislead them? Should we have told them that there are Other Ways to Win?

Posted by Susan Graham at 2:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The lyrics of the old Guess Who song are morphing in my head:

We've come undone
We didn't know what he was headed for
And once we knew what he was headed for
It was too late

He's come undone
He found a mountain
that was far too high
And when he found out
he couldn't fly
It was too late

It's too late
He's gone too far
He's lost the sun
He's come undone

Another school shooting and the question that haunts us all is “Why?”

Here are some things that I noted:

"He was a year or two older than most of his classmates who described him as a quiet boy who never talked about guns or violence."

"The young man had no disciplinary problems at school and hadn't been in trouble with the law."

"The boy's mother said he seemed nervous before leaving for school, but when she asked him about it, he attributed it to getting the results of the "LEAP" tests that eighth-graders must pass to be promoted."

The profile is not unusual. He’s fifteen or so. He lives with his mom and sees his dad on weekends. He has been retained. He sits quietly in the back of the room, not making trouble, but not making progress either. He’s the passive kid who drops through the cracks.

There are a lot of kids like Justin. They are marking time, too old for middle school, too young to drop out. With good intentions, adults have told them that success in school is a necessity for success in life. In other words, we tell them that they are losers before they really get into the game of life. Justin got fed up with marking time; he made up his own rules to the game and became a time bomb.

The hot book on our middle school campus is Neal Shusterman’s Unwind. In a futuristic world, the fate of a person hangs in the balance during the years between 13 and 18. During these years, it is decided if a teenager has exhibited sufficient promise to justify the additional investment in care and education necessary to bring them to maturity. If not, they can be signed over by their parents or the authorities to be “unwound” at a harvest farm. Those young people who have demonstrated limited potential can still serve society by being disassembled for spare parts that are recycled for use by more deserving individuals.

While we may not harvest the organs of our underachievers, we do not cultivate these children. We attempt to take unique individuals and turn them into standardized products. If they do not meet our quality control standards of college-ready, we pass them off as factory seconds, allowing their productivity to turn to frustration and their potential to go unrealized.

"Ultimately he only hurt himself."

But the repercussions of the child who comes undone impact us all. An education system that invests in students who struggle is expensive. The price of not making the investment is exorbitant and ultimately society must pay.

Posted by Susan Graham at 11:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today was the deadline for encumbering budget money. This week there are two after school meetings to be attended at the far end of the county. I am working on guest blogs for Public School Insights and the Center for Teacher Leadership . Over at Teacher Leaders Network we have a couple of group projects that I want to be part of. In the meantime, the last mid-quarter interim reports go out Wednesday. Our kids are prepping for the state assessment tests so I’m working around remediation pull outs and field trips. A colleague cried in my office today and two of my students had issues that involved family members and jail. Since I’m pretty stressed out myself this week, I could relate when I saw the headline Stress of Term Time is Putting Teachers' Mental Health at Risk, says NUT.

Great! Now some reporter is calling educators a bunch of nut cases? But wait, the NUT was in England. The article went on to say

Half of all teachers have considered leaving the profession due to stress, citing the long hours, excessive workload, lack of support and poor pupil behaviour, according to the National Union of Teachers (NUT). In addition, a large-scale HSE survey found teaching to be the most stressful occupation in the UK, it said.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Seems it’s not all Eton, Harrow, and Hogwarts over the pond after all. But the Brits are not alone, there are stressed teachers Australia,Taiwan,Latvia, Africaand the Pacific Islands. In fact, my search for teacher stress produced 36,800,000 links.

Are tea sipping teachers in England symptomatic? Are educators a bunch of whiners who can’t cope? I keep searching and stumble on to the Teachers.tv site and discover their How Stressed is Your School? series. This isn’t just about teacher perception or soft psychobabble. It’s hard quantitative medical evidence and multidisciplinary research. Teachers wear biometric vests which provide a live feed of blood pressure, heart rate, respiration, and body temperatures as they go through their instructional day. Psychological surveys probe into what teachers perceive as stress and what they believe helps them cope with stress. Even genetic factors that predisposed one to high stress, due to cortisol, the stress hormone, is investigated. I really need to go to bed, but this is fascinating! I’m hooked and I can’t stop eavesdropping on what’s going on with the teachers at Kings Langley—a formerly failing school that has been reorganized. I’m staying up too late again and slugging down Diet Coke for a caffeine fix. More stress! But I keep clicking to find that

Teacher stress is a much talked of phenomenon, however, there is little consensus between different professional groups regarding its aetiology, or how to tackle it. Based on a review of international research, it is concluded that teacher stress is a real phenomenon and that high levels are reliably associated with a range of causal factors, including those intrinsic to teaching, individual vulnerability and systemic influences.

Surely there's a silver bullet among all of these sites, but instead I find "

So how can educators handle all of this stress? Unfortunately there is not one answer. Oh dear, that was stressful! So I go back to TeacherTV for some help from their Stress Relief for Schools series. One of the more interesting aspects of all of this is that there really isn’t one answer--managing stress is a complicated combination of biology, life experience, and reflection. However, it would appear that a person’s ability to manage stress may be one of the more critical factors in teacher success.

This takes me back a recent conversation here at TM with my teacher colleaguesNancy Flanagan and Anthony Cody. When TM editor Anthony Rebora queried,

The recent MetLife Survey of the American Teacher , based on a comparison to past surveys, found that teacher satisfaction has increased markedly over the past 25 years. Has this been your impression? What do you think accounts for the change?

I said, "It does surprise me that teachers feel better [about their work]. Could it be that while we are expected to have high expectations for student performance we might have lower expectations for our own work place satisfaction?"

More stress, but greater satisfaction: What has changed? Our circumstances? Our performance efficacy? Our coping strategies? Our expectations?

I keep turning the question over and over in my head. I don't know. But I do know that I need to do my yoga, take a nice soaky bath, and get a good night’s sleep because tomorrow’s another day in middle school, so I’m scheduled for full day of stress beginning at 8:20 in the morning. We're in the end stretch of the year and there’s too much to be done to schedule a mental health day!

Posted by Susan Graham at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)