Losing Faith. Gaining Faith

Twelve years ago I became a teacher because teaching kids was my passion. Today I'm thinking about a new career, not because teaching is no longer my passion, but because it is difficult to give so much of myself to a position where I am not valued.

This is the predominant culture of teaching in America. Burnout is rampant, more than half of young teachers leave the field within the first two years. More leave before their fifth year. Not because they can't cut it, but because they were never given the scissors.

I came into teaching, like most, naive and convinced that I was going to be able to change the life of every student who entered my room. My classroom would inspire a movie: A cross between Stand and Deliver and Top Gun. I got my box of chalk, red marker and the textbook with the answers...and I stunk. All first year teachers stink. The university fills you with four years of theory, then the first year rolls around and you get hit square in the face with "practice". Don't get me wrong, college was great and gave me a true foundation in educational theory but it did little to bridge the gap from theory to the classroom. There is a profound disconnect between the university "best practice" and the politically driven practice established by school districts that sluggishly lags behind. Luckily my school at the time had an early release program on Thursdays that allowed teachers to collaborate for almost three hours, and my mentor who was a helpful and knowledgeable master teacher got me up to speed.

By my third year I had found my stride, but already was beginning to get a taste of the bureaucratic pressure that teachers face. The district had made moves to implement strict pacing guides that would dictate what reading materials we used and when. Literally managing what page of the textbook you were to be teaching on any given day and effectively throwing out all of the novel based curriculum that my partner teachers and I had developed and had been using. Another move virtually eliminated field studies, constraining students who rarely left their side of town from taking field trips out of the building.

By year four I moved cities and districts hoping to find a better situation, but instead finding that my experience had only been the beginning of a disturbing trend in education that continues to worsen. I sat by as more and more of my autonomy was taken from me. I was given "teacher proof" curriculum, pacing guides and schedules. One district initiative after another, well paid consultants who neither knew our students or our needs, time consuming and meaningless forms, subjective evaluations, intrusive micro-management and eventually compliance monitors sent to "police" our adherence to policy. Big Brother had made his presence known and gradually stripped away any semblance of the sound educational theory and best practice I had learned and replaced it with an institutionalized, assembly line educational model designed to drill standards into my students. It was made clear that questioning leadership or noncompliance would only result in disciplinary action. I watched as young teachers who were like me a decade before fall into burnout; some literally driven out in the middle of the day in tears, defeated. I ceased to become a teacher, I downshifted. I lost my faith in education.

So why am I still here? Because through it all its still about the kids. Becoming a parent changed my view of my students, and strengthened my resolve. I still love teaching. I hate what its become, but I love what it can be. I realize there are two stances we can take: Give in and accept this as the future of education... maybe walk away. Or find opportunity.

Twelve years ago I got into teaching because I was passionate about teaching kids. Looking forward, I've realized that to truly affect America's children on a large scale means to mobilize teachers on a new level. We have to own educational reform. Take it out of the hands of the politicians and well meaning business leaders who lack the understanding of our field. Charter schools, educational management organizations, school restructuring and government activism need to become our tools of action. We must view our industry as entrepreneurs view any industry. Fearlessly exploring, collaborating, and striving to move education forward. Our profit is relevant, rigorous education experiences and systems that prepare America's next generation of citizens for adulthood. We must assert ourselves on a large scale as experts of our field, leaders who should have the ability to mold and drive it from the ground up, not passively waiting for enlightenment from the top down. We should fight to possess the freedom to succeed or fail, allowing us a system all professionals enjoy, where we can freely collaborate, drive our curriculum, support young teachers and weed out those who won't perform. With our involvement we can build the revolutionary districts of the future that respect, develop and inspire both teachers and students.

The question is, "How?"

The answer begins with the conversation. Add your voice.

Past, Present and the Possible Future

Innovation, when it is first conceived, experiences slow growth as it matures and is developed. In the meantime, external and internal pressure builds on the outdated system or technology until it eventually self-destructs and demand for the innovation overtakes it. At that point the once slow growing innovation experiences a period of explosive growth and change takes place. This is the S-curve.


Over the past 30 years school reform has been a hot topic in America. "A Nation at Risk" in the Eighties to today's battles with accountability, school choice and No Child Left Behind. There has been a flood of reform to come and go in our classrooms, and brain based research has exponentially enhanced our understanding of how people learn yet educational innovation has to be embraced.


In American history there are distinct periods of revolution that changed the face of the country. The Industrial Revolution forever changed the American economy. The development of the personal computer shook the tech industry to the core, and has forever changed the world. Computers, technology and the Internet have spurred the Information Revolution. Today "The World is Flat." Education today sits idle at the base of the S-curve. Isolated from market forces that often drive the innovation forward, education is torn between a battle of ideals: on one side the wave of bureaucratic traditionalism entrenched in an 18th century educational system. On the other side, the rest of the world in the midst of a revolution driven by technology and communication into a dynamic future that is both tenuous and exciting, threatening to leave American education, and the American student behind. A future whose economy and job market our students will venture into upon graduation that we can't begin to fathom today. Many of their careers have yet to be even created. Business leaders are vocalizing the need for a future workforce who must be innovative problem solvers, who can collaborate, lead and adapt to the changing landscape of a worldwide economy. They must be technologically fluent and must be life long learners. Change will be the only constant. Today, regardless of the rhetoric, a sole standardized test is the "Holy Grail" of our public education system, it is the driving force of what we do in our classrooms. Decisions are not made by the highly trained professionals closest to their students. They are made by politicians and central office administrators who typically have no contact with those students their decisions affect. Teachers are treated more as over-educated and under-paid assembly line workers than professionals, as all of the professional decisions are made for them. This is not a system that supports innovation. Constancy is the norm.


While this is the reality within most of our traditional schools we've seen the emergence of charter schools. Growing slowly at first, these independently run public schools, have experienced steady growth. Many have had mixed results, some have succeeded, and some have failed. The unrealized potential of the charter school movement is to create a foundation for innovation. As traditional education struggles under the external and internal pressures No Child Left Behind poses, increasing the focus on testing and the move from progress, could it be an opening is emerging for an educational system based on the demands of our century? Focused on allowing teachers to be professionals, teaching students to think critically, collaborate and problem solve, and allowing schools the ability to operate efficiently and effectively based on the academic and emotional needs of its students. Could education be poised to climb the latest s-curve or destined for more of the same, as the Information Revolution leaves the next generation of Americans behind?