Directives, Policies, and Yes-I-Do-Know-Better-Than-You

I thought of another gap that is hard to live in.  

I believe in the potential of public education.  I believe that good teachers, with time and resources, can help students find joy in the process of learning, can push students to generate critical thought.  I also believe good teachers thrive in space to be creative and to dance.

I also see that not every student in our system is getting an education I'd order up for my own children.  In fact, in some cases, I'd sooner pull my child out of school and homeschool him than allow him to sit in a room where learning is a punishment for some crime he didn't commit.  

So many well-intentioned people entered education.  We saw what was broken and created theories about how to fix it all.  We created Programs, which became Policies.   When those Policies needed accountability we created Directives and said "Yes, I Do Know Better Than You."  We created those things out of helplessness, out of a drive for efficiency and checking tasks off our lists as quickly as we can.  But deep change is not sustained by efficiency.  It's sustained by patient listening and compassion and exploring in a community.

Here's an example: just today I was speaking to a dear colleague who told me about a new literacy push in our school system.  (Snarky moment: a new literacy push?  Isn't that the entire POINT of school?). Anyway, as a high school reading specialist, she has been sitting in a room with content area teachers from a variety of disciplines at both the high school and middle school level, all of them listening to someone who has been paid to come in and create a Program for the entire county.  I am, of course, immediately suspect.  First of all, it is a Program.  Second of all, the idea is that this program has steps that all teachers can easily do to improve reading comprehension in their subject area.  If it were easy, I suspect we all would have done it already.  According to my friend, she is the only one in the room saying things like, "These teachers are under pressure to teach their SUBJECT matter, not to take time out of their well-considered pacing to do reading lessons."  Point, friend.  No response, expert?

Programs grow wheels pretty quickly.  I'm pretty sure the wheels are those types on monster trucks that help the trucks roll right over every single thing in their way. When we ask questions about the Programm, we hear things like, "research shows."  But we don't get to see the research. We hear things like, "bring elementary school into high school," and we are expected to stand at attention and ignore the little voice that says, "This is NOT elementary school.  We are preparing kids for college!"  We are expected to quiet the timid little whisper that says, "The ones who cannot read the entire chapter lack grit as much as they lack reading skills.  How are we supposed to teach them chemistry and reading AND grit?"

My perspective is this: as professionals, we agree on what mastery looks like for the skills that we care the most about, and then we each do whatever we need to to bring that mastery to fruition.  We listen to each other's struggles; we do NOT rob listening time by cramming people in a room and passing out more policies.  We congratulate each other for our successes when we find our own voices in the tumult, when the joy we feel is caught as a contagion and kids smile while learning.  And when we fail, because we will fail to get all of our students to mastery, we will forgive each other and offer to help.  

It takes enormous self-discipline to hear the rest of the policies as noise, as distractions that COULD suck me right in if I let them.  That's what they are at best.  When we are feeling overwhelmed by the pressure of the school-level issues we live with every day, these policies are even more baggage to try to survive under.

The gift from the universe I am asking for now is inspiration to find ways to keep my department focusing on its heart, on its joy for the subject, on its successes that come from our being US.  I wish for ways to somehow stand in the gap between the message I'm supposed to deliver from people above me and the message people in my department need to hear.  And when the time comes, I hope I most often come down on the side of what the teacher needs.