labelleizzy | argh.

Two days of work at the same school with the same classes, even if there ARE 150 kids, is enough time to start learning some names.

and to start losing my heart.

*sigh*

is it too "egotistical" or too arrogant, to think, "they need me"?
But I don't think I could teach full time in that school, not with what I know already... not with Waldorf workings in my spirit... my head, my art, my intention...

Jeff is bothered by public spaces that have too much "ping"... it's an auditory thing. These public schools have a literal AND a figurative ping... Sharp edges, no pride, hard surfaces, much of the nature around them broken down, splintered, or scattered with trash... kids learn anger because they learn it gets them attention. But that's another tangent entirely...

Okay, how's this. If a place of learning is to be an oasis for the mind and the spirit, it simply doesn't do, to have each person hand carry a bucket of water from a faraway place. Or to "start an oasis" with bulldozers...

There's no meaning behind what I was teaching. It's all been drills of some kind or another, mental calisthenics maybe. Not that that's a bad thing... But all calisthenics and no... what? using the muscles you've built for something useful? No learning how to play a new game, or ride a unicycle or swing from a trapeze or climb a rope?

argh.

just my quick note here.
*is tired and frustrated, and missing the kids already*

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

10 years ago I decided to get myself into school to be a teacher. I volunteered at an elementary school for two years. At the end of that I stopped taking classes because teaching at a public school was utterly heart-breaking and I knew I couldn't withstand it. I'm graduating in a few months with a BA in Math and a BS in CS, and I still really want to teach, but I still know that I can't handle public school.

While I'm figuring out how to reconcile that I'm going to make money, take care of myself, try to get involved in my community (I've started Aikido again, which is a blessing), and down the road I'll probably teach at a community college. It feels a bit like a cop-out, but I don't know what else to do with myself.

Our public school systems are terribly broken. I'm meeting some educators up here, and they all know it, but no one knows what to do. Everyone is "teaching to the test," even though educators can all see the failure that system is, but with funding attached to testing, what choice?

And then there is the other thing, as voiced by one of the people up here, "how do you teach a hungry kid?" When kids are coming to school without adequate sleep, nutrition, or care from home...?

The problem isn't only with schools, but with our approach to education. It makes me so sad, because it doesn't matter how smart or good a kid is, socio-economic background makes such a huge difference on what they are going to be able to do -- not just because of how much college costs, but because if you don't have people talking with you and interacting with you when you're little, you never learn the vocab, you never learn curiosity or how to learn, or why learning is worth it. I'm not saying no kid ever comes out of that, but in this case the exceptions prove the rule. If socio-economic backgrounds didn't matter, we wouldn't know about them.

I'm ranting a bit now, but this issue, public schools and all of that, is a big one to me, and I'm especially frustrated because I don't know what to do, or what can be done.

This is a favorite soapbox for me as well. The best solution I have come up with to date? Change hoe teachers are trained & supported, well-integrated individually and socially. make sure the teachers' needs are met, in a real, deep, & respectful way.

Make schools smaller. Bring the community involvement by finding what parents & families need & start providing it. Community storytelling: get the abuelas talking to the littles, get the manga- obsessed teens to Big Sister and Big Brother the almost-pubescent.

Human hungers are not being fed. It's chronic, and it's criminal.

I agree that our public school systems are forced to do things that are not optimal. I do not agree that they are universal pits of hell, and I teach in an urban school district in the poorest county in Kansas. I just don't see how abandoning those children who need good teachers most and isolating myself in a more elite private institution solves any problems at all, either for kids or for our communities. I'll stick with public schools because, although it is very hard work, it's where I can do the most good for the most needy kids, the ones whose parents couldn't possibly afford me. For me, abandoning my public school would be criminal.

No, for once I'm not talking about Waldorf here, or private schools per se. I'm talking about shrinking the size of public schools, supporting and doing Meaningful Continuing Education for public school teachers, building up the sense of community around each public school, getting the community to feel a sense of both belonging and ownership.

I know public schools aren't all stellar, & I know they aren't all hellholes, by any stretch. I know that all schools are full of people fighting the good fight, trying really hard to reach and to serve the students. I know that almost all the students would do Anything to make their teacher proud of them. Everybody IN the schools is working their butts off, but it feels to me like huge megaschools like I see all the time out here, don't give Anybody, teacher or student, the chance to really feel Seen. Or to feel Heard. The primary model for American modern schools began at the start of the industrial revolution. The goal was to provide consistently educated, obedient factory workers.

America isn't a factory-nation anymore. We need to reshape the structure of our education system to match the new global attention/information economy, without abandoning any of the students. Our habits of education and the system itself, all need to be revamped and modernized.

It's all pipe dreams for me now, but I've seen so much of the structure of school districts and schools, I've been a union rep, I've seen abusive and incompetent principals and amazing supportive principals. I've been on the hiring panels for principals and met the candidates. I'm saying I think there needs to be a greater awareness among the people in positions of authority, of the sacredness of their charge.

It's the children. Each one an unknowable potential, each one human and loving and trusting.

I want to change the system, make it more connected, compassionate, caring. Change it at the top. Change the disrespect and feeling abandoned to sink or swim so many new teachers feel. Heartbroken teachers can't meet the needs of children, or their own. Burnout is not okay.

I'm cropping up all these ideas, they're not fully formed. But I've seen a lot of schools, in sixteen years and 6 school districts, and there's common threads of what goes right, & common threads of what go wrong.

Of course of I figure out what's wrong, it falls to me to figure out how to fix it.

Working on that.

Jennifer, I hope your school in Kansas has what you need to succeed. I'm just saying I see a lot of schools that don't, or that don't QUITE. It's becoming a passion with me to figure this out, & how to make things better.

The goal was to provide consistently educated, obedient factory workers.

At New Tech this was one of the big talking points about problems with "traditional" schools (the use of "traditional" as an insult reallybothered me, by the way), but it always seemed to me that the only change being made was that "modern" schools instead provide consistently educated, obedient office workers, which I really don't see as any better.

IAWTC times infinity.

this is why I think there needs to be a deep change, a foundation-level change. The assumptions are so deep, and don't address the INDIVIDUAL. Generally speaking. Oh there's laws that require IEP's and 504's, and that teachers must follow those plans once instituted, but ARGH it's like I can see the emperor has no clothes and I just want to shout about it, tell the whole world, so every body knows!

and yeah, "traditional" != bad or wrong or even broken. There's lots of amazing ways to teach and to learn that could/should be implemented today. I'm very fond of the apprentice-style teaching technique, for example. It's just quite labor intensive for the master teacher, not that that is bad, but again, it's not how things are currently done and remunerated.

What places can you see in the system where you think changes could be made, more along the lines of empowering each student to become the best, most balanced/well-rounded human being they could be?

The more I see stuff like this, the more I start to realize that, at least in this instance, it's not just me. Especially here in California. Thank you for posting this.

argh.

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