Marketing Ourselves as Teachers

I attended a conference recently where policymakers and representatives from higher education convened to discuss education policy. A group of teachers were there, too, and I was honored to be among them, hopefully there to advocate for my profession and represent what's going on at the school level in our country while at the same time learning some innovations that I could share with educators in my state.

We weren't there long before we started feeling uncomfortable and fidgeting in our seats. Many speakers who stood before us repeatedly uttered phrases like "bad teachers" and "fix teaching." Soon we felt defensive...and even angry...and wondered what all the "teacher bashing," as one of my colleagues put it, was about.

It didn't take me long to realize that there are very bright folks who don't really know what's going on in our schools. For example, an education professor from an extremely prestigious university in our country compared our schools to those in Australia. He spoke of online lesson plans and assessments that are available there as if they were recent inventions, and I wondered why he didn't know that teachers have been using those for over ten years in my own state. In addition, he said (twice) that we're "failing" as we attempt to teach middle school literacy. As a middle school reading teacher, of course I bristled at hearing those statements.

A congressman who sat in a breakout session with me mentioned the inequities of technology. He said, "I saw a classroom that had only five laptop computers...not very effective, but more effective than a teacher in the room."

Just after that a congresswoman from another state added, "The old teachers don't know about technology and are not comfortable with it." Immediately my mind raced to the list of veteran (not old) teachers who use instructional technology in their classrooms daily, the ones who have class blogs and wikis and who Skype with classrooms across the world.

One presenter said, "There are schools where the principal doesn't do all the leading; the teachers actually work together, and that's the nature of the work." I thought "DUH!" Does the world outside of our school buildings not know that we've been collaborating like that for years?

So after I calmed myself from the range of emotions I felt at this conference I had to ask myself why these seemingly important people were so misinformed. I also wondered why all of the answers seemed to be relative to teachers instead of directed toward other stakeholders in education. Here's what I came up with:

First, all of the research points to the teacher as being the most important factor in whether a child learns or not. It's not the parent, or the school administration, or the football coach...it's the teacher. So because so much is focused on there being a quality teacher in every classroom, that's where the finger gets pointed when things go wrong.

And while I do agree that there should be a highly qualified teacher (as No Child Left Behind mandates) in every classroom, I can tell you that I can't deliver quality instruction without the support of the parents, the instructional leadership of my school administration, and the collaboration I have with other important individuals in my students' lives - like the football coach and the band director.

Another reason those who aren't in the school buildings point to "bad teachers" is because we, as a profession, don't market ourselves well. Here's an example: over and over at this conference I heard references to Teach for America. Yes, there are amazing TFA teachers all over the country; I even work with one. TFA takes highly motivated college graduates, provides them with intense, condensed (five weeks) training, and places them in our neediest schools. And although the retention rates are nothing to brag about (TFA reports that retention is difficult to determine, but many articles report that TFA teachers leave after 2-3 years), the marketing that includes billboards, television commercials, and education journal advertising makes TFA look glamorous as well as successful.

So what are classroom teachers doing to market themselves? Well, just today I read this "status update" on a Facebook page - "Another long day at the pool. Being a teacher in the summer is hard work." Last week I read this one - "Summer - the reason I teach."

Although most teachers spend their entire summers "off" at trainings and planning with other teachers (I've seen half the staff at my school this week), those bragging about their leisurely summers are not getting any points with the policymakers who work all year. No wonder they don't want to raise teacher salaries.

In addition, the teacher "venting" that occurs in our communities most likely indicates to others that we are not committed to doing whatever it takes to teach our children. It probably sounds like we're only committed to whining about how difficult our jobs are.

So teachers, it is up to us to change the thinking of legislators, higher ed representatives, and policymakers. It is up to us to market ourselves as professionals who can make a difference in the lives of children, instead of "bad teachers" who are uncomfortable with technology.

The last session I attended at the conference included presenters who were working on a report outlining the qualities of a teacher leader. At the beginning of the presentation, the participants were given a handout listing the members of the committee working on the report. I immediately scanned the list to see how many teachers had been included. I wasn't surprised to see that there were none.

I guess they figured we were all at the pool...

Remembering Michael

If you haven't heard the name "Michael Jackson" 9 zillion times this week, you haven't been in our stratosphere. All of the cliches are true - the world has lost a pop icon who made an immeasurable impact on the worlds of music and dance. I so wish that school was in session right now, so that I could talk to my students about the life and music of Michael Jackson and about the troubled lives (and tragic deaths) of some of the celebrities that my middle schoolers adore (think Kurt Cobain, Tupac Shakur, Biggie Smalls, Heath Ledger...the list goes on and on....)

There will be time for those discussions in the fall. But first...Michael...

Since I was born one year before the King of Pop, my life and his work have intersected on many occasions. My father's voice, which has been silent for almost five years now, rings in my ears whenever I hear "I'll Be There."

"Daddy," I said during a Sunday drive in 1970, "Don't you like this song?"

"Sounds nice," he answered. "But who's the little girl singing it?"

At thirteen, I thought that was hysterical... that my Daddy couldn't tell that the Jackson Five was a "boy band." I had Tiger Beat pictures of Michael (right beside Donny Osmond) wallpapering my bedroom. And my first slow dances with boys were awkwardly carried out to "just call my name...and I'll be there..."

I choreographed a middle school dance routine to "The Love You Save" and performed it for the neighbors (I charged a nickel) at our talent shows in the 'hood. Years later, Off the Wall would be the soundtrack for my first year teaching - "I Want to Rock with You" could be heard reverberating up and down the halls of that high school.

And it was pure destiny that I owned a dance studio and worked as a dance instructor in the eighties, the Thriller years. Although my classes always warmed up to "Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough" from Off the Wall, so many recital dances came from that Thriller album...including a stage full of ghouls and monsters. I remember studying the videos, particularly the one for "Beat It" as I worked on choreography. I couldn't discern the dance moves by watching Michael Jackson; instead, I watched the backup dancers in an effort to learn the steps so that I could teach them to my students.

In the next decade I would have the opportunity to sit in the audience and watch my nine-year-old daughter perform "I Want You Back" with fourth graders from all over the school district. Eight years later, she and her friends would become The Jackson Five at a Halloween Talent Show. They got some strange looks from other drivers as they drove across town to the talent show wearing their afros.

In this, the next decade, I have become "Nana" and memories of three-year-old Taylor bouncing in her car seat shouting, "Play 'Rockin' Robin', Nana!" are fresh. My iPod repeatedly blasts "Rockin' Robin" and "ABC" for a preschool soloist as we drive down the same "Sunday drive" roads from forty years ago. Little Taylor works hard to snap her fingers while the music of an icon from my childhood makes an impact on hers.

And now...the end. The intersections of my life and Michael Jackson's have come to an abrupt halt...but not before one new memory: I have spent the past month making several trips a day to the retirement home where my mother is recuperating from a fall which resulted in a broken hip and elbow. After the permanent residents are dressed every day, they're lined up in front of a huge television in the lobby. I have to walk right in front of them to get to the elevator from my mother's room. In the past few days many have asked me, "Did you hear about Michael Jackson?" as I pass by. One resident told me, just as the local news reporter was delivering the tragic news, "I dreamed last week that Michael Jackson died." I begged her not to ever dream about me.

A wonderful memory of the music of Michael Jackson I'll always remember - as I was leaving the retirement home tonight, I walked in front of a row of senior citizens, lined up like weary wheelchair soldiers. One after another, they appeared to be in varied stages of consciousness, some sleeping, some slumped over the sides of the chair, some alert. But all...ALL of them were tapping a foot or gently smacking a leg to the music of the video on that television screen - a catchy little tune named "Smooth Criminal."

That's what Michael Jackson was...before the odd behavior, before the Neverland Ranch and the monkey and the hyperbaric chamber....when he was just little Michael singing "ABC," that's what he was....smooth. And, in some ways, he was a teacher. Who hasn't tried to do the moonwalk? Who hasn't held a hairbrush as a would-be microphone and belted out, "Billie Jean is not my lover..."?

Rest in peace, little Michael. I've enjoyed sharing the timeline of my life with you.

Summertime Blues

Last year at this time I had no idea what my summer would be like, having been freshly selected as North Carolina's Teacher of the Year. I knew that I would be working all summer (NC TOYs immediately become 12 month employees - for the rest of their natural lives...) but I wasn't sure what I would be doing. As it turns out last summer wasn't much different from the remainder of my Teacher-of-the-Year-year with lots of speaking engagements, board meetings, presentations, workshops, etc.

This year I have a better idea of my summer plans, and I have some really cool things going on. But I have to tell you, cool things aside, I feel a twinge of envy reading classroom teachers' (and students') Facebook countdowns to the end of school: "four days left!" I remember all too well that excitement (I always encourage the entire faculty to line up and do the can-can as our buses leave the lot on the last day.) And I remember those summers when my own kids were little - we'd be by the pool every day, cheering on the swim team...at the beach...sleeping late...

When schools first began to have computers in the mid 90's, teachers were allowed to "check out" a desktop for the summer. I would load that monstrous machine in the back of my car, along with a printer that fed paper with holes-along-the-side, so that my kids could practice word processing. As it turns out, they mostly practiced the game Oregon Trail. They actually got pretty good at it, while I always got bitten by a rattlesnake or died of malaria.

While thoughts of those fun summers "off" are etched in my memory, this summer I will be accompanying fifteen teachers and the Center for International Understanding on a trip to Denmark. We'll be visiting schools there, studying Denmark's wind-energy, and staying with a Danish family. I'm most excited about visiting Odense, the city of Hans Christian Andersen's birth (he's called H.C. Andersen there.) I have many memories of the story of The Little Matchgirl: my great grandmother, who was a school teacher in a one room school house, used to tell me that story when I was a little girl. I'm also looking forward to visiting the Kronborg Castle in Elsinore - Hamlet's castle! (This English major will probably cry.)

My next big adventure will be to reunite with the State Teachers of the Year in Nashville, Tennessee as we convene at the National Forum on Education. Clayton Christensen, author of Disrupting Class, will be speaking, along with other engaging presenters, but we'll also fit in time for site-seeing in Music City!

And last, again with the State Teachers of the Year, I'll be able to play pretend - and this time I'll be an astronaut! We're going to Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama. I've heard that this is an amazing experience and that we get to float around in zero gravity, among other things.

So...yes, I'll be doing some wonderful things this summer, but even so, I'll miss those lazy, crazy days. Last weekend my granddaughter and I played together on one of the first really warm days, one that ended with a thunderstorm that frightened Taylor. I told her we'd just turn up the music really loud to drown out the thunder.

Then we danced.

Later, after Taylor went home, the following poem found its way to my Writer's Notebook:

Summer

an apricot sun

toasting shoulders

a three-year-old

flip-flopping

in the backyard

all you heat haters

cooling it

in the air conditioned

inside

come out

and see

a bee

a blue-tailed salamander

a waggy, spotted-tongue

puppy

and me

dancing

the storms away

("turn up the music, Nana!")

in the summer,

the season

made for children

and grown-ups

who remember.

Sign of the Times

I ventured out recently to purchase a picture frame at a large chain that sells homegoods. I knew exactly what I wanted, and as soon as I made the turn into the frame section, I saw it from a distance. As I got closer, I realized that the frame I wanted, my frame, had several nicks and chips on it.

Not to worry - there were two additional frames, exactly like the first one, underneath a pile. I began moving items and uncovered yet another damaged frame. I was patient, though, knowing that the one at the bottom of the stack would be perfect and ready for purchase, hidden from damage down there at the bottom.

Wrong. The third frame did have less nicks on it, but the box surrounding it was ripped and barely hanging on to the very item it was meant to cover. I decided I could easily camouflage the tiny chipped places with a brown marker so I pushed the box back together in an effort to find the price. I was a bit distressed at the asking price but wasn't too worried: certainly the kind employees would offer a discount for damaged goods. I headed to the register.

Luckily, I was in a line that was being serviced by the store manager; this stroke of luck would eliminate another clerk's need to seek higher authority to approve the discount. I waited for several minutes until it was my turn. I explained my saga to the manager, including the fact that there were two other damaged frames back there on the shelf - surely he would want to remove them in an effort to present only the best for his customers.

He spoke politely, "I have to ask full price for this." I assumed he was kidding - or delirious - surely he didn't want $40.00 for a chipped picture frame in a dysfunctional box. He saw my surprise and continued, "We aren't allowed to offer discounts on damaged merchandise. It's a sign of the times."

After explaining, as nicely as possible, that I couldn't believe his company would want to represent themselves that way, I left with nothing to show for my visit except a wasted thirty minutes.

Later, I thought about the budget cuts that are occurring in school districts across the country. The proposal in my own state currently calls for the elimination of thousands of teaching positions while raising class size and shortening the school year. This is in addition to a salary cut that hit our pay checks last week...which, by the way, I felt okay about at the time. I didn't mind giving up .5% of my salary so that hundreds of teacher jobs could be saved; however, it was just after I came to terms with that news and justified it in my mind that I heard about the thousands of teachers and third grade teacher assistants that we are likely to lose in our state if this budget proposal goes through.

I thought about the "damaged goods" that we'll manufacture in schools - students who will leave us ill-prepared to be successful and with little hope for a bright future. What should I say to those students? Oh, I know...it's a sign of the times.

But unlike that picture frame, I can't put my students back on the shelf. We, as educators, have to remain committed to do the best we can with the resources we have available to us, even if the only resources we have are a passion for children and subject matter expertise. I can do it if I run out of paper and I can do it with more students in my classroom, especially if those of us left to do the work continue on with a purposeful effort to make a difference in the lives of children.

Meanwhile we will continue to be a voice for those children as we write our legislators and make our positions known (I'm happy to report that each representative that I have written has written me back. I do feel that they are listening.) In addition, in my state educators are wearing red on Wednesdays to symbolize that "education is bleeding."

But bleeding or not, we'll teach those children - however many sit in our classrooms - because the alternative is not an option.

It reminds me of an old song from the sixties - "Don't Give Up" by Petula Clark:

Don't give up; don't let it get you down.

Don't give up; don't think of leaving town.

Which, in turn, reminds me of a popular Petula Clark album with a catchy name...you guessed it -

Sign of the Times.

Innovations in Teaching

Mrs. Warnecke, my first grade teacher from forty-five years ago, sent me an old newspaper recently that included an article highlighting her classroom in my elementary school. The date immortalized on my hometown paper is February 28, 1965, and the reporter is eager to disclose one of the newest ideas in teaching, a strategy that exemplifies true innovation in the classroom:

"There's a relatively new activity in educational circles that is guaranteed to delight youngsters, amuse teachers, and horrify parents. Actually, everyone has participated in similar activities, but now it has a name - Show and Tell."

Show and Tell!

I can't believe that this activity was literally born in the sixties. I feel sure that cave-children were acting out the workings of the first wheel or the warmth of the first fire for their cave-teachers. But, no, Barbara W. Short, the "Women's Editor" for the "Women's News" of the Durham Morning Herald, reveals that this new technique is all the rage in schools of the sixties. And her article is chock full of examples.

One student talks about visiting a friend in the hospital and seeing him walk on "crunches." "When he walked, it went 'crunch, crunch, crunch,'" she said.

Another student shares that he hates school because "there ain't no tv."

Interestingly, the Show and Tell conversation turns to history and a heated discussion of Abraham Lincoln and which war occurred during his presidency.

"The first war," says one student. "No," adds another. "It was the second war." A little girl is sure that it was "the thirteenth war."

But the war "made us free" asserted another student.

"I'm not free. I'm six," reported a little blonde. Well, I'm glad we got that straight.

This article made me think about our current innovations in teaching and how we may read about them in forty-four years and think, as we do with Show and Tell, that we've always taught this way.

"There's this board and it looks just like a white board, but you can navigate it like a computer screen. Just touch it! It's amazing..."

"Your class can actually talk to a classroom in another country, just by logging on to your computer."

Will either of these innovations be the Show and Tell of the future? Probably not. It's just difficult to measure up to a classic.

And speaking of classic, the article refers to my teacher as "Mrs. Richard Warnecke." Evidently, back in the sixties, women didn't have their own names.

Mothers in the Middle

Today is Mother's Day. Although I am myself a mother of four, I always think of MY mother when I think of Mother's Day. Today I went to her house to deliver the yearly MDP (Mother's Day Plant) and as I left I gave her a big 'ol hug.

My mother is 81. She weighs 100 pounds in her heaviest winter clothes and has difficulty getting around - yesterday she tripped over the cane that is supposed to keep her from falling. So as I stood there and held onto my feeble mother today I was thinking about how much more attention she gets from me now that I'm older than she did back when she was really mothering me, those crazy adolescent years when she was responsible for everything I ate, everything I wore, and all transportation I needed to get me where I needed to go. I didn't appreciate her then like I do now. And now, of course, she's not taking me anywhere. I'm the one running the "elderly shuttle," as she calls it.

As I drove away, I thought of the mothers at the other end of the spectrum, too...new mothers. My stepdaughter came in today with a pricey purse in tow, surely not purchased by my three-year-old granddaughter, Taylor. And think of those young women who have newborns. They surely get gushed over when it's their "First Mother's Day."

But there's another group of mothers out there. Those Mothers in the Middle are suffering, and I see their pain. One reason I know so much about middle school motherhood is because I watched my own children turn from precious mommy lovers to evil mouth clicking demons when they went to middle school. Not only did I not know anything when my kids were teenagers, their friends' parents were awesome! I would hear, "But everybody's parents let them do more than you let me do!" And I would answer, "Well, I guess I just love my children more than other parents love theirs."

The real reason I know that middle school mothers are suffering is because I see it when they come to talk to me about their children. I hear it every year:

"He always made straight A's until middle school."

"She's never cared about boys until now, and I can't get her off the phone."

"He must be hanging around with bad kids. He's never used that language before." (I've always wondered who the bad kid's parents blame the behavior on.)

Some mothers come in for a conference and spend the entire time frantically explaining the child's behavior at home, detail-by-detail. I feel like they just need to be heard; surely they don't expect me to come home with them and start handing out expectations and rewards in an effort to turn around the behavior.

Some mothers argue and place blame on the teacher while others lament "I don't know what to do with him either. He's going to give me a nervous breakdown."

On this Mother's Day I'd like to tell all of you Mothers in the Middle - it will be okay. My children turned themselves around just as they began to experience a little freedom. A driver's license and a car can really boost a negative attitude (mainly because they want to keep those car keys.) And somewhere along the time my daughter went to college she called to tell me she sure missed all the things I used to do for her. (It was especially helpful that three of my children didn't have air conditioned dorm rooms. August in the South can sure make a kid homesick.)

Middle school is a tough time for kids - those are some very difficult years developmentally. If you don't believe it, think back on your own adolescent years.

Oops. I think I better go back and give my poor little mother another hug. And another MDP, too.

Are US Children Well-behaved?

I've met with some world travelers recently who say that children in other countries are undisciplined. I heard a story yesterday about children running around willy-nilly in Europe with no parent in sight to reprimand them. Some native Europeans recently told me that American children are perceived as very compliant and well-behaved to natives of other countries. They believe our children behave nicely, in school and at home.

I find this line of thinking difficult to understand, especially in light of how our children are depicted in the media. For example, several years ago, I would often see a popular fast food commercial where a child at dinner is about to dig into a bucket of chicken.

"Mom. I don't DO fried!" the child announced as the mother explained that this particular chicken was dipped in batter with secret ingredients and was therefore the best chicken ever fried.

I sat there watching that commerical and thought about what would have happened to me if I had made such an announcement to my own mother. I would have been dipped and fried myself.

Currently, another commercial has hit our air waves that makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck. I've watched numerous times in the past couple of weeks as an adorable little girl gets sassy with her mother for serving her "minced fish."

She says, "What is this, minced? You feed me minced? You ever catch a minced fish?!" Her mother sweetly serves her the name brand of fish, saying, "Here you go, Honey," and the little girl snidely announces, "That's more like it!"

Are you kidding me? Are we allowing our children to talk to us like this in America? And if the answer is yes, then what are teachers supposed to do with those sassy children when they come to school? Answer to their every whim? Look the other way when they are blatently disrespectful?

Let's just say that parents aren't allowing this disrespect, and the media is misrepresenting the behavior of our children. Why are we supporting a media that puts those types of behaviors on television for our children to emulate? Teachers already deal with enough bad press as we are often depicted on movies and television shows as buffoons (think Ferris Bueller's Day Off.) Are we going to continue to let our children and grandchildren be influenced by such negative advertising?

I, for one, am not. I once wrote a letter to People magazine and then to a pharmaceutical company that sold medication for ADHD. The magazine ran an advertisement in 1998 that had a picture of a middle school aged boy with the word FREAK stamped on his forehead in inch high letters. In small print under the picture were the words "Why would anybody say that?" in tiny letters, certainly tiny enough to be considered "fine print."

I immediately wrote the company and explained that while I understood the concept behind the ad, I wondered how I would explain to my middle school son, who had been taking medication for ADHD since kindergarten, why a company would insinuate that someone would consider him a "freak." I certainly had never treated him like he was different. We had an issue to deal with, and we did. Plain and simple.

Thank goodness the editors of People magazine agreed with me and pulled the ad from the next issue. I received apologies from them and from the pharmaceutical company - the President wrote to tell me that "someone lost a job over this."

I now am on a mission to help folks in the media understand that they are encouraging our kids to think that being nasty is cool. And I'm starting with the fish folks. You can, too.

Write to:

Mrs. Paul's Consumer Affairs

P.O. BOX 91000

Allentown, PA

18109

or go to www.mrspauls.com

I, for one, will not be eating fish out of a box any time soon. Minced or otherwise.