Waiting for Superman

This video and this article have caused a lot of buzz of conversation in the educational world. I have mixed feelings about this documentary. I am a teacher. I am a 5th grade public school teacher. I care about kids and I care about their learning. I love my job and I make sure that each student is pushed to their full potential. Is it hard when you have all types of learners. Yes. Do I have to differentiate so much in a day, that I lose track of all the different ways I taught it. Sometimes. The point is I teach like my hairs on fire everyday in the words of Rafe Esquith. I was bothered by parts of the reviews and articles that I have read about the film. The focus has been on educational reform and choosing charter schools since public schools don't measure up. I am not denying that our system doesn't need fixing, because it does. I just wanted to hear that we know not all schools are like that, or there are great public school educators among us. Anything positive would have been helpful. The very last line of the article says "Don't lose hope in your neighborhood school." That has all kinds of positivity. I don't like the neighborhood school being the bad guys and the charter schools being the good guys. Shouldn't we all be on the same team? I value education. I value choice. I think if you are getting a bad education somewhere, you should have the right to find another school. I also believe in teaching the child not the test. One of the points that was made is that schools are failing, there are teachers with tenure that shouldn't be teaching, test scores are bad, this generation is going to be less literate than the last. My question is Does the media really think that teachers of this generation have started slacking? Did the last generation become more literate because of the education they had.

Everything I teach today is 1-3 years earlier than when I learned it in elementary school. I went to a private college prep school from K-12. When I first started teaching 2nd grade their were standards that I taught that my children mastered that I didn't learn until I was in 3rd or 4th. Since I have moved to 5th nothing has changed. I teach algebra, circumference, pi in math. All 3 of which I didn't learn until middle school. I think there are numbers of reasons why education has gone "downhill. "

1. No child left behind---our government still trying to recover

2. State testing that limits a teacher. They choose to teach to the test and not to the needs of the student. We have become too test driven. Some teachers don't go above and beyond the standards because they don't feel like they need to. This is what I have to cover then this is what I will teach. Something is so wrong with this picture. Not all do this but there are many that do.

3. Education is caring more about data and less about kids. The federal govt. is putting lots of pressure on documentation. Many teachers are having to spend much of their time writing down and filling out countless forms to prove something is wrong with a student academically or emotionally. You have to jump through hoop after hoop just to get a student some help. It could take years for diagnosis or services to be given all because you have to spend weeks and months documenting. I am not saying I don't believe that DATA talks. I do. I think teachers should analyze student work and see weaknesses and strengths. I just think we should be able to do it in a smaller time frame. Children need help. We don't have time to wait countless months.

4. Educational reform has come to bring change but along the way I think we have lost the glamour of learning. So much is being required from not only teachers but from students that everyone feels the stress of day to day learning. Every year my goal is to build a classroom that feels safe, where students are not afraid to share opinions, stories, thoughts, and questions, where learning is hands on, where it is ok to not know all the answers. So much emphasis has been on this type of environment but then all of the other weighs so much.

I might not be the norm, but I have a tendency to forget all the junk and just focus on the important thing: my students. Many other people don't have that luxury. I have to be honest and say I feel like every year that confidence dwindles a little. It is hard to be student focus when you know so many other things are going to try to get in the way and they are coming down from people that control your job.

I want to be a mover and a shaker (my aunt Debbie uses that term sometimes). I want to be someone that speaks out for change. Waiting for Superman????? Here I am and I know several other teachers that are "Superman." The good ones/heroes aren't just in private and charter schools. There are good ones in public schools. I hope that people don't walk away from this movie and think that public education is terrible and there aren't any good teachers. I hope it is an enlightening movie that challenges people to think about education differently. I hope it challenges them to be the superman. We have to be the change. If you see something that isn't good for kids, you have to be the change in your school. If a parent doesn't agree with something, do something about it. We all have voices. I don't have answers to how the educational issues around us can be solved. I wish I did. I think there are many things that have a role but I will save that for another post. We can all be movers and shakers. Ultimately if we put up enough fight, we can all be Superman.