The following was a blog that was published on Kentucky Teacher recently. You can read the piece in its entirety here, or the see the edited version by following this link...http://www.kentuckyteacher.org/guest-columnist/2014/10/balancing-choreography-and-calling-in-the-classroom/
Perhaps I am in the midst of an early onset
of a midlife crisis because Sunday night, I did something absolutely ridiculous
for any self-respecting teacher. I went to a concert…for fun…on a school night...three
hours away. Not to worry, excessive amounts of coffee, overcompensation of
enthusiasm, and a lesson plan I’d been anxious to teach for a while got me
successfully through Monday, but it was the concert that really got me to
thinking about our profession.
I saw an artist that I had seen a few other
times….years before the world really knew his name. Somewhat of a groupie even
before he became famous, I traveled to see him at tiny little venues so small
that spectators could end up sitting crisscross applesauce at his feet while he
strummed the guitar and met the wee hours with his deep lyrics and raspy
melodic voice. And then experience ran
its course…or took its toll. The records
began to sell, the fame began to hit, and the funds began to transform the way
he “did concerts.” Sunday night there were lights of every hue, choreography
for dancing that simply couldn’t have been the idea of that artist whose name
appeared on my ticket, back-up singers and instrumentalists, and all the bells
and whistles that could get one nominated for the prestigious entertainer of
the year. And yet…something – an authenticity of sorts - seemed to be missing.
The part of him that had drawn me to his stage in the first place got lost in
the shadow of all the things that were designed to make him better. The purity
of a raw artist simply doing what he was clearly so gifted and called to do had
been lost in the midst of improvements.
In the field of education, our success
often takes the form of change. We change
standards and add programs. We implement technology, update curriculum, and
create formative, summative, informative, and reformative assessments to test
our theories of change. We stop, collaborate, and listen….and we implement the
suggestions that we are given by peers, administrators, students and families.
We PD360 it, and then we sometimes 180 it as we finally understand that “opposite
day” that our kiddos are always talking about might really be the best day for
us as well. We conference and Tweet and post and Pin, and then we blog so
others will know of the best conferences and Tweets and posts and Pins. We subscribe and read and scroll and listen
and watch. Goodness knows the children that we serve are also changing with
each passing year, and we strive simply to keep up with the characteristics of
the lives they bring into our rooms each day. We do it all in the name of
excellence and getting better, and yet, sometimes, in the midst of it all, we lose
the reason we set out to do this in the first place. That raw talent or
strength of calling that once helped give us our identity among our students
gets thrown out with last year’s curriculum and outdated assessments. The aspects of our career that once drove our
passion get replaced with strategies to transform the way we “do school.”
Change
is good….it is crucial to our success, in fact. As a writing teacher, though, I
tell my students that with every revision, they must still remain true to themselves.
As teachers, we must keep that same truth in mind as we change and adapt and
transform. If a teacher’s strength is a personality that creates an environment
where students want to be, then we can’t let that personality get jaded by
reform. If the calling is that of service to children and families, we can’t
watch that heart for service be replaced by a necessity to lead them simply to
perform. If there is love for content and a passion for delivering it, that
passion can’t fade into the background of a new program that offers solutions
for more uniformed ways of teaching.
Perhaps
in the coming years as teachers complete their self-reflections and professional
growth plans for PGES, we should choose an aspect of our career not because we
have never implemented it, but because there once was a time when we did. About halfway through the concert Sunday
night, the fancy lights were dimmed, the band exited the stage, and the artist
stepped forward with no choreography or extras….just his guitar and those
lyrics that were once enough…and the crowd metaphorically fell crisscross
applesauce at his feet to hang on every word. He did his thing, to himself he
stayed true, and my hope for balanced improvement was restored. Find that
calling, teachers….it’s still in there, and it’s still needed. May we continue
to let it burn brighter than even the best choreographed reforms.
