TEACHER PREJUDICE: THE CEMENT THAT BURIES

Recently, Colman McCarthy, the Director of the Center for Peace in Washington DC, told students to confront their boring teachers. This man, who is deeply compassionate about peace and making this a better society, actually believes that our teachers are boring by choice. Unaware of the phenomenon of teacher abuse and its impact on teachers, he attributes behavior that is in reality an exhibition of tortured souls trying to survive in this jungle or organized crime, to teacher failure. Granted, not all teachers have good intentions, but I would venture to say that the majority of people, who choose teaching with its low paying salary, do so to make a difference. They come to teaching with love in their hearts, soon becoming lifeless bodies, going through the motions. No one told them what teaching was really like. Even their university professors mislead them into thinking teaching is a decision making position, where children's needs are the focus. For many of us, it felt like we were shipped off into another continent, tricked into becoming prostitutes, with our bosses acting like pimps, ordering us to perform. Team playing was used to force us to do what we didn't think was right. Professionalism was used to keep us silent. We became shells of ourselves if we submitted, or targets of abuse if we didn't.

Teaching is not a boring profession. It attracts people who are animated, wanting to perform for children. It attracts people who have a belief in their ability to help children grow. With the exception of those who zero in on the possibilities in administration where they can make good salaries and hold exceptional power without strong skills or status degrees, the profession is filled with people holding varying degrees of idealism about life, children, and the profession. If they were simply "boring" people disinterested in relating to others, they could hide behind paperwork as accountants, or do research as scientists. NAPTA believes they become boring when they turn off their spirits to be good team players and subservient order takers to an agenda that has no resemblance to the one that attracted them to this profession in the first place. Trapped by the handcuffs of having limited skills for other professions, and the disillusionment that their chosen profession is a sham, most count out their years operating as shadows of themselves. Thus burned out, lazy, boring, and other descriptors commonly associated with teachers surface, with few outsiders having any clue as to what happened to the people who had once approached teaching with a joy for life.

Hearing a compassionate man such as McCarthy believe the solution to this problem is to have students confront boring teachers, pointed out to me how desperately our society needs to know about teacher abuse. The public is in the dark from our greatest intellectuals, to our parents who frequent the schools. And the few who know the truth have succumbed to the sense of futility that is wrapped around the system.

"If work does not gladden me in these ways, I need to consider laying it down. When I devote myself to something that does not flow from my identity, that is not integral to my nature, I am most likely deepening the world's hunger rather than helping to alleviate it."

"Teaching, like any truly human activity, emerges from one's inwardness, for better or worse. As I teach, I project the condition of my soul onto my students, my subject, and our way of being together. The entanglements I experience in the classroom are often no more or less than the convolutions of my inner life. Viewed from this angle, teaching holds a mirror to the soul." Parker J. Palmer, The Courage to Teach

The mirrors to teachers' souls are telling us there is a vast emptiness even though their voices are telling us nothing. Cheating children of their rights does not "flow flow from the identity of most teachers." Lying to parents is not integral to their natures. Teachers are "deepening the world's hunger", but it was never their intention. Fear of abuse disconnects their ability to critically think about alternatives; well financed tactics maintain layer upon layer of safeguards that keep teachers from thinking they have a chance to stand up to their enslaving leaders. It is bad enough that the administrations are so tyrannical. But given that the unions, the most powerful lobbyists in Washington, hold a whip over the teachers as they bow to the administrators, since they prioritize staying in business over doing the business for which they were created, there is not even a faint glimmer of a way out for teachers. Unions that support teacher abuse are the insurance policy that business as usual can and will go on and on.

Even more commonly than boring, teachers are described as lazy. The public has no idea about the amount of work dumped on teachers as a strategy to keep them from even considering making any noise about any issues at the school. Below are letters written by two of our teachers, neither realizing that she had signed her death notice with the statements she put in writing.

To Venette Biancalana, Principal

6/2/95
Dear Vinni,

I just want to update you on SIPS in relation to our conversation after our April staff meeting at which time I expressed concern that our grade level had at least 21 - 24 hours of work to complete before the results were due on June 2. At that time you stated that I must be miscalculating what was expected and you indicated that partial paragraphs that still needed to be typed were acceptable. (I had thought we needed finished forms at that time.) I have just completed those quick, "messy" paragraphs for my share of fourth grade SIPS due this year (we split the three subjects up so that we could work independently) and I have spent 14 hours plus. They were quickly and somewhat messily done to expedite the process. My estimate of seven - eight hours per fourth grade teacher was considerably low and you had thought it was high.

Furthermore, this amount of work is simply what was left after having put in many, many hours previously. This was in addition to time spent administering and grading assessments throughout the year. I have kept up with these duties diligently all year. Considering that I work a minimum of 55 hours per week on regular classroom issues, this has compromised my ability to be effective in the classroom. As you know, I am willing to work hard and have done so throughout my years at Avoca. However, I believe the excessive nature of this assignment impacts on my primary mission as a teacher and that the Board needs to know the real extent of this demand on the teachers, particularly in light of the desire to include PEP in the classroom. Because you were so certain that this assignment was far less time consuming, I would assume the Board reflects that thinking. I am writing this to inform you of the actual time involved so more realistic plans can be made for the remainder of the SIPS. I hope that you can help control the workload so as to help us continue to be effective teachers in the classroom. Would you please share this information with the Board so that it will impact on their decision making both in terms of SIPS or any other additional duties such as enrichment that they expect teachers to have time to complete? I appreciate your assistance in this matter since I want to continue to be an effective teacher and I am aware that this increased responsibility for the former PEP students will consume additional time next year. As a member of the PEP Review Committee, I want to assure the success of our new program, assuming it is put into place as per our recommendations.

Sincerely,

Karen Horwitz

SIPS refers to the state improvement plan for which the district had 288 tests the fourth grade teachers were to administer and record, in addition to writing paragraphs describing the type of each test. They had 180 days of school. How were they to administer 288 tests? You do the math. Then in early May, they were told about writing the paragraphs. There was at least one evening where Horwitz stayed up all night to complete the assignment. She wrote that letter extremely distressed that they were being assigned this busy work that only some districts completed; it appeared that their administration had no concern for their time. In time Horwtiz grew to understand the purposefulness in keeping teachers busy. It was a great control tactic that eliminated time to think about how ridiculous things were at their school. Meanwhile, while they were buried in this assignment, some parents probably felt they didn't attend to their child's needs because they were too lazy or didn't care. Not wanting to disappoint any parents, Horwitz made sure that she attended to both the busy work and the children. Some teachers refused to work those long hours, and frankly no one can blame them. But the parents did. And the administrators achieved the tension they needed for business as usual.

Steven A. Sanchez, Director
Curriculum, Instruction, and Learning Technologies
New Mexico Department of Education
300 Don Gaspar
Santa Fe, NM 87501

ssanchez@sde.state.nm.us
URL: http://sde.state.nm.us
Voice: 505-827-6574
505-827-3644
FAX: 505-827-6694

-----Original Message-----
From: Goodman [mailto:mcdarlene@abq.com]
Sent: Friday, October 05, 2001 12:53 AM
To: Sanchez, Steven
Subject: Los Lunas Schools chaos

I spoke to ******** last night. I hope **** had time to contact you. ****, like most of the teachers in this district, is very disturbed about the actions of our administrators. All of the teachers are especially upset about being told to write out every standard and every benchmark for every lesson for every day. I told them that I had spoken to you, and such nonsense is not state mandated. I spoke to schools in Artesia, Albuquerque, Mountainair, and to Mayfield High. No principal is requesting such a waste of time. However, our teachers are all too frightened to speak up, and are so hopeful that the visit from the State Dpt. of Ed. will result in changes. I will be fired in about a month, three months short of my earliest allowed retirement. It is a foregone conclusion, although the final inquisition has not yet been held. I am being used as an example to other emplyees in the district. We have lost 13 teachers at the high school since April, including Marsha. She can vouch for my honesty. We have been friends for 14 years. My classes have not had a teacher all year. Whatever warm body is available baby-sits my classes. Parents did not know until I started making calls this week. They promise to be at next week's meeting, but I am not counting on it. I have been told that cafeteria workers in this district haven't received their 8% raise yet. One of the workers tried to organize all cafeteria staff to investigate, but terror won out. Many of them do not speak English, and they are very intimidated by administrators, as are Mexican national students at the high school. I have sealed my fate by speaking to parents and to so many of you, but something must be done. I will never understand why board members, parent, administrators, teachers, and students can't work together for education. We should be able to sit at a round table as equals, sharing ideas and concerns. We could call it PIE, for Partners in Education! Ha! Mr. Burnett and Mr. Henington would rather die that speak to teachers as equals. And we are told that we should NEVER speak to board members! Thank you for listening. Darlene Goodman

Goodman and I didn't meet until 2002, yet we were on the same wave length trying to make it known that our administrators were abusing their staffs with excessive busy work that was unnecessary. The same qualities that brought us together as partners for making education right for our children, led to our terminations. From one of the most educated and affluent zip codes in the nation, to the economically challenged Wild West, the same abusive practices were in place to sabotage teachers' ability to operate as professionals, prioritizing work according to importance. Parents had no clue about the demands upon us if we knew what was good for us. Therefore, when we failed to meet a deadline or fulfill one of our parents requests, they figured we were just lazy. They still do. How convenient.

Another factor that has increasingly impacted teacher image is testing. Our government, under the leadership of George Bush, has increased the emphasis on standardized testing as the measure of accountability in the schools. If our government understood the corruption in our schools that was resulting in less than desirable test scores, they might realize how detrimental this plan is. Administrations are already putting undue pressure on teachers for better scores. This has resulted in focus on teaching to the test regardless of its lack of advisability or even ethics. Educational leaders all over the country are holding teachers' accountable for scores that are needed without making any substantial changes in the effectiveness of teaching methods, the type of people teaching, or the state of mind of teachers.

At a recent townhall meeting held by the Illinois Congressman Mark Kirk, a teacher who served as a science teacher facilitator, stood and spoke of her dismay about how teachers are not willing to listen to her instruction as to how to enhance their science teaching. She pointed out they are living in fear of the tests and not wanting to learn new methods; they simply want to teach the material that will be on the tests. Her mention of teacher fear indicated that teacher abuse must be in place at her school or the teachers would not feel that emotion. If our schools were about careful curriculum, purchasing texts because they explained the subject matter more effectively, professional growth for teachers, and regard for individual differences, teachers wouldn't have to teach to the tests. Rather than make our schools authentic opportunities for children to grow, our administrators ignore curriculum issues, purchase texts with the best financial rewards, drown teachers in busy work so they won't have time to complain and force teachers to run cookie cutter classrooms ignoring individual difference, which might take money from administrators' pockets. .

Obviously, this deficient management results in lower scores. The solution is to blame it on teachers and put them in a position where they will appear to be even less effective. The bottom line is that shoving multiple topics down children's throats right before a test is a useless waste of energy. Children do not learn that way. Perhaps the administrators figure that if they terrorize the teachers efficiently, the teachers will do what they have to do to increase the test scores. We wonder if that was the subtle message underlying their accusatory language and threats that scores needed to improve. It wouldn't surprise us since low scores generally mean more scrutiny. Then again, low scores can mean more federal money for the schools. Terrorizing teachers might just bring about the kind of scores greedy administrators want. It is hard to discern their motives other than that they are not designed with the children in mind.

Around the country, schools are ignoring sound child development advice that kindergartners can only be attentive for twenty minutes at a time, loading them with heavy academic schedules to assure good test results. Teachers are following inappropriate pedagogical practices without openly complaining. Parents are increasingly annoyed that teachers are so "stupid." Meanwhile, teacher robots are following orders and proving to parents they are not professionals with knowledge of practices appropriate to age and curriculum. As testing increases, teacher status decreases. Considering status was extremely low already, this is a disastrous course for teachers. But you won't hear them complain, justify or hold their superiors accountable. I think you know why by now - teacher abuse.

Another source of teacher prejudice emanates from the teacher colleges that are lowering their standards to accommodate students with less ability. It appears they have no choice since teachers are in demand and students are not flocking to earn degrees that lead to low paying jobs. Rather than maintain high standards and put pressure on the districts to prioritize expenditures so there will be more money for teacher salaries, they oblige the districts and put staying in business first. Like the administrators, they too want to RIDE THE GRAVY TRAIN.

Top

MORE POLITICS