Lately I’ve
begun to feel like one of those dreadful curmudgeons, crossed arms, curled lip,
jaded eye, slouched in the back of required meetings. I’m trying to be
positive. I love teaching. I love the students. I love the challenge that each
day brings. I love puzzling at the end of the day over the children, thinking
about how I can engage Janie in the story we are reading or support Andrew in fractions
or work with Sandra and Linda to solve the burbling dispute between them. I
love designing next step lessons, building on what captured students’
imaginations, adding more steps where they were confused, creating multiple
pathways when needed to meet diverse needs and places where we’ll converge
again as a community. It’s challenging. It’s stimulating. It’s joyful. It’s exhausting.
I can’t
help wishing, though, that someone finally would say, good heavens, let us help
teachers. They spend the whole day in one small room with thirty children! They
try so hard to teach each of those children beautifully every day! How can we
help? What do they need?
Instead, we
are always bombarded by more that we
need to do. This year, we have a new curriculum, modernized, we’re told,
to respond to the new world of constant change. There are new core competencies
– communication, thinking, and personal and social competencies – as well as
new curricular competencies, big ideas and learning standards for each of the
content areas. I am supposed to make sure that what I do matches these new
ideas. Connected to this is an experimentation in new reporting procedures. “The ultimate goal,” the
Minister of Education tells us, “is to develop a student reporting process that
gives families a deeper understanding of their child’s progress at school
through timely and comprehensive information.” In my district, this means that I need to share
with parents “authentic evidence of learning” with “explicit reference to
learning standards,” including “descriptive feedback” of how students are doing
and “student voice” – their reflection or their description of “where they are
in the learning process” – a minimum of 8 times this year as part of “ongoing
communication.” In addition, I must write two report cards with comments and,
rather than letter grades, include a sliding scale on levels of competency from
“beginning” to “extending.”
None of these
changes are bad, particularly. Somewhere out there people have worked very hard
in meeting rooms around long tables with chart paper and coloured pens, coffee
and muffins on the side table to sustain them and assorted sandwiches at lunch.
They’ve consulted experts, reviewed the research, and created comprehensive
documents complete with coloured charts and appendices.
Yet as I
scramble to figure out these new changes, attend meetings, try new programs (we
have, as well, a new attendance program, a new online portfolio program, an
upcoming requirement to add coding lessons), my attention to the children is necessarily
fractured. My time is not infinite. I try not to be angry. I try not to think
about the millions of dollars spent on these changes.
Still, I
can’t help but imagine, sometimes, what it would be like if even a fraction of
that funding were spent on what teachers need, if instead of creating documents
to tell us what they need us to do differently (whoever they are, these people
who sit comfortably somewhere and have ideas), they came to us to find out what
we need instead. Imagine, oh, imagine, a team coming to our school, setting up
a space with coffee and muffins, offering us assorted sandwiches at lunch (oh,
the luxury!) and time (time!) to sit and ponder with them about the challenges
and progress, the obstacles and advantages, the small things that would make a
big difference, the resources that would help us move forward. Imagine how it
would feel to go back into the classroom (as much as I love teaching, it is
hard, hard work and there are days when it all seems impossible). Imagine,
then, the bounce in our step, the feeling that we are not alone, that we are
appreciated (muffins!) and listened to as though our opinion counted, and
supported as though our work mattered.
