The Grade-Level Model

"Expensive and experienced teachers tend to be resistant to new curriculum and teaching methods."

I was on a thread where someone was making the argument that older teachers simply weren't worth keeping around.

As to the expensive part.  Yeah, nowadays I am on the top of the pay scale.  I no longer have the financial stress that I was under for decades.  Starting teacher pay is LOW, and raising a family on it is crazy.  Besides, most professional pay STARTS at what an older teacher makes.  So, I find the first point to be overstated.

But on to the more important 2nd point.  It is not that older teachers are resistant; it's that we rarely see anything that is really new.  What we don't have is that excited puppy dog reaction to the latest whoop-de-doo the district and state switch us over to every few months.  We have a sense of history.  We know that the implementation of procedure or curriculum X has more to do with job security up the line than it does with producing results in the classroom.

It is hard to do something really new in an industry that has been around for 150 years.  Our system grew out of the industrial revolution and was based on a production line model.  It was a massive improvement in a time when K-12 was being taught by a single teacher.

Want new?  I say ditch the grade level system.  Everything in our present model is designed around teaching certain concepts at a certain age.  But kids aren't widgets.  We struggle to gain ground in our system because kids are massively different.  But we keep them all on the same track.

Each year I have 2nd graders who are spread out from Clifford the Big Red Dog to Harry Potter.  I have students who are bored to tears with 2nd grade math while others wrestle with single-digit addition.  I work in a relatively homogeneous school.  Most schools in America are dealing with much wider variances.  For many students in our schools, the grade-level model is moving way too fast or much too slow.  I contend that most of our behavior issues are a result of being in a placement that does not fit.

I get what it is like to be in a place where everthing is moving too fast.  I started theater about 20 years ago in a company that focused on musicals.  I didn't know I could sing and I loved it.  I actually got to do solos!

The problem is, musicals tend to involve choreography.  If physical dyslexia is a thing, I have it.  It takes eveything in me just to remember basic blocking.  Keeping up with dozens of people dancing in a musical number?  Ouch!  I remember during one live show turning left when I was supposed to go right and ending up in a completely different group.  The guy next to me mouthed, "What are you doing here?"  I sheepishly replied that I had no idea. 🙂

Over the years, I drifted into a company that had more straight play opportunities.  But that is the thing, as an adult I had options.  Students rarely do.

Paper Law Vs Trial Law

Bad management theory is rampant in education.

There is a scene in one of the greatest movies of all time, A Few Good Men, where Demi Moore's character continues to make objections after she was overruled. Her co-counsel blows up at her after the court session-

Weinberg:

I strenuously object? Is that how it works? Objection. Overruled! No, no, no... I strenuously object! Oh, I should reconsider then!

Galloway:

I got it on the record.

Weinberg:

You got the court thinking we're afraid of the doctor. Christ, you even had the judge saying he was an expert! You object once, so we can say he's not a criminologist. You keep after it, our cross looks like a bunch of fancy lawyer tricks. It's the difference between paper law and trial law!

In education, there are too many cooks in the kitchen.  School boards, state legislatures, suits in the district office... all weighing in on how classrooms should function.  I can't tell you how many professional development sessions I have sat through over the decades where the presenter had little to no classroom experience. 

Paper law versus trial law. 

I remember reading an article when doing my grad work about a management theorist who took over a classroom to demonstrate the implementation of his theories. He gave up after a month when he realized he couldn't control the class. He still insisted his theories were valid. He just couldn't implement them.  His "trial law" experience didn't change his "paper law" outlook, so he probably went on to teach them in professional development sessions.

Too Many Cooks

Most school districts and states send down a fire hose of professional development.

Teachers are drowning in meetings, readings, data tracking, videos, and PowerPoint presentations.  And I think, from commentary I hear from teachers in other states and districts, that I deal with a fraction of what many are stacked with. 

At the start of the year, I usually have some ideas of new things I would like to try. But, invariably, all of my mental bandwidth gets sucked up into some "new" procedure or program. 

It is like you are trying to cook a turkey, but there are four other people in the kitchen who want to open the oven every 5 minutes to see if it is done.  When you tell them you have to leave the oven alone so that the turkey can cook, they heartily agree. But a few moments later, one of them gets nervous and has to open the oven again. 

There are way too many cooks in the educational kitchen.

Older Teachers

One of the hard parts of being an older teacher is to not come off as cynical.  This is difficult, because the system is set up to make you look that way.

Have you ever seen a plumbline?  It is a weight on a string. You can push it out, and it will swing back.  It can swing out anywhere in 360 degrees, but the string limits how far it will go.

The swing back and forth represents education's move from this program to that program.  For folks who have been in education less than 10 years, that swing to the 45-degree mark looks "new".  They want to give it a go, because the 100% success rate they have been longing for was not achieved in the "old" program.

This is when it is hard being an older teacher.  I have seen that swing occur three times already, but nothing positive comes from me saying that.

I remember my first staff meeting clearly.  A new program was being introduced.  The seasoned teacher beside me sighed.  She leaned over and told me this was not going to bring the results the district trumpeted.  I didn't think she might have a point; I thought, "Y'know if you are not willing to try anything new... maybe you should retire."  To me, it was a shiny new bobble!  To her, it was an old one that had been polished up.

After 34 years, I know a program... is a program.  Some are a little better, some a little worse, but none are a magic bullet.  There are too many variables.  The biggest variable is the student.

Some students have an aptitude for a subject.  They go over the math facts a few times and they are understood.  Locked and loaded.  Others struggle, but they (and/or their parents) are willing to put in the study and practice to be successful.

Then you have the third group.  They struggle... and they have little interest in putting in any effort.  For the teacher, this is like being in a three-legged race and the student lies on the ground... sometimes pulling in the opposite direction.

That isn't to say that such a student is doomed to failure in life.  They may have dozens of talents, aptitudes, and interests... they just don't fall into academic categories.  I have seen many of these kids go on to wildly successful lives.  Schools just tend to be obsessive about academics.

All that to say, as an older teacher, I just find myself smiling and nodding a lot.

We Don't "Got This"

Things changed about 25 years ago. 

During district meetings, if a teacher brought up how we should be involving the family, district folks and admin started to say -

"Well, we can't control that, so let's talk about what we can control."

It was a subtle, but tectonic shift.

On the face, there was a certain logic to it. We can't control what families do, this is true.

However, the practical upshot was that families started to interpret this as... "Don't worry about educating your child, we got this."

But we don't.  We don't got this.

Over the years, more and more kids arrived at school without foundational pieces in place.  Joey could read Dr. Seuss but Jimmy didn't even know his letters.  Sally has been read to nightly since infancy, but Sarah never experienced a book until she came to kindergarten.

Reading proficiency rates dropped like a rock through a wet paper bag.  Fingers were pointed every which way.  It was the whole-language debacle!  Phonics will fix this!  We need better instructional practices!

Every solution has been tried (repeatedly) except the most obvious one.  

America and its schools need to communicate to parents that their involvement is pivotal.  It is not optional and we will not be ok without it.

We don't "got this."  

Parents do.  

Until that is the reality we face, we will continue to rearrange chairs on the Titanic.