Enduring and Evolving Emotions about Education

I'm a student and teacher of life and love. I love learning and teaching. I miss teaching kids like I once did and I miss being around wonderful people who, for the most part, dare to care hard. More than anything, I'm grateful I got to experience what it was like to be part of a school community. As an adult, I learned to love school in a way I never did as a kid.

To me, a school is so much more than just where we go every day to give, receive, facilitate, and/or support academic instruction. It is a place where kids and adults become and create. And it's on us, ALL OF US, to help make it great!

Much of a school's success has to do with school culture and how much buy-in there is from all stakeholders involved. But is school culture prioritized? Sadly, it is NOT.

School culture is something that we, as educators, may talk about a lot, but struggle mightily to understand. Generally speaking, when we discuss school culture, it's often most equated with and measured by student behavior. Most efforts in the culture bucket have to do more with minimizing unwanted student behavior to maximize learning time. That means that, more often than not, the focus is creating systems of reward and deterrence. Sadly, poorly implemented strategies to improve student behavior, even when not intentionally set up to be this way, often end up being reactive and punitive.

As teachers, we're taught that classroom management has to do mostly with how much control we have over student behavior as we work through lesson activities. Is everyone engaged in the lesson? Do students appear to respect you and listen to you? Are they respectful of each other, of their classroom, and of their learning time? But the style and approach used by teachers to gain "control" of their spaces varies and while some are better than others, all likely have their merits and drawbacks. Nevertheless, it's all judged in the same subjective and mostly ineffective ways.

We're given rubrics to assess our own teaching competencies and our students' work, but most revolve around student academic performance. When determining teacher aptitude, we pay attention to content knowledge, instructional delivery, and managerial skills and rarely consider the individual teacher's strengths, motivations, and passions outside of their teaching role that could be tapped more intentionally to help in their professional development. We're asked to differentiate instruction for our students and meet them where they're at, but administrators don't differentiate in the same way for their teachers.

Traditional Ed programs and alternative teacher trainings try to cram everything they think we need to know into however many semesters of student-teaching are required. It's never enough time though and often the training is not a match to whatever assignment you ultimately get. Training with kindergarteners and then learning you're teaching 4th graders, for example, will likely leave you feeling unprepared. Why? Because you are.

But, truth be told, nothing fully prepares you for stepping into a classroom and realizing YOU are responsible for everyone and everything in it. Whether it's 8, 15, 35, or 90 students on your roster(s), the kids in your class are yours for however long you have them each day. It's too much for some, for sure, but with some differentiated assistance and mentoring many more teachers would thrive. And, of course, paying teachers their worth goes along way too. We know this, but instead of investing in teachers for real, we expect them to stick around even though they're struggling to survive.

I believe we should open up new and more avenues to recruit and retain qualified talent because we're losing way too many teachers these days and things don't exactly look bright for the field of Education post COVID. Those who stick with it the longest and practice to hone their craft, get better. The vets in the field that are good become master teachers and administrators; for them, it's obviously a calling. But too many of us, either burn out or just decide the environment we're in is not where we can shine as bright as we'd like; perhaps because we've been told "no, it can't be done" one too many times.

Some stay or go depending on what works best for them, but the students are the ones that lose out in the end. Either teachers with untapped potential leave too soon before they hit their stride or they linger biding their time even though they no longer feel inspired, relevant, or impactful. Either way, it sucks for the kids because they're left with fewer adults they know and trust who are invested in their learning.

Given my own experience as a student, teacher, and administrator, I have plenty to say about K-12 education and how/what I would love it to be for everybody. But for now, I just want to fan girl over a new show I discovered today and encourage you to watch it. You might learn something.

Abbott Elementary, is a new sitcom in the style of The Office, complete with its very own Pam and Jim. There appears to be a slow brewing romance up ahead between Ms. Teagues and Mr. Eddie (Janine & Gregory), two young Black teachers in the early stages of their careers. The whole thing makes me giddy as I, like many of you, am a fan of The Office, American edition. And, like some of you, I am thrilled to be living in a time with more representation on television; where a Black romance is front and center and an openly queer teacher can be himself without having to overcome the usual bigotry.

This ABC series found on Hulu came out late last year and I'm only 3 episodes into the first and current season, but I've been rolling and LOL-ing since the start. Everyone feels familiar to me in some way, the main adult characters as well as the kids. And the storylines are very relatable; it's as simple as that.

As a former public middle school teacher in North Philly, I looooooove that this centers a Philly school and Philly people. The regional vernacular, the pre-teen skill and stamina for roasting, especially newbie teachers, as well as the general attitudes about the School District of Philadelphia are all spot-on. The show is FUNNY!

As as administrator at an elementary charter school in Little Rhody, I appreciate seeing some of what takes place for the cohort of educators that teach primary grades. All teaching requires a lot of energy, but the physical, mental, and emotional demands can be a bit different depending on the grade and age group and depending on the type of school you're in, one with or without adequate funding.

Abbott Elementary is definitely the latter and it showcases some of the struggles teachers in underfunded schools face today, but it also shows the resilience, creativity, and THE LOVE they bring to the job every day!!!

Thank you, Quinta Brunson, for this gift! You and the rest of your crew are necessary! I look forward to seeing what and how y'all tackle some of the big issues that plague our education system today.