from: Public School Insights
I recently joined a group of teacher leaders at a national symposium for teacher leadership. The Center for Teacher Leadership held the conference in my home city of Richmond, VA so I was excited to present but, I was even more excited to meet some amazing teacher leaders from around the country. Among those teacher leaders were Kenneth Bernstein, Nancy Flanagan, and Lori Nazareno the keynote speaker. Lori talked about how ten years ago she was “just a teacher”. She encouraged the audience to let go of that notion of “just” and embrace the powerful position of teacher leader, someone who can change lives.
It seemed like what Lori was trying to say is, “If you are ‘just a teacher’ you will never be able to reach beyond those classroom walls with your influence. If you are a ‘capital T Teacher’ your reach is as far as your imagination.” For a long time educators have tried to explain the importance of the situated reality that we swim in as teachers in public schools. We don’t choose our students, our working conditions, our funding streams, or our health care system. We try to influence these things but, addressing the crippling affects of structural poverty are nearly impossible within the context of the daily interactions with students. We would need to change the idea of what schools are if we are going to really put our money where our mouth is and address the achievement gap. Many teachers like Lori are trying to do that but, it would be a lot easier if they had some help on the context side of public schooling.
Recently a shift has begun in that context approach to school reform. Policy makers are finally beginning to acknowledge the context of schools in their programs and policies. Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem Children’s Zone is one such approach. I think his approach has worked because it is locally grown and structured to address a particular community’s needs. Another such effort is taking place in Boston. Recently Claus von Zastrow interviewed some educators in the schools participating in the Boston College project called City Connects: Optimized Student Support. The collaboration between Boston College, local institutions, community partners and teachers to meet the needs of the “whole child” is making significant changes in how school is done in Boston. Every child is embedded within a family, school, neighborhood, and city context that influences their life prospects. If we really want to transform our schools into something better by 2030 we need to look out the window and out or the box for solutions.
Image from: http://www.learningfirst.org/helping-whole-child-view-two-schools
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Wise thoughts, John. It calls to mind the ideas explored by you and your co-authors in the upcoming book “Teaching 2030″ — where you describe future hybrid roles for teacher leaders that assure not only high quality learning in virtual space but high functioning brick and mortar schools that are totally “in context.” Is it impossible for America to create safe, full service environments where families are supported, kids are healthy, and everyone is excited to learn and grow? The Boston story is one more hopeful whisper.
John. I love Lori’s ideas about the “Capitial T” Teacher….and the fact that in our book we call for 600,000 teacherpreneurism well before 2030 in order to transform teaching into the profession that students deserve.
I really like your use of the words “situated reality” John; struck me as a great description. This discussion, about the complicated problem of educating students with very different life experiences, is a perfect example of our country’s desperate need for elevated teacher voices.
John,
Your thoughts resonated so beautfiully with what I have always felt, to be proud of being educators, and brag every chance we can about what a difference we can make in the lives of our students. We can optimize the support we give our students as Von Zastrow describes, and take a page from a 52-year veteran colleague and friend. (Yes, she’s been teaching 52 years and is still passionate about her teaching and her students). “I teach whoever is in front of me.” What she leaves out is she doesn’t look at her students as “the poor kid,” “the one whose dad is in jail,” or “the one with autism.” She looks at each child as an individual person, meets them at their level and brings out their potential. We all need to look a the whole child now and in the future. I think of Maslow’s Hierarcy of Needs and how crucial it is to feed and nurutre our students.
[...] Connects was also recently featured on the Future of Teaching blog as an example of a positive shift that is catching on in the context of school [...]