Voice of Some Teachers...

The voice of the teachers as represented by quotes you get from Loretta Johnson or Marietta English may not adequately represent what teachers think about the situation, so I thought I'd pass on some background (at least from one teacher). Excuse me for numbering it, but it will help me keep track of these thoughts:

1. The BTU is fairly inept, in many of our views. We really have no choice in aligning with them, and most veterans have heard a lot of rhetoric but seen little results. They take over $600 annually from us, and we get very little in turn from them. And there is no choice, for if we don't join, they will still take the equivalent from us in agency fees.
   
2. There is, apparently, a lot of discrepancy in the planning period issue. I cannot speak for the Elementary or Middle School educators-- I hear they don't get very much planning time at all. But at least in my corner of the high school world, we get 2 periods per day or 45 minutes, plus a lunch period. The 2 periods amounts then to 450 minutes per week. This probably is on par with the surrounding areas for secondary, but I'm not an expert. How is this time spent? Well it could vary, but it also is dependent on whether the planning time is contiguous. Usually the first 10-15 minutes is devoted to "mopping up" from the previous teaching cycle. Recording attendance, notes about student performance, classroom differences in the lesson, changing a light bulb, picking up trash or re-shelving books, or straightening the room. These are management issues that when you teach a 45 minute period are often difficult to negotiate without breaking the flow of the lesson. And there is virtually no support at the classroom level. Very few teachers get aides anymore in an age when most of the student's time is taken up in academics (as it should be)-- but there was a time when this happened, and much of the structure or thinking may still reflect this time. Interns? no... Custodians barely touch my room. They basically empty the trash, and maybe once per week sweep the classroom. Recently I asked the custodial staff if they could wash the tops of my desks, because after over a month they're getting dirty and are becoming breeding grounds for germs. This is probably not going to happen, so as usual, I will spend at least 45 minutes finding hot water and filling my own bucket and using my own detergent and disinfectant and my own cleaning cloth to scrub desks. This I do usually two or three times a year, because I think it is healthier for the children. I could keep going, but the main office administrators do none of this of course, because the custodians do pay attention to them, and when they complain, they get results.
   
3. I spend a lot of time gathering materials for my lessons-- images for powerpoint, text materials for reading, because the school system does not fully fund the materials (the books I use are 8 years old and are dated, and are falling apart, and do not contain the mix of primary and secondary source materials. The ancillary materials that came with the textbooks are long gone, but that's okay with me, because I don't see a lot of value in some of these canned materials. But I know that teachers who are less creative (or not as eager, energetic) may be handicapped. But I usually spend more time planning lessons outside of the classroom, as online resources are severely handicapped by federally mandated filtering that keeps us from having any access to many online materials (including Google Images). In order to show political videos from You-Tube, I had to go through a cumbersome process of saving them onto my jump drive, because the site is blocked on line.
   
4. A lot of my time is already spent interacting professionally with colleagues. The department I work in is very professional. A real mix of skills and perspectives. Many different pedagogical styles. Lots of experience. So we talk pretty frequently-- but, this time is often limited. Because we don't all have concurrent planning periods. So while 2 of us may teach the same subject, the third who also does has a different period. Now, Dr. Alonso is correct when he talks about the research indicating that great schools practice some degree of coordinated planning. But we've had such a history of the school system mandating certain issues and imperfectly executing them. Frankly I'm very leery of any top down initiative coming from North Avenue. Too often in the past it has been a thing of wasted time. As a professional with advanced degrees in both content and a masters in teaching, I gather my own info, select articles of worth to peruse and reflect and implement in my practice. I'd rather have more access to professional journals through local university subscriptions paid for and maintained by the school system, or more articles directly print distributed (or books) then silly meetings at Lake Clifton which frequently feature more of the same (interested parties like text book companies that want to sell). Unless you have actually had to sit through some of these meetings and see how freely teacher's time is wasted so often by people trying to justify a job that has no impact on children, you won't understand (but then I'm sure at the Sun you've been through meetings plenty?)...
   
5. So I don't think that one hour is too much to give to the process of building great schools. I am skeptical about giving it to some initiative from North Avenue. But there are few people in my building who have much faith that North Avenue knows what they are doing. Several departments are already suffering through regularly mandated system initiatives (which also date to the legacy of Frank and his magazine based curriculum). The groans have increased, because these meetings don't seem to be accomplishing much. And the system has done nothing (at least to my level) in communicating how new initiatives might reshape and support us. We fear having more crap thrown at us that has no funding and is poorly conceived and poorly executed. Recently we actually had a whole staff development with a distinguished and proven urban educator, a dean at Hopkins, that presented us with really great stuff. This was better than I have seen for a while, and if we had more opportunities for the universities to support us with research based strategies instead of what so frequently is very poorly planned and random ad hoc stuff from North Avenue and their internal clients.
   
6. What sometimes is not very well understood is that schools are strange hierarchies. With a union in the wings and so many "contract" issues, typically when you look at an organizational structure, you have 1 principal, and 40-60 teachers, all generally at the same level. And there are mid management positions like department heads and assistant principals that have very little real authority over the teachers. Many organizations get things done and drive change through top down management, not leadership. This is something that North Avenue tries to do (follow a corporate model) but without the necessary leadership, and so many ineffective bureaucracies in place, the change is difficult to affect. Especially so in BCPSS. Now Dr Alonso is perhaps not sending all of the right messages. He says that he wants to have principals in charge, but then there are other conflicting things that are seeming to take away the principals ability to run the building. I understand common contract /coordination issues (like the last email I sent), but the messages are ominous and heavy (Dr. Alonso may not even be aware of all of the new urban myths that are being built about him-- how he walked into a teacher's room and sent the teacher home for five days because they were not teaching, or something like this, or that a teacher was sent home for wearing jeans, or all of the secret firings at North Avenue, etc. etc.). I don't care about any of this, but it is amazing to see this culture begin to react and try to spit him out just like Russo and Copeland and all of the others before! He has his work cut out to convince the culture that he is sincere, and that he cares for kids, because there are a lot of people in the system, teachers foremost, who do care about kids. There are some of course who are hanging around for a paycheck or retirement. Hard to get rid of them, and the last thing I want for myself (a career changing person from high executive levels in another company, fairly new to teaching) and for newer teachers than me, is get stuck in long meetings with some of the veterans who through inertia will push off work to the lower levels...this is already happening.
7. To really lead academic, student centered change, we have to change the culture. To change the culture we have to have the best principals and give them the support, and for them to get the job done they have to get the hell out of their offices and find out what is really happening in their building. But inevitably when they try to do this, it makes teachers nervous, because they are always then being critical instead of offering kudos. When this happens there is not inspiration and leadership but management and fear. And I am not convinced that there are a lot of principals in this system that can do this. And somebody said to me-- why aren't you a principal? Well-- probably anywhere else than Baltimore. And besides, I'd rather spend time in the classroom facilitating learning with kids, and I don't think that today's principal has enough time or focus to do this. Too busy reading emails from North Avenue! But realistically they do have a lot of issues to worry about from buildings and budgets and fire-drills and fires set in bathrooms and clubs and parents and personnel and cafeterias and building/grounds. All of which go into the total school climate and all of which influences how children learn.