Mentors or Morons?

I've been working with some fabulous English and history teachers in our school to reshape our seventh through tenth grade disorganized English and history programs into a well-planned humanities program. Their flexibility, thoughtfulness, knowledge and willingness to put student achievement over the ease of their planning has been encouraging - a story in itself for another day. In the process, though, we've been looking at my school district's social studies curriculum. The degree to which urban district curriculum is scripted is remarkable. Goals are pre-determined, as are all the units - including start and end dates, learning activities, assessments, and so forth.

It's as if teachers aren't trusted to be leaders or mentors at all. A mentor, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, is a "wise and trusted counselor or teacher." I want my own children's teachers to be just that. I certainly don't want them trying to reparent my children, but I want to trust them to counsel and teach with wisdom. When I am a principal, I want to hire teachers who can do the same and help draw out that ability in my staff. Apparently, school boards and city administrators don't believe in their ability to hire or foster that wisdom. Instead, they script curriculum to the extent that a robot could deliver it, or at least a robot with classroom management and discipline skills. One wonders then why the "teaching" and "learning" that takes place is just that, robotic?

My own school has significant autonomy within its district, so we manage to avoid the worst of this control, but it is what it is: the lack of trust is still there. Consider the contrast between my summer employment with a university-based program and my year round employment in an urban public district.

At the university, I have keys to office space where I can print, copy, eat, read, relax, or anything else I might want to do during the day. I also have keys to a classroom that is clean, comfortable, and well-lit. In the district, I have keys to my file cabinet. I can't access technical equipment, paper supplies, extra markers, most bathrooms, or the building itself without borrowing keys or asking permission. Should I want to enter the building, I'll walk into a crumbling building where I might find mice feces on my desk and will certainly encounter lead in all the water pipes, where there is one bathroom in the entire building I can use without the whole world knowing about it, where shades don't work, where I haven't had a working desk in three years, and where heat pumps too strong and air conditioning doesn't work at all. Perhaps I'm better off without keys.

At the university, I have a laptop that is essentially mine, where I can download whatever I need and use it as I see fit. In the district, I have a laptop - more than most teachers can say! - where I can't download a program or install a printer without an administrator over my shoulder punching in secret codes.

At the university, I'm trusted to become a better and more professional teacher and work with colleagues who are highly skilled and motivated, but I largely direct my own growth. In the district - and again my experience is far better than most urban teachers in this regard, I work with a mix of gifted and not so gifted colleagues, both those motivated and shockingly apathetic, and together we're "professionally developed," led through experiences which are mandated by the state at times but may or may not improve how we teach and rarely impacts the type of mentors that we are.

At the university, my boss never formally evaluates me, but both she and much of the program's administration is in my classroom every single day: hearing what I say, observing what I do, and available for conversation around what's going on. In the district, my boss enters my classroom a few times a year for a few minutes and almost no one understands my class enough to consult with me on what I am doing, yet now and then, I am formally evaluated. I'm not sure where I've put those evaluations, but I'm not reading them when I'm trying to improve my practice.

At the university, I enjoy free access to all-you-can-eat, quality dining and fine exercise facilities and am trusted not to abuse the privileges. In the district, the lunch lady lets me have a free milk now and then when she's not swearing at the students and I get to climb the stairs throughout the day, since we have no elevator.

At the university, I'm told that I can order whatever I need and spend whatever is necessary on field trips, and I see results to my requests immediately. Except when they're excessive, and then I'm given a thoughtful explanation to why my request can't be honored. In the district, I have no budget and no sense of what I can order. I have to plan very far ahead and work the system to get what I need and when I do receive approval for disbursement, there's sometimes a long lag time until the money or supplies show up.

The university trusts and supports me. The district does neither. It assumes my colleagues and I are morons, not mentors.

Public schools, in order to do well, don't necessarily need the lavish riches I mention in my university summer program in order to do well. The point is one of trust and support. Again, my school is a paradise in this regard compared to most urban public schools. I work in a school with some autonomy and teach under a creative headmaster who is seeking to lead our school through more humane, honorable means that honor teachers as leaders and counselors.

Still, though, I can't help but suspect that someone assumes I am a moron. Yes, moron: that offensive word coined by psychometricians in the early twentieth century to refer to an individual who could do manual labor and simple tasks but couldn't think independently or creatively beyond the level of a child. The folks who coined this word were of the same era and persuasion of our eugenicists: humane and progressive folks that they were.

Well, so often in life, we get what we ask for and our predictions fulfill themselves with ease. Assume teachers are morons and you won't trust or support them. A moron doing manual labor doesn't need support; he needs clear instructions and procedures. A moron teaching a classroom doesn't need support either and certainly doesn't deserve trust. And if that teacher truly is a moron, he'll happily and contentedly follow the rules, collect a paycheck, and take the summer off to veg out.

If that teacher is not a moron, though, than he might be subversive for a while, but sooner or later, he's out of there. Most interesting people can only stand being treated like an idiot for so long.