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9486 in the collection
Where Are the Teachers?
Breaking the rules. . . .
In her book Making the Journey, Leila Christenbury, former President of the National Council of Teachers of English, suggests that challenging the status quo—and even breaking the rules—is sometimes necessary. “If that institution called school always operated in our students’ best interest, we as teachers would not have to ever consider breaking—or bending—school rules” (90) However, as Christenbury continues, “it is part of your ethical code that you may, at some time for good reason or cause, have to move outside the regulations” (90). In the current climate of high stakes testing and NCLB rules that are oppressive and counterproductive, Christenbury’s quote becomes a call and a challenge to all of us.
In my state, Michigan, for example the issue doesn’t stop with “breaking rules” but evolves into questioning policy and becoming politically active enough to challenge an exam that is inimical to all we know about composition theory. Since 1997, the state has been administering a battery of tests in reading, social science, natural science, and writing, called the Michigan Educational Assessment Plan (MEAP) that has transformed the educational climate. Newspapers trumpet scores and school websites religiously report their successes and failures, allowing the test to determine their curriculum. What is perhaps most disconcerting about the writing exam, in particular, is its tendency to truncate the writing process and produce a population of students who fail because they are denied the time they need to revise and rework their papers. As with most standardized exams, the test is timed, devoid of student participation, and in conflict with the most fundamental ideas of process writing. Quite simply, the writing exam is antithetical to all that we have learned in the last three decades about writing. Replacing notions of process is a high-stakes format, which requires instant prose. In place of collaborative learning and the stages of writing, is an exam that excludes writers from making decisions about their work. With no mention of revisions and no time for portfolios or conferences, the test has become the legacy of our state’s former “education governor.” How, in fact, can one improve education without first listening to educators? How does one improve writing without referring to research on its process-based character? NCTE’s National Writing Initiative
http://www.ncte.org/prog/writing
attempts to answer these questions in a pedagogically sound manner.
Empty rhetoric instead of best practice is a frustrating state of affairs, yet even more vexing is the scholarship money that has been attached to our state exam. With $2500.00 being given to the highest scoring students, the test has become an unexpected windfall for the rich, to whom a majority of the money is now being awarded. Even the American Civil Liberties Union has joined the fray, suing the state over the inequities inherent in the test and labeling it an “unconscionable use of public funds.” Indeed, if there was ever a time for Thoreau-loving iconoclasts to latch onto an issue and fight for their students, this was it.
At the Michigan Council of Teachers of English annual conference that year many were looking forward to the planned panel discussion of teachers and state board members who had been invited specifically to discuss issues involving the MEAP. As the time drew near, many of us in the language arts waited with anticipation, knowing that officials from the governor’s office would be there. This was, many believed, our opportunity to articulate our frustrations with a test that was widening the breach between rich and poor while undermining much of what we had learned about composition theory.
Clearly, if there is ever a time when it is ethical to question authority and engage in the kind of scholarly inquiry that Maxine Greene discusses in Landscapes of Learning, it is when basic tenets of pedagogy are being abused for political gain, when literacy is being subverted for superficial advantage—especially when that subversion is exacerbating the chasm between rich and poor. “The crucial problem, I believe, is the problem of challenging what is taken for granted and transmitted as taken-for-granted,” (70) writes Greene in articulating her iconoclastic manifesto. “Individuals,” she continues, “must work to reflect upon their own life situations, to speak out in their own voices about the lacks that must be repaired, the possibilities to be acted upon in the name of what they deem decent, humane and just” (71). In short, Greene speaks to the spark inside all teachers to expose an injustice and—in their quiet way—to challenge it, despite the political pressures. And yet, before this is done, we must, as Greene reminds us, prevent ourselves from becoming passive, “submerged,” or “indifferent.” (71). Action is imperative.
Finally the time came—high noon—and the various representatives from the state, the governor’s office, and the state board of education filed into the large convention room for this much-anticipated forum. As I looked around the surrounding area, there was a current of people moving back and forth. Many, I assumed, would be present to make their voices heard. This was our opportunity to articulate the often spoken anger and collective discord that we had personally articulated among ourselves in council meetings and faculty forums. Change, we knew, begins in such modest ways. Paulo Freire and his call for an end to the “banking system” seemed alive as I walked into the panel discussion and awaited the start of the discussion.
And then it happened. Or perhaps I should say, then it didn’t happen. Instead of attending this opportunity to confront the propagator of one of the worst tests in our state’s history, a majority of the teachers chose simply to stay away, to sip drinks outside the room, or talk socially among themselves. While state bureaucrats moved inside to pontificate about an exam that violated even the most basic theories about writing—and exult a scholarship program that was lining the pockets of already affluent students—teachers stayed away or smiled blithely as various bureaucrats plowed through their scripted piece about world class education and cutting edge change. It was a veritable orgy of clichés and yet the vast number of my colleagues seemed paralyzed or mysteriously muffled. I looked around slowly to see if Rod Serling was lurking in the shadows.
In the end, the final attendance found only a scattered few, perhaps forty, in a room that could hold over one hundred. Of these only a precious few had anything to say, choosing to shake their heads or nod serenely. What had happened to political action? With our one opportunity to confront the bureaucracy, why had so many decided that a quiet conversation outside the doors was more worth their time than a debate with a test that many think is immoral as well as inconsistent with composition pedagogy?
What made this phenomenon even more paradoxical was the results of a survey the Michigan Council of Teachers of English had taken in the weeks leading up to the conference. When asked what topics most concerned them and how their council should attack those topics, an overwhelming majority identified the MEAP exam as their most vexing concern. At the same time, a larger majority suggested that their Council should become politically involved in articulating its opposition to the exam and its inimical influence on pedagogy all over the state. This was the clearly an ideal time for English teachers to stand and intrepidly oppose a test that was subverting their practice and undermining their proficiency.
So what was the problem? In the waning hours after the conference, after a few of us challenged the architects of this test, I sat and wondered. Could it be that teachers as a whole simply don’t see their role in education as being political? Could it be that we love to teach and empower students but have problems understanding how this service, how this empowerment can transcend the classroom doors? There is little question that we as teachers are reluctant to become part of controversies outside the school. In her September, 1997 English Journal editorial, Leila Christenbury laments the fact that English teachers seem to “have little to say about the practical reality of school reform in English language arts” (14). It was a puzzle that troubled her as the editor of the English Journal as it does many of us today.
If we are ever to become the “moral beings” that Maxine Greene speaks of in Landscapes of Learning, it seems imperative that we begin to accept the fact that politics resonates through education and that it is our responsibility to embrace it and grapple with it when it becomes unjust. “Fundamental to the whole process may be the building up of a sense of moral directness, of oughtness,” Greene contends. “An imaginativeness, an awareness, and a sense of possibility are required, along with the sense of autonomy and agency, of being present to the self” (51)
In short, if we are ever to be the forces for literacy and justice that so many of us desire to be, we must embrace the role of becoming active, of speaking up in uncomfortable situations and accepting the fact that the teaching of English is a quintessentially political act—one that is either democratic and egalitarian or despotic and repressive. “If teachers are to take an active role in raising serious questions about what they teach, how they are to teach, and the larger goals for which they are striving, it means they must take a more critical role in defining the nature of their work as well as shaping the conditions under which they work,” (19) writes Henry Giroux. Such a movement begins when we begin to realize that Thoreau, Freire, and others are not simply people we teach but promulgators of a reality we must fight to achieve.
All of this is only possible when we dispose of our wine and cheese, politely excuse ourselves from the casual banter, and join the political fray. SLATE has developed two “Starter Sheets” to assist in the development of skills necessary to take back out classrooms. One is on speaking up for our profession. It can be downloaded from:
http://www.ncte.org/library/files/About_NCTE/Issues/publiccommunication.pdf
The other is on the meaning and purpose of advocacy.
http://www.ncte.org/library/files/About_NCTE/Issues/guidelines-political-action.pdf
Works Cited
Christenbury, Leila. Making the Journey. Urbana, Illinois: N.C.T.E., 2000.
Greene, Maxine. andscapes of Learning. New York: Teachers College, 1978.
Moses, Alexandra. “ACLU: MEAP-based Awards Unfair.” Lansing State Journal. 28 June 2000. Pgs. 2B.
— Greg Shafer, Mott Comm. College, Flint, Michigan
Seeking Iconoclasts: Immediate Openings
NCTE Slate
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http://www.ncte.org/about/issues/slate/115828.htm
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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