Why I am no longer a Teacher

A few years ago I was teaching happily in another state.  I was a good teacher.  In a typical September I would receive two classes full of students, half of whom were not really interested in U.S. History, and half of whom actively dreaded it.  By January, there was not a student in my classes who didn’t love learning about history – or at least find it somewhat intriguing.  I was able to turn things around by being genuine with students, by sharing my passion for the subject, by getting them intellectually and sometimes emotionally involved with the characters and situations that we needed to learn about.

I worked happily and productively under four consecutive principals, producing students who liked history and loved to learn about it.  Then Mr. Statistics, the “superstar” principal, came to our school.  I call him the superstar because he was the favorite of the school district administration.  Wherever he went, he made sure test scores went up.  He got results.

The problem was that in order to get the statistical results he and the upper administration craved, he (and they) were ready to do anything, to change everything, to sacrifice anyone – teacher or student.

 Mr. Statistics showed up for staff meetings with graphs, charts, and detailed tables of statistics.  With these he explained in ivory tower terms why he was requiring this new procedure, outlawing that old one, forcing everyone into the same statistically-efficient mold.  Mr. Statistics resented being bothered with problems involving individual kids; he was concerned with trends and averages.  Mr. Statistics read all “the research” emerging and constantly pressed the staff and the students into conformity with his ideas about how teaching and learning should be done.  Teachers could not talk to Mr. Statistics if they disagreed with any of his procedural mandates because his only responses would begin with, “The research says…” or “Well, here’s how it needs to be…”

Mr. Statistics crushed creativity, for teachers and students.  Creativity was not measured on any test, so it did not matter.  Love of learning, which I had so proudly instilled, was not measured on any test, so that did not matter either.  All that mattered were (1) scores on the state-wide assessment in March, and (2) doing everything – and I mean everything – in accordance with his “research.” 

The micromanagement Mr. Statistics imposed on his staff was intrusive, oppressive and unwavering.  One of the ways I had involved students was to interact with them verbally, to lead group discussions about the things we were studying.  Under Mr. Statistics’ reign, that was out, because it was not possible to develop a detailed lesson plan in advance for such a discussion.  One thing I did on occasion was ‘surprise’ lessons, in which students ended up learning about something very different than they expected.  That was out, because the research said the teacher must tell the students in advance of every single lesson what the objective and outcomes of the lesson would be.  One of the things I did best was to tell stories.  Instead of names, dates, and random facts read in a text, I involved students in the human drama of historic events through interactive storytelling.  That could not be tolerated by Mr. Statistics, because it was categorized in his research as “lecture,” and lecture was an ineffective way to teach.

Because I cared about my students, I refused to go along with some of Mr. Statistics’ mandates.  Oh, I tried to follow as many of his ideas as I could.  But I continued to involve students in dialogue.  I continued to tell stories.  I refused in some cases to spend valuable time going over objectives in advance of the lessons.

Mr. Statistics considered me a mutineer.  He decided I had to go.  In this, he had the full support of the district establishment, because even though my methods were getting students involved and building love-of-learning, they were not directly translatable to better scores on state-wide tests, and that was the product they were committed to deliver. 

I was not the first mutineer in that large district.  An award-winning history teacher from the high school my kids attended was reassigned to teach middle school spelling because he would not get with the program.  Another great teacher tried to push back, but the district threatened him with dismissal from the job he loved.  He feared for his ability to provide for his new baby if he lost his job.  Some of the life went out of him, but he kept his job.  His classes became compliant, and dull.  Presumably their test scores went up; I didn’t bother to check.

Mr. Statistics began to show up unannounced in the back of my classroom.  A couple of times each week He would come in quietly, stand or sit until he found something wrong, and then leave.  An “informal evaluation” would appear in my box in the office within 24 hours, telling me that I was doing too much talking from the front of the room, or that the student in the back corner was doodling on his paper instead of participating, or that I called on the same student too often.  Anything and everything to document what a bad teacher I was.

I was not stupid.  I saw the path Mr. Statistics was traveling.  I had battled these intrusive, counter-productive micromanagement techniques before, and won – more than once - but I did not relish the idea of taking on the establishment yet again.  The deck was being stacked against me, and I had to make a choice in the best interest of my family.  I had other career options.  I chose one that interested me, then took a job for twice the amount of money I had been making as a teacher and left the profession.

Someday, when the public arena is more reasonable and wise, I would like to return to the classroom.  I hope I live long enough.

For those of you who support holding teachers more accountable, I understand your honest desire to improve our schools, and so I urge you to dig deeper.  Except in a few blatant cases of misconduct or incompetence, sanctioning teachers will do nothing to improve the education of our children – and in those few cases of misconduct or incompetence, remedies are already in place.  In your angst about the poor state of public education, do not make teachers the scapegoat.  Not only would that be unjust, it would also be demoralizing to good teachers and ultimately, counterproductive.

To wrap this up, here are a few questions I submitted to the governor of the state where I now live.  His well-intentional proposal to end continuing contracts for public teachers in the cause of increasing the quality of the teacher corps is doomed to have the opposite effect if implemented.  Questions I put to the governor:

(1)    How will you know they are really getting rid of the teachers who need to go, and keeping the teachers who need to stay? 

(2)    How will you protect good teachers from micromanaging administrators who care more about research than reality, and more about numbers than about kids?

(3)    How will you know evaluations are authentic and not based on personality conflict or valid differences of style?

(4)     How will you be sure creativity and love of learning are not being sacrificed in favor of a “company plan” to increase test scores?

Thank you for paying attention.  Improving education is crucial to our future, and we need to approach reform not only with good intentions, but also with experience, patience, and wisdom.

Gryphem