If you know many teachers, you have probably learned that we are very passionate about what we do. If one is luke-warm on education, I feel they don't belong in it! (I told you we were passionate.) With the headline capturing movie Freedom Writers being in the spotlight, I can't help but to have some opinions about it. Read on only if want the rantings of a still wet behind the ears teacher.
Every so often a movie comes along that highlights kids from a tough background and the one messiah-like figure that takes the earth on their shoulders and solely unlocks their potential. Each story has it's own emphasis and it's own spin but basically follows the same plot. Stand and Deliver is one example. These movies are inspiring, and I definitely believe one person has the capability to make a difference, otherwise I'd be doing something else, but I think these movies also romanticize the really tough issues inner-city public schools face. For instance, did you know that the teacher featured in Stand and Deliver had a nervous breakdown shortly after the very year of teaching the movie chronicled. I'm not sure that sequel would draw at the box office.
I really respect the main character Freedom Writers highlights. Her personal commitment, her belief in the capabilities of each student, and her initiative are inspiring. As a teacher myself, I really strive to have the same values, but I guess I get more bogged down than she did on what has become the red-tape of public education. I wish I could teach whatever curriculum I wanted, or at least a little more of what I wanted. I wish I could teach something that really captured my students attention every day. I wish I could reach my students like this movie shows, but I don't. Comparing this movie plot to my experiences can only logically send my thinking down one of two paths. Since the movie and my experiences don't quite match, I am left thinking that either these movies are to romantic and unrealistic; or I take the second path of thought and its me, I don't measure up. I think I prefer the first, though I've considered the second.
I guess I don't like these movies because they seem to give the general public the perception that only if we had better teachers, teachers like the one in Freedom Writers our educational problems would be solved. People have the perception that teaching is an easy job, but I invite you into my classroom.
Tomorrow as you enter the heat might not be on, or maybe the heat will be broken in the on position, maybe a student will be arrested out of your class, maybe you will run out of photo-copies, maybe you'll have to break up a fight, maybe you will have 38 kids and only 36 desks, or maybe the power will go out for five minute intervals. (These things have all happened to me this year.) How does this compare to your working environment? Don't forget all the while you need to be teaching a pre-college math class to students who failed three years of junior high math. Remember, kids are supposed to be learning here. And what are they supposed to learn? You can't teach topics of your choosing, topics that you feel might really interest them. You have to teach a stretched out, watered down curriculum set by government officials who have never been in the classroom, and it is one that will be annually assessed at very high stakes, so as to not leave any child behind. I told you there would be passion.
Don't worry I won't be looking for an office job anytime soon, though there were times at the beginning of this year I was on monster.com. I teach some great kids and if you knew them, they would keep you coming back. If you knew how good they felt about themselves to finally be getting math, if you saw the smiles that are returned to me when I welcome them into the room, you too would dress in layers to brave the elements of your classroom.
I know in this movie the teacher faced similarly tough issues, but I think this movie is unrealistic and unfair because as audience members in a movie we judge the teacher's success on how far she can take her students, but as a society that is not how we are judging success in public schools. Let me put this in perspective for you, the movie Freedom writers doesn't climax when Hilary Swank gets her kids MEAP scores, yet that is what is becoming the measurement of success in schools. I know it could be partly my district, but in Michigan we are so focused on the state curriculum and state achievement tests that we lose the bigger picture.
Where I am, I see public education so focused on test results it handcuffs their teachers. The ironic thing is this test focus does not lead to better test scores or student achievement in the end anyway. Standardized test scores do not and cannot tell the whole story of education that's why they weren't featured in the movie. Standardized test scores do not tell you that a school might be the safest place many students go all day. They don't tell you that it is the only place a student may have a positive interaction with an adult. They don't measure the self-confidence the students gain or the self worth they were taught, yet if a school's test scores on these poorly written standardized tests don't go up a school is labeled deficient or failing.
I guess my main complaint is that these movies, just like standardized test scores, fail to tell the whole story of public education. Maybe that's because it's a story way too complex to capture in a feature length film or a blog for that matter. I will end my thoughts here as I have to go and get some rest. 5:40 comes pretty early, and I have to save some passion for my kids....I wonder if the heat will be working?
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