I'd be Thinkin'

It's that time when most folks are writing their year in review. Syndicated columnists, local journalists provide us with reflections on the doin's...Obama got lost, Obamacare is headed to the dumper, Nancy Pelosi, that evil woman drove the liberal agenda...the new Speaker of the House cries a great deal and what does that mean for the average citizen? The gas bag guests on PBS News Hour politely disagree with each other...we do know where Bin Laden is, no we don't, Pakistan is our friend, no its not...no matter, let's keep heaping billions of dollars upon it anyway.

Oh, and let's not forget Education! Secretary Duncan sees a place of great despair, but having states bid for money will make it better!! Just you wait and see. According to Arnie, schools do a shabby job of educating students, but under his plan, they will become a bastion of higher order thinking, a community where everyone will come together for everything...it will replace the community at large...bye, bye City of Farmington or Northfield, hello School Central. And it is with that I write my year end thoughts.

My perspective can only be based on what I know. I could recite the frustration felt by teachers when continually criticized by the public, government agencies and media. What's up Superman? I could explain the exhaustion felt when students come to school under the influence and the best thing the school can do is send them home. It cannot demand and certainly not request parents to get involved and help their students with their drug and drinking problems. I could outline the heavy weight of a hurt heart when a teacher works so hard to raise the standards, provide meaningful lessons, holds students accountable for their work, only to be torn to shreds in a nasty email. Parents want high standards, meaningful lessons and accountability for every student...but their own. I've walked with teachers down the hallway who were in tears because all their work, all their effort, all their commitment was challenged and then dismissed.

Many of my colleagues anticipated the Christmas break, yes, that is right, CHRISTMAS break, as much as the students did...and those of us who were honest enough admitted it to our students. We talk about the break in terms of renewing our strength, rejuvenating our minds. One thing you learn in education is that it is a human institution like no other. A class does not make it or break it on the curriculum...it does with the relationship, the atmosphere in the classroom. That is the hardest part of education...how do you connect with 35 students in the classroom? How do you talk to them, how do you get them to follow you and how do you provide an atmosphere where students feel safe. And mind you, not safe from the teacher, but each other.

But come next Monday, January 3, while we may enter the school groggy and with a sense of just what happened? We are back already? When the masses start coming in and we hear the chatter, our blood will start pumping. We'll begin to rev up our engines, look over the lesson plans and get ready to go. Oh, we know that first day we'll be faced with the huge wall of apathy...that's OK...we'll help our students take it down. We will be excited to get going again..no matter what Arnie, or the experts at the state department of education, or the critics may do...we may get bruised but we'll still love what we do. That is the wonder of being a teacher and being part of the great institution of American education.