On April 10th, Netflix made Marvel’s Daredevil series available for streaming. As a long-time Marvel fan, I barricaded myself indoors for the weekend and partook. By episode 7 I was much impressed; so much so that it inspired me to write. I realized, watching “The Man with No Fear”, that fear is exactly what’s being used to keep educators from saving education. I hope that this entry will be a shot of courage to whoever reads it…________________________________________________
In order to outsource teaching to technology and remove the human element from the classroom, 21st Century Education needs teachers to be as fearful as possible. Why? Think about what teachers represent--- it’s our jobs to know, to understand, to challenge, to inspire, to innovate… and to effectively communicate. So, of all the people in the field who would smell something amiss a mile away, we are the first. And of all the people in the field who could alert the world to the presence of something questionable, we are the frontline.
All the makings of an education revolution exist in the minds of teachers. For this reason, we need #TEACHERSWITHOUTFEAR.
In my career as an educator, I’ve heard many things spoken at faculty meetings. The most idiotic were as follows: “there’s nothing we can do about that”; “stop talking about the negative”; “that’s just the way things are”; “we can only control what happens in the classroom”; “if you don’t like it, you should find another profession.” …Consider what we do for a living--- how insulting, how patronizing is it to be told by other adults what’s possible and what’s not possible? Only two kinds of people talk like that:
1) vested interests--- people who benefit from the systems that are being put into place;
2) cowards--- people who are afraid of consequences; who would rather settle for mediocrity and the safety of their comfort zones than fight for change.
The remainder of us represent the heartbeat of education itself. We are the ones who put our students first; who recognize that education is a ministry and not an industry. We are the ones who see the insurmountable odds and realize the complete contradiction of telling a student “You can do anything” while telling our compatriots “There’s nothing we can do.” We need #TEACHERSWITHOUTFEAR, who won’t let imaginary walls erected by superficial words stop us from pushing the envelope.
Let’s face the obvious: apart from unions, teachers have no leverage. Without unions, when we speak, no one listens because no one has to. It helps no one’s agenda to listen to us. We are the only group in the education equation who, if believed defective, has no one to come to our defense. If parents are believed inadequate, short of abuse allegations, they have privacy rights on their side. If students are believed inadequate, their inadequacies get deflected to the adults because “they’re only children”. If administrators are believed inadequate, they can delegate blame to their underlings. But teachers… teachers are the convenient scapegoats; this is why, in order to save education, we need #TEACHERSWITHOUTFEAR. Teachers who will stare down even the threat of termination and still risk it all for the sakes of our students.
The goal of 21st Century Education is to justify lowering our pay, reducing our numbers and, eventually, replacing our segment altogether. To that end, the worst among us are being paraded via mass media, and the best of us--- not merely the most gifted in the classroom, but those with the clearest perspectives on what’s broken in education and how to fix it--- are muzzled daily during faculty meetings across the country. Acknowledging teacher insight and applying that insight to education would add to the value of teachers; however, adding to our value would undermine the efforts to defame and depreciate educators. We need #TEACHERSWITHOUTFEAR who will reveal the contexts of our profession with the world; the contexts that the 21st Century Education so conveniently leaves out as it attempts to paint us all as inefficient and inadequate at our profession.
________________________________________________
…If you haven’t already watched the Netflix series or aren’t
familiar with the comic book, definitely watch Marvel’s Daredevil when you get the chance. It’s the story of a blind lawyer who realizes the law in his city has been bought, so he becomes a vigilante to exact what he believes to be justice against a criminal establishment in the making. …It’s so funny the way that education has, likewise, been bought. And how we, as teachers, have a responsibility to defend education from private entities with economic interests. It’s insane hearing myself say this, but we literally need Daredevils of Education right now. However, unlike Daredevil, we are a collective, not just the voice and mind of one person. Nor are we a bunch of yes-men and yes-women; as a requirement of our profession, we are thinkers--- a collective consciousness. For us to have been deemed worthy to teach, we’re certainly far from unintelligent; for that reason there is power in our agreement. So let us agree to be #TEACHERSWITHOUTFEAR and do whatever must be done to protect what is sacred to us: our students and an education that prioritizes their personal enrichment and enlightenment over what’s best for business. #HERELIESEDUCATIONLet’s Chat it Up:
@earlgreysummers on Twitter
earlgreysummers@gmail.com
/earl.g.summers
No comments:
Post a Comment
Let's Chat It Up!