Just take a step forward

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." -- Lao-tzu

Teaching is the most bizarre profession. Mind you I have been at this for 22 years now and I still marvel at what can happen inside the walls of one room. In spite of public perception and college course descriptions, teachers are rarely prepared for what teaching is really about. Teachers are given very little training in reality. We manage the maze of legislative regulations to be able to interview for that first job. Once landed, the magnitude of responsibility suddenly becomes clear when you open the door to your first classroom.

I have a friend who is in charge of a division at a highly successful hi-tech company. He and I have swapped stories over many glasses of wine. One night I was trying to find a way to explain the bind I feel teachers find themselves working under. We are given a room, furniture (usually), teacher's editions of state approved textbooks, and keys. It is like we are entrepreneurs on one level and then we are told we can and can't do things based on "managers" who may or may not know a single thing about teaching. Usually we are told nothing. Since we are all very successful in the current educational system, because we survived, we are terrified at the idea of failure. So we are going to succeed no matter what!

Unfortunately, the stress of that pressure leads us not forward to innovation and competitive advantage, but backward to a reliance on what has been done to us in this process of "education." Compliance. The right answer. Atomized learning by slicing and dicing subject matter and isolation. Teaching is a very lonely profession without colleagues who share a vision of something better.

And therein lies the dilemma. Our traditional education system is a monster that feeds on itself. Without the space, support, motivation, and courage, teachers fall back on to what was done to them as a model for what to do to others. 

The first step for our profession is to stop being sheep. The reality is we can close the classroom door and help create a space for students to dream big, think, create, and find a world they didn't know existed.

Undoing the mechanistic mindset that still enslaves most American educators takes time, practice, and courage. We need leaders to change education. Notice I didn't say they system. The educational system is a feudal state invested in the status quo and it cannot change by degrees. Just like the collapse of feudalism in all societies, the dysfunctional system ended because of forces beyond its control.

All stakeholders in public education have to demand better. We have to stop accepting that this is the way it has to be. We have to stop being passive, compliant sheep. Sheep Don't Lead! And we need leadership for the change our kids deserve.

Thankfully there are many parents, educators, and thinkers out there who are on the same journey.