It’s on us to make sure the work, actions, and productions of our learners and educators are relevant, meaningful, and known to the world. We must let the world know we are proud. We must be willing to change what we value most about learning and learners so we can not only reimagine school at every level, but also lay the foundation for a revolution that will produce the schools our students deserve.
#revoltlap
Chapter 1
The True Revolution@ries
Don’t wait for the perfect moment, take a moment and make it perfect.
—Aryn Kyle
Like most educators, our experience as students led us to this great profession. The entertaining and knowledgeable teachers we had growing up provided us with some memorable classroom experiences, and those memories drive us to create that same kind of learning environment for our own students. Even our not-so-great teachers served as examples by showing us what not to do in the classroom.
My (Derek) middle school experience happened more than thirty years ago in a small, rural town in Georgia. It was a model of textbook classrooms:
Desks in rows, perfectly aligned
Teacher’s desk immaculate and separate (remember those old-school brown planners?)
Students arranged by last name or grade
Quiet
Chalkboards in the front
Learning meant giving the right answers, reciting definitions, or spelling words correctly
Textbooks were the curriculum
Teacher-driven classes
Regimented classes with fixed grading
Homework was always a couple of pages in the textbooks (and if you were lucky, you could find the answers in the back)
Our days were pretty standard and designed to be that way day after day, year after year. It was a measure of success—teacher standing at the front of the classroom, students facing forward and working quietly while following the teacher’s instructions to the letter. Success was measured by compliance and reduced noise levels. In our small community, my teachers knew me because they had taught my family members and because my mother worked as a professional. But I think it’s safe to say they didn’t know the real me—how much I needed to move, how I liked to socialize, how I disliked drawing and handwriting, and how competitive I was. They didn’t really know how I learned. In most of our classes, the teacher would tell a story or make a presentation or offer a demonstration, and we would watch from our seats. Independent research was limited to reading the textbook pages the teacher assigned, completing the work, and waiting on our grade to indicate whether or not we learned something.
This isn’t criticism. Our teachers did the best they could with the resources they had at the time. And more importantly, they were good people implementing systems and practices they learned from others that were the agreed-upon best strategies at the time. The one-room schoolhouse mindset is powerful and deeply embedded in our society and what we believe about education. That model focused on control and work completion. There have always been those who believe learning is different from what we practice in schools, but it has been hard for that belief to take root. Unless we are on a mission to unlearn the trappings of our traditional educational experiences, we are doomed to repeat and reinforce this cycle.
Back to my own experience. In our school we had an ‘A’ class and a ‘B’ class, and they were exactly what they sound like. Once in them, students could not move out or change groups. Regardless of maturity or progress over time, once a student was labeled, that was it. It’s not a stretch to say that our present tendency to label or separate some students from others is a carryover from those days. How do you see it in your school? Is the teaching in those classes equitable? Is there any flexibility for students who may blossom later than others or have the benefit of a teacher who fires them up? Are all students getting an equal shot at all levels of opportunity or learning? We once called this tracking, but whatever name we place on it, it means the same thing—some get more than others.
Rectifying this has become a mission of ours. I was fortunate to have had one parent who worked in my school and fought hard to keep her active son out of remedial classes at the urging of teachers. My mother still fondly talks about her fight to keep me from being tested for remedial classes. To her credit, in the third grade our school got its first gifted teacher who also tested all students, and once she tested me, she validated my mom’s thoughts with a simple statement all progressive educators are familiar with: you all aren’t teaching him how he needs to be taught. It turns out I loved to read anything about Greek and Roman mythology and loved to talk about it!
I want to state plainly here that I am not bashing my teachers. I loved them for what they committed to do every day, and they genuinely loved me. They came to school to make a difference for us, to be a difference. The women in my small rural town knew that if they didn’t commit to educating us, it wouldn’t happen. We loved them for what they did.
But it does lead to some reflection points: Why did you decide to become a teacher? Was your goal to duplicate the learning experience you had when you were in school? Are you looking to give your students the same middle school experience you had?
If you’re like me, someone who attended middle school thirty years ago, the answer is probably an emphatic “No!” Not only because they don’t make film strip projectors anymore, but also because you have a strong conviction that much of your own middle school experience should not be repeated or held up as a best practice. There is much room for improvement. Now apply that thought to your elementary, high school, or collegiate experience—would you want to give that same experience to your students? Would you want that same experience for your own children?
Every Revolution Needs a Good Teacher
Take a look around your classroom and/or school and reflect on your answer. Do you see practices and results that reflect your answer? Darren and I had to admit that we didn’t see them in our own schools.
I became an educator after a heart-to-heart with my former wife. It took a good, frank talk to help me put some cold, hard facts on the table about my pursuit of a graduate degree in political theory. The most important fact? I absolutely wasn’t passionate about it.
The only jobs I had enjoyed had been in college when I tutored students in math in non-traditional settings that allowed us to fill in gaps and have good conversations.
If I were to work with students in a classroom, where could I have the most fun and impact? The clear answer for me was in a math classroom, not in a political science classroom.
Although those talks happened more than twenty years ago, I remember them like we had them yesterday. I remember sharing with my wife about two of my high school teachers who were great influences in my life. One of those teachers was Mr. Stubbs, my tenth-grade geometry teacher. Back in the day, we taught geometry with proofs (a lost art form), so not only did you have to know math, but you also had to be able to articulate the process, especially when there was a problem on the board. Mr. Stubbs was a great teacher—he was funny, knowledgeable about math, and he took time to know his students well. He made the uncomfortable work of doing math proofs in front of the class fun, describing it as creating a feeling of “elation.” When I reflect on Mr. Stubbs’ class, my memories are primarily positive. In his classroom, I felt entertained, I felt smart, I knew I belonged there, and I actually learned a great deal. That kind of classroom, I told my wife, was what I wanted to create.
When