Now and Then

As this quarter ends (wow, the year is one-fourth over!), I should pause here and reflect (much more than I have been!)...

Our district chose to implement a new curriculum this year...from which we are not to deviate.

Going to go out on a limb here and just say (again), that the beauty of any foliage is the blend of all of those colors.  We, in education, seem to do this much:  take things to extreme.  One way is right to expense of all others.  Why not just a blend of all the best practices?

You may know where this is going...and to continue the metaphor a bit more:  right now I feel like a trunk whose bright and colorful limbs have all but been hacked off.  Yes, over time, as I become familiar with unread texts, new limbs will sprout.  As the limbs grow and thicken and become covered with greenery, the units will develop with my style and methods, making it mine.

This pruning, though, has now happened four times in my going-on 11 years.  How many times can a tree be so severely pruned without killing the tree?

To make matters even more difficult for me (of course, if you listen to the other side, the difficulty lies there!), I have challenged the teaching of two of the texts due to content that I deemed inappropriate for 10th and 12th grade level students.  Just to clarify:  I did not challenge the topics, just the way the topic was presented.

I will not be challenging any more texts. No gratitude was ever expressed for what could have become negative news in the paper.  I was, however, asked if I am a racist.  (Yes, quite offensive.) I know I am now viewed as prudish, old-fashioned, too right-wing. Too, too, too...

I support what our principal has always suggested...don't say or do anything in the classroom that you wouldn't want printed on the front page of the local newspaper.  Good bar to set.  I just can't live up to it anymore.  Nor, I suppose, am I expected to do so.

I once saw it as my job to protect my students, their parents.  I saw it as my job to not allow offensive texts to enter my classroom.  Again...I am not talking about never discussing topics on which we don't all agree.  Students should be challenged.  I should be challenged.  Our job is to encourage their and my thinking.

Please let me clarify, though, just a bit more:  think of the most offensive words and descriptive racial and sexual situations that you might imagine. (Well, right up to Fifty Shades of Grey...or so I hear; that's one series I haven't read.  Does that make me prudish?!)  Yes, that offensive word...that's the one I do not want in my classroom.  Yes, those explicit sexual scenes...those have no place in my classroom.

May I give you an example:  we have chatted in my room that, at no point, should an adult ever molest a youngster.  Ever.  Never.  Should they know about it and cannot deal with exposing such evilness, all they have to do is tell me.  I can deal with it.  BUT never should my students have to read in detail about such an incident, about the explicit exposure of body parts and the thoughts of the perpetrator during such exposures or the responses of those being violated...and all the language that usually goes with such writings and occurrences.

Texts are coming up that I do find offensive, texts that I don't want to teach, texts that contain content not appropriate for a classroom.  No, I am not going to challenge them.  The repercussions have been harsh and long-lasting.

I used to think I would be in education for 40 years.  I loved it that much.  Now, I just hope to make it through 28 and retirement.

Then...I am able to help a student have dress shoes for Homecoming.

Then...I listen to a student talk about his mom...who has been in jail and now has cancer, and he asks me to pray.

Then...I have to ask another student, "Do you have food in your house?"

Then...I remember.  Teaching is not about the job that mine has become.  It's about the passion and the compassion.

So, no, I will not challenge anymore texts.  

I will protect those involved in such "then" situations.  I will encourage them to think.  I will help prepare them to have a better life than they have now.  That is my passion...and my job.