Why Devaluing Teachers Hurts Everyone

By Peggy Wuenstel – I have been spending many angst filled evenings over the last two years, trying to get a sense of when things went off the rails.

I have been in this business for 30 years. There are some things that I knew back at the beginning that are still true today. Teaching is hard work. Educating children is a team sport. You will never get rich working in public education if your bank account is the measure of your success. The days will be long and the summers will be short. The intangibles will always trump the measurable in making you feel like you earn your paycheck, and even though it’s not all about the kids, it is certainly mostly about the kids.

Some things have changed radically, at least here in Wisconsin.

Showing up every day, doing the best you can, keeping your skills current, and volunteering for extra duties will not make teaching a secure job anymore. The majority of Wisconsin taxpayers don’t view the public money they spend to compensate teachers as the good investment that they have in the past. In a consumer-driven society where we’ll upgrade our phones, order the pricey wine, and stay in the four star hotel, the adage: “You get what you pay for” doesn’t seem to apply to the education of our children.

There is now a marked difference between what we can afford to pay as a society and what we are willing to pay. Where the stereotype of the teacher in the past was (and certainly not universally true) the patient, kindly public servant who never lost their temper or expressed discontent about their working conditions, today’s image is just as likely to be a militant public employee who is overpaid, with an attitude of entitlement. Neither is accurate.

What has also changed is the way we connect the dots between our democratic government and the aggressive capitalism that drives the American economy. I am married to an economics major, and we have had three decades of conversations on where our money comes from and where it goes. I have come to understand that there are two essential components that drive the creation of prosperity and fuel the engine of American success:  Capital and Labor. Both are necessary for the creation of products, the provision of services, and the rise of small businesses, cottage industries, and multi-national corporations.

We have historically believed that Americans value the labor of their fellow citizens. We express our appreciation for the actions of first-responders in a crisis like the Boston marathon bombing. We covet the skill of the engineer, the cabinetmaker, or the cake decorator that create the items that enrich our lives. We are grateful for and dependent upon the services of those who transport our goods cross country, diagnose our illness and treat those maladies, deliver our mail, and cut our hair. We dream about being in the same league as the pro athletes, musicians, or actors that entertain us in our leisure time.

But things have changed in my lifetime.  We seem to value what people HAVE far more than what they DO. Celebrities like Paris Hilton, the Kardashians, and Honey Boo Boo  are not particularly gifted in actions other than commanding our attention and accumulating wealth. We know more about athletes’ contracts and salaries than we do about their statistics on the field. It is now as important to be the highest paid player as it is to have the most passing yards, home runs, shots on goal, or won/loss percentage.  This appears to reflect the value system of our society in general. Those who have the capital command the respect. Capitalists have so devalued the labor of our fellow Americans that their jobs are exported overseas where they can pay even less so that capital grows at a faster rate.

As you can imagine, this puts educators at a great disadvantage in earning and keeping public respect. We have never, as a group, been about having things. The fruit of our labors does not fill warehouses, power automobiles, heat homes, or satisfy that chocolate craving at the end of the day. We fill minds, power aspirations, kindle fires of enthusiasm and ambition, and satisfy the needs of children to feel loved, valued, and capable of meeting the challenges of the future.  We help parents, clergy, community leaders, and others willing to invest in the future, to shape people who aspire to DO things as much as to HAVE things.

If we still value the work that we do for each other, the communities that we build, the wounds that we heal, and the knowledge we accumulate, then teachers are essential to the future of this country. They deserve the return of the respect, in both financial and standing realms, to this honorable profession. Until we do so as a society, we will undervalue many, many people whose contributions are essential to our collective American dream.

Many of my friends and colleagues remain mystified by what has happened. For the most part, we haven’t changed. We still come in early and stay late. We carry piles of papers home and carry our students in our hearts. We haven’t gotten rich, and we’re not sure of the retirement plans we made when started out as novice teachers. We worry about health care, about students who come from unsafe neighborhoods and homes with empty cupboards.  We try to live the Marquette mission every day, to Be the Difference, all in a time the difference between what our fellow mortals feel we are worth and what we know we contribute to the students we love is as large as it has ever been.

Have a great summer, and I’ll see you on these pages in the fall.

Connecting the Dots and Circling the Wagons

By Peggy Wuenstel

There is an exercise, one that I have completed   several times, in several different contexts, that requires you to place your name in the center of a piece of paper. You then proceed to draw increasingly larger concentric circles around the name, labeling each of the groups to which you belong. This might be to increase your sense of belonging, to map the resources at your disposal, or to identify areas for volunteer work.

The largest circles, Living Thing, Child of God, Female, don’t offer much personal definition, but the smaller ones, family, workplace, circle of friends can give us great insight into who we are and who we want to be in the future.

I recently was given the opportunity to join a new circle. Newly re-elected State Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Tony Evers has convened an advisory council of Wisconsin Educators who have been named Wisconsin Teachers of the Year. When these eighteen individuals met last month in Madison to learn along with state leaders in the areas of the upcoming Educator Effectiveness Evaluation system, implementation of Common Core State Standards and the potential impacts of the proposed state budget on Wisconsin’s public schools, I was amazed by the competency and commitment present in that room.

While much of the day was about listening, our questions, comments and sense of direction were also valued. We left with a sense of purpose, which is still coalescing into action on these important issues, but with a sense of obligation to use our collective voices to make a difference in the lives of Wisconsin’s students.

I left with a greater appreciation of the concept of collective voice and the desire to use it more effectively. When we speak alone, it is often difficult to be heard above the background noise and the howling winds of change. When we join together to create a mission statement or speak as one, not only is our voice louder, but the audience who is paying attention is also increased. It is just part of human nature to want to be in on what is happening. No wonder laughter is contagious, and a person staring at the ceiling for no apparent reason is soon joined by others who want to know what is so interesting up there. It’s why our favorite parties are usually the most crowded, busy affairs where there is no room to sit down. It is also why we can be convinced to do things in a crowd that we would never do alone.

That is not to say that this is always a good phenomenon. The cyber-bullying that occurs when students post hateful comments with anonymous screen names seems to encourage a level of meanness that would be unthinkable in face-to-face interactions. The same is true for the comments and personal attacks on websites and in chat rooms that encourage public responses. It is hard to imagine some of those messages being delivered if the writers’ faces were visible and their real names replaced their screen names. Mob mentality, riot level violence and becoming carried away by the maddening crowd are all potential pitfalls to letting the group speak for you and not with you.

That is why it is so essential that our classroom groupings be the right kind of circle for our students to find homes within. With the guidance of a compassionate teacher, students at all levels learn to understand and support each other, to acknowledge and celebrate differences, to mend conflicts and encourage life-long relationships.

Programs such as TRIBES, The Compassionate Classroom, and many others give an outline of setting up these structures in schools all over the country. My Professional Development Plan for this year involved the creation of two social skills groups for students who needed help establishing, maintaining, and evolving within a school-based group of peers. Some are students with special education needs, some are not. Some need help to feel comfortable speaking in a group. Some need guidance on how to let others speak. Our Friends on Friday groups have grown into another circle of support for these students, one that we as teachers helped to draw around them with compassion and skill support.

I participated in a book study group last year organized around the book Creating the School Family by Dr. Becky Bailey.  (Yet another circle to draw.) She offered some outstanding ways to create an oasis of caring and support for students. One of the things that struck home the deepest was her reminder that we must focus on using someone’s name in developing even temporary relationships. It serves several purposes: 1) retention; so that we are less likely to forget in subsequent meanings, 2) acknowledgement; where we demonstrate the value we place on the interaction by personalizing it and 3)  the connection that comes from simply using the personal label that is a person’s given name.

Almost all educators have experienced the increased effectiveness of redirecting behavior by using a child’s name in the hallway vs. a generic “Hey You.” As long as we realize that this school family is an additional circle, not a replacement for the family circle in which the child lives, we are adding to their support system, not creating a competition for the child’s loyalty and attention.

Our abilities to move between and within the circles we inhabit may be a key to our mental health and sense of self. I relish this new circle of educators that will meet several times a year to plan ways to participate in the conversation that must happen if schools are to be supported in Wisconsin. I am truly grateful to have joined the circle of voices that post on the Marquette Educator site. I am a parent, a child, a teacher, a student, a reader, a writer, a thinker, an activist and a dreamer, all at the same time. I am a lover of polka dots. They make me smile, maybe because they represent these wonderful circles of my life.

Savoring the Holes as Well as the Cheese

By Peggy Wuenstel – A common modern malady, both in the classroom and out of it is “Too much to do and not enough time to do it”.

Modern technology keeps us plugged in, in touch, and on call. Time and labor saving devices enable us to do more in less time. We can meet up without even being there. These things are wonderful, unless they take over, and every year about this time, my crowded calendar, my lofty aspirations, my inflated sense of what I can accomplish in the time allotted catches up with me. My gentle husband always reminds me that this is a pattern I seem destined to repeat.  Part of the fault is definitely my own, in my unwillingness to move on, part ways, or let it go.

As a speech/language pathologist, many of my reinforcement activities are seasonal related. I am constantly amazed that students, who cannot remember anything we drill for an upcoming quiz, can remember exactly which version of the Thanksgiving turkey we constructed last year at the appropriate time. I have my favorite projects, stories, and methods of teaching, and it can be difficult to try something new. Unlike my fellow blogger Claudia Felske, technology does not come easily for me, and although I admire those who have these skills, my integration of these valuable tools is far exceeded by my desire to understand and use them.

Evidence based instruction and best practices are important initiatives, and working smarter as well as harder is truly important in the competitive educational world that we are immersed in. We adopt new curricula that align with Common Core Standards and will better prepare students to perform well on the Smarter Balanced Assessment System that is coming soon to classrooms near us. But we can’t seem to give up the old school spelling list, the dinosaur unit, the ways we’ve always done things. There may be valid reasons to continue, but not if it is unexamined, or a result of static rather than dynamic approaches to determining what our students need. Most of us have, buried at the bottom of a drawer, the yellowed lesson plans and their modern equivalents, the referenced links that no longer connect to any viable websites. And it is hard to admit we don’t need all of that any more.

Interior decorators speak of visual space for the eye, a place to rest between the aesthetic elements in a beautifully designed space.  Where I was once attracted to country clutter, I am now feeling drawn to a sleeker aesthetic. I have long been intrigued by the practice of Feng shui, but I’ve never been able to put it into personal practice because it must begin by clearing away, letting go, weeding out.  Maybe I should start with some of the several volumes I have purchased on the subject. In music we even call it a rest, a space between the notes to let us savor the melody, appreciate the harmony, close our eyes and feel the rhythms.

Our neurology understands the need for this down time. Our brains move information to long term memory storage during sleep, when our internal file clerk is on duty and our active minds are at rest. Students who need help gleaning information for tests often are aided by strategies such as spaces between text, double spacing and two column notes that isolate and emphasize key terms. As we age, we are challenged by keeping all of the things we have accumulated in order, prioritized, and at the ready. I have always needed an editor and as I enter the age of senior discounts  (Where is that coupon, again?) I am learning that being organized is no substitute for being willing to let go.

This can also mean realigning relationships, with people, with lessons, with ways of doing things. Common Core standards and the curriculum alignment that goes with it mean that the butterfly or dinosaur units may have to go, or become the province of a colleague. While we may have to say goodbye to a treasured teaching tradition, what a wonderful opportunity to share with others. Just like the problems we encounter when the menu is too extensive, choosing one from column A and one from column B might just be too much to process. Comparison and contrast is an extraordinarily effective instructional practice that we tend to ignore in our daily lives.

There is a simplicity movement that seeks to live life with just 100 things. I have adapted this each year to find 100 things every year before the first day of spring that I can live without. Political discussions have led us to talk of austerity, but I am talking about editing, not austerity. It is easier to give things up when we know where they are going, such as to worthy programs like Dress for Success.

I still didn’t really like that tweed suit, but I did value how professional I felt wearing it to those first interviews.  Prom dresses for girls whose family budgets don’t allow for those kinds of dream dates, Half-Price Books’ half pint library, our local transitional housing charity Bethel House, which helps families get on their feet and into stable housing are all wonderful places for my stuff to get a new chance to make someone’s life easier. My deleted computer files, extraneous thoughts, and unplanned stops on the itinerary are also valued holes in the Swiss cheese that is this teacher’s life. And in the interest of leaving some space, I’ll close this post, and my eyes, for a little down time.

 

The Myth of Being Prepared

By Peggy Wuenstel – It is an interesting paradox of the human mind; we seek both novelty and consistency.

We need to know what is going to happen and we desperately hope to be surprised. This happens every day in America’s classrooms. We write lesson plans, we prepare folders for substitute teachers, and we try to anticipate all the ways that things can go awry.

I have a post-it note above my desk which feeds my love of alliteration. It reads, Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance.  And then something like Sandy Hook happens and the myth of being prepared crumbles into dust around my feet.

I watched and listened with horror and pain at the accounts of what happened in that elementary school. What I could not do was envision what I would have done if I had been there that morning. We have drilled for these kinds of stranger invasions in my building. The police and administrators have rattled my doorknob to simulate what could occur if it happened here.

But I knew, and my students knew, that the worst thing that we could imagine was not really happening. The pictures that I painted in my mind of fallen teachers and terrified students keep resurfacing as the gun safety conversation continues. Interestingly, the media has paid little attention to their names and faces. We have not come to know them as people. Perhaps we are not prepared for that type of personal connection.

I am similarly shocked by the proposals that have come forward that seem to believe that putting guns into our schools will prepare us for intruders. Having a gun does not mean being prepared to use it and I would never be willing to have one in my school space. I am not prepared to believe that a teacher willing to carry a gun makes our children safer. I am even less willing to believe that volunteer armed guards create the kind of climate that allows learning to grow. I was never prepared for the idea that my job as a teacher would be dangerous, controversial, or maligned. All three have happened.  That is the view from the large lens.

In the small lens, the same lack of certainty occurs. We know what we would like to happen. We study what has happened in the past. We check the weather forecast. We stack the deck and collect the supplies. We write the plans and set the table. Sometimes, for good or ill, things don’t turn out like we plan. Writing it down doesn’t mean that we are more prepared, just better documented. When we supervise student teachers or clinical interns, we ask them to write down far more than we do for ourselves because we need to evaluate the thought process that goes into designing and delivering lessons. It’s a road map, but one that allows for, and in some ways expects, detours.

It is another interesting application of the multiple meaning words that fill our English language. We prepare a meal and something is there on the table. We prepare our students for a high-stakes test, for a challenge, for life. But do we really? If they don’t do the work we lay before them, are they equipped to take their places in the world?  Sometimes it seems that the more we give, the less they seek. The more we spoon feed, the fewer bites our students take of the apple of knowledge. Does a test score, a report card, a portfolio of work have any predictive value for the preparedness of our students? How can we model, guide and foster without leaving them unprepared when our support is gradually withdrawn?

One of the candidates for the Kohl Fellowship for this coming year raised an important issue in his application. When we use student test scores to evaluate teacher performance we pretend that we are preparing a product for the marketplace. In reality, we are providing the services that help students prepare themselves for the lives they would like to lead in the future. The myth surfaces again. Tying shoes, checking homework, managing time and meeting deadlines are all things that we would like our kids, in school or at home, to do for themselves. The way we prepare them to meet these responsibilities says as much about us as teachers and parents as it does about our students.

There is that day every winter in the Kindergarten hallway when those patient, nurturing teachers decide that those cherubs are now responsible for negotiating the sequence of getting dressed for a cold-weather recess. Most of the tykes are prepared for the process and those that aren’t soon catch on because the consequences are real and the rewards are tangible and immediate, the marks of a great learning experience.

Our desire to make sure that our students are properly attired for their educational journey doesn’t end with snowpants and mittens. It extends to mortarboard sand graduation robes, to business suits and surgical scrubs, combat fatigues and mechanic’s coveralls. What they pack into their suitcase for their journey through life is ultimately their personal responsibility, but we are able to provide some guidance and support in wardrobe selection.

We can’t prepare them for everything, and we probably shouldn’t want to do so. Opening a suitcase, a closet, a mind, or a world will reveal many familiar things that we were prepared to see, but hopefully a few pleasant surprises as well.  A loving family, a good education,  and a supportive school should also provide the foundation to handle those things for which no one should ever have to be prepared.

One Resolution That Will Change the World

By Peggy Wuenstel – This year’s holiday break afforded me the opportunity to watch some very old films on the list of over 400 movies on my Netflix queue.

I may never live long enough to complete this list. One poignant scene included a moment where the characters discussed the possibility, that because every word they had ever spoken was a pattern of vibrations, their conversations were all present somewhere in the atmosphere, or potentially in outer space.

My Marquette days in speech science class came back to me. I reran that old story about the tree falling in the forest. I connected it to the very modern notion that everything we post on-line, on a facebook page, or in a text are somewhere in cyberspace. And, I began to take words much more seriously.

Now, I love words. Lucky thing for someone who spends their professional life assisting kids in using words effectively.

One aspect of this role is the understanding of multiple meaning words that are prevalent in our English language. This is the foundation for the form of humor known as puns, for countless Saturday Night Live skits, and for the Headlines spot on the Tonight Show. This part of the lexicon is one of the most troubling for non-native speakers and those who struggle to master the use of language. It is what makes our television commercials engaging, our text confusing, and keeps our slang evolving. Even bad can mean good, depending on which neighborhood you live in. One of our important jobs as teachers is to make this process of actively thinking about words one that we model, explain and assign to our students. In this way we can raise active readers, writers, speakers, listeners and thinkers who appreciate the humor, the creativity and the strength that these key words can elicit.

The word resolution, an important part of January for many individuals, is one of those multiple meaning words. It has historical value and technological import. The Miriam Webster On-Line Children’s Dictionary identifies five meanings of this word, most that are used daily somewhere in the school setting. It speaks to how clearly we think, how sharply we see and how strongly we fight for what we love.

1)-the act or process of changing to simpler form, solving the problem, identifying the correct path, finding the answer

    -the act of answering, meeting the requirements
-the act of determining

2) –the ability to distinguish, as parts of an object or sources of light

     -a measure or the sharpness of the image, like a printer image, video screen or television set

3) –something that is committed to accomplishing, as a New Year’s resolution

4) – a formal statement of the feelings, wishes, or decision of a group, such as a mission statement, curriculum or set of goals

5) – the point in a work of literature at which the main conflict is worked out, such as in a book or movie

In the past I have made many resolutions. I have organized them by category, created systems to track and reward success. I have kept a few, but failed to keep many more.

This year I am making ONE, one that I believe has a good chance of success. It has applications in my personal, professional and spiritual lives. It invites redefinition throughout the year. It begs for the cooperation of my friends and family, my co-workers and my students. It has the potential to change my world and the world around me. It is amazingly simple and very complex.  It is this: Those things that are already in my heart, those things I care passionately about and that guide my steps need to be moved to my head.

I need to be better informed, better schooled, more articulate, about these feelings and motivations. I need to listen to both sides and make reasoned decisions about those topics. Those things that already in my head, that I have read about, discussed, or investigated need to move to my hands. It is not enough to feel and to know, if it is not accompanied by action. I need to do the work that puts my heart and mind to positive effect. I need to model this for others and find it within myself. Lastly, those things that are already in my hands, on my to-do list need to be in my feet. I have to expand my sphere of influence. Those ways in which I have become effective, in bringing change and order to my immediate surroundings need to be expanded to the broader world.

That is what teaching calls us to do. That is what the concepts of new years, new lives, and resolutions are all about. That is why choosing our targets and our words carefully are so important. After all, they may still be out there somewhere.

A Mobile App: Teaching as Art

Lobster Trap and Fish Tail by Alexander Calder

By Peggy Wuenstel – I have always been a fan of Alexander Calder, the sculptor credited with elevating the mobile to high art.

Among my favorite aspects of viewing this genre is the way that movement, even the slightest air current, changes the way that we are able to view the same components. I also have fond memories of watching the mobiles that dangled above the cribs of my children and grandchildren. I have even tried to construct a few on occasion. That activity, along with untangling one that had inadvertently become snarled, proved quite a “balancing act”.

It reminds me a great deal of my teaching job and the many ways to view my chosen profession.

About twenty years ago I attended a conference at Theda Clark Medical Center in Neenah, where one of the speakers used the analogy of a mobile to describe the intricate changes that occur in family dynamics. The framework of strings and crossbars supports dangling items much like the home, jobs, and resources that support a family unit. Artfully or haphazardly arranged, many families are like works of art.

I have thought about this analogy many times over the years, and like so many things in educational practice, I am uncertain which were part of the original presentation and which are my own additions.  It has been interesting to observe the evolution of my own internal mobile.  Sometimes the impacts are happy, the addition of a child to the family unit, a promotion, a new home, significant improvements in financial circumstances. But even with the joy, the balance of the mobile changes.

Little Spider by Alexander Calder

Some alterations are the result of challenges, losses, illness, or violence.  Cutting off an important aspect of family life through death, divorce, losing security due to job loss, abuse or neglect can send the mobile that is family life teetering into chaos. The changes when we disrupt the mobile start out dramatically and gradually diminish as time passes. The mobile, and the lives that they may be used to represent eventually come to rest, but they do not look like they did before we added, subtracted or altered its components. The new normal might be discordant, artistically composed, or just plain bizarre. Often the things that precipitate this kind of change are sudden, even violent. The amplitude of their impacts on a family and the individuals within the unit can be huge. The careful work of creating the mobile can be undone by accident or by design in a split second. The impacts are often permanent.

I have found that this model also works when we apply it to the make-up of an individual student. It also seems to explain that thing we sometimes call “artistic temperament”.  When some component of a person is heavily weighted;  their ego, a specific talent, ability to focus, or specific academic skill (the math whiz) often something else is in short supply. This might be patience, social skills, self-control, or another academic area. This artistic composition is and will always be work in progress, a moveable piece of art that reflects both what is attached by the tethers and how the environment acts upon it. A mobile spins slowly in a quiet room, and when well designed by an artist like Calder, it appeals from all angles. On a breezy porch, it may circle gently and invite our interest. In a storm like hurricane Sandy it shudders and gyrates, reflecting and creating tension, concern and potential damage.

As teachers we sometimes can control the environment that the children before us are interacting in. We may not be able to control the wind, but we can adjust the sails, either adding to or moderating the force that is applied. We can be the windbreak that shelters our students from some of the storms in their lives. We can also provide the gentle nudge to set their dreams into motion. Most of what we do to change how children see and are seen by the world comes gradually. The mobile changes over time without the dramatic shifts and seesawing in response to pressure applied or elements lost or added.

Flamingo by Alexander Calder

There are many forms of art, teaching among them. All invite individual interpretations. Most inspire appreciation for the talent of the artist and the best invite that finest form of flattery, the desire to imitate, to reproduce, and make one’s own. Planning the changes we would like to see in the delicate mobiles that are the children we teach, we can minimize the upheaval that change creates. There is room for trials and errors. What happens if we add a bit here, shave off a bit there? We take steps forward and fall back to regroup. At each stage, the art will look a bit different.

Like so many things in the classroom, the most beautiful, long-lasting creations, the finest examples of the teaching virtuosity, are the things that we create in concert with our students, and art that not only accepts change, but invites it.

Falling Leaves and Rising Expectations

By Peggy Wuenstel – The leaves are starting to fall in my yard, and will soon require that I pay the piper for the beautiful deep shade, verdant views, and lower air conditioning bills that having mature trees provides.

Every autumn this coincides with the busyness of a teacher’s life. I wonder each year, if this is when I will hire a neighborhood kid to gather the ever increasing amount of foliage that covers the grass. I am also struck by the difficulty in determining how to compensate the person that might do this job for us. How would I know if the task was finished? How would I know how good a job was done?  Would I pay by the hours worked, the number of bags filled, the relative clearing of the yard? Would I feel the need to supervise the process, or would the results observed when I returned home from running errands suffice? Will I be better served in measuring successful completion of a task like raking leaves by assessing how much, how fast, how well, or a combination of all of these things?

I also have been spending time reading Dr. Tony Ever’s State of the State of Education address, with particular attention to the portions that talked about evaluation systems that will soon be implemented for students, for teachers, for schools, and for school districts. I was struck by the parallels that can be observed between these very important concepts and the perennial task of gathering the leaves. It is especially critical because of the linking of teacher compensation to these same evaluations.

As teachers, under most current salary schedules, we are paid for days worked, with years of experience and continuing education credits earned positively affecting these base salaries.  Changes are coming in the era of new teacher evaluation systems that will incorporate student test scores and other performance measures that may be beyond even the most effective teacher’s control. Merit pay is far too simple a term for this concept.

There are a myriad of variables that make up any classroom environment. Class sizes vary from district to district. Poverty levels differ markedly from town to town. Parental involvement ranges from intense through supportive, to non-existent and counterproductive. Our most capable educators are regularly asked to welcome the most challenged students in any school setting, those with special education needs, medical fragility, limited English proficiency, limited background knowledge, challenging behaviors, or a transient or homeless family history. Despite the business theorists’ best efforts to convince us  that the teacher is just an interchangeable part, that can be placed in front of any classroom with equal effectiveness, anyone who has spend anything beyond cursory time in a school setting knows that this is simply not true.

Even veteran educators who have spent decades in front of a classroom know that they face a different set of challenges and assets each year. Demographics change, curriculum is tweaked, and political pressures are brought to bear. New assessments are designed and administered, data is analyzed, and interventions are planned. Teachers must create an environment where student needs are met by available resources. Not only are we not all doing the same job in any given year, no educator I know does the same job two years in a row.  We aren’t all raking the same yard. Some are as smooth and even as a golf green. Some are bumpy and filled with the kinds of holes that result in twisted ankles and broken bones. Some cover acres and acres and some are the size of the proverbial postage stamp. Some have a few leaves to gather, bag and discard. Others are faced with knee deep seas of crunchy debris. What is absolutely clear is that, from classroom to classroom, from year to year, none of us are doing the same job.

Measurement in education in education is critically important, and when used effectively it helps to assure that every student gets what they need to succeed and every teacher possesses the information to design effective education plans. It is essential in correcting our missteps, redirecting our efforts, and allocating our resources. But measurement is only a small segment of evaluating the effectiveness, the impact, the essential nature of education. The leaves that fall must be gathered, the previous year’s chaff cleared away. New things grow and large limbs sometimes fall to the ground, potentially doing damage in their wake. Albert Einstein reminds us that “Not everything that counts can be measured counts and not everything that can be measured counts.” Nowhere is this truer than in the education of our children. Multiple messages are coming in and not all of them of equal value, and just because they can be reduced to a digestible formula does not mean that the data tells us what we need to know. There is a wealth of research that reminds us that we perceive negative messages more intensely and their effects are longer lasting than those of positive input. We are at a critical moment in determining how we will use evaluation data to measure, support and compensate teachers. I hope we use the tools wisely. Until we can measure compassion, the ability to connect to the lost and lonely, and the creativity that it takes to reach the needs of a diverse group of students, we must acknowledge that we can’t fully measure the impact of an effective teacher. In a few weeks, we’ll be shoveling the sidewalks and these same questions about a job well done will fly with the snowflakes.

I Guess I just Have One of Those Faces

By Peggy Wuenstel –  For the last several years, the teaching staff of the elementary staff where I work begins the year in a similar fashion.

We don the new t-shirts purchased for us in school colors and emblazoned with a message about character. We assemble in the main lobby of the school and greet the students as the supportive team that we intend to be for the coming year. Parents, students, and particular our principal, love this moment. But the team metaphor can be overdone, and wearing a uniform can mask some important aspects of our individuality. I am also reminded about the things that I wear every day that are uniquely mine, my expression and my attitude.

I can’t count how many times I have been told that I remind someone of a family member, a friend, or a former teacher. People in the store often will stop me and call me by a name that is not my own. Even more often I witness their attempts to make contact that are stopped mid-sentence, when upon closer examination, they realize I am not the neighbor, sister-in-law or fellow PTA member that they believed me to be. Teaching, both in the public school and University setting allows us to opportunity to extend our circle of acquaintance every year.

At first I thought this “I thought I knew you” phenomenon was related to the large number of people I have been privileged to interact with over the last decade here in the small college town that I live in. But then I realized that it happens when we travel across the country, when I am in a place I have never visited before. The oral surgeon’s receptionist, the woman behind me in line at Hobby Lobby, the mother with her children at the park all reach out and say hello and believe we have met before.

I would like to think that it is the face that I wear, the open eyes, the smile and the sense of welcome that invites their conversation. I have come to understand that this is an extension of how I try to begin every new interaction at school. Making eye contact, greeting with a smile and a willingness to sit on the tiny chairs or the floor to reach a level of connection has always served me well. Wearing a colorful scarf, and interesting piece of jewelry or a new piece of clothing invites comment and creates a conversational opening, much like our back to school t-shirts.

But it is our expression that communicates the invitation to interact.

Passing the Torch – Mentoring and Fostering the Profession

By Peggy Wuenstel – I had a birthday last week, one of those mid-fifty ones that leave a person in the limbo between the peak of a career and the end of one. I’ve been thinking a lot about retirement lately, both because of advancing age and retreating certainty about the benefit package I will be able to access when the time comes. One of those pieces of advice that young educators always get, and are in no position to take advantage of, is the suggestion to start saving for retirement as soon as you can because of the multiplier effect of those dollars over time.

I would like to suggest another way to multiply your assets: mentor and support other teachers, and begin as soon as you can.  One rock thrown into a pond creates a few ripples. A whole handful of pebbles alters not only the surface, but can change the contours at the bottom as well. If educators can make that our goal, the impact that we might have on this world is enormous. But it is also not permanent. There is a need to keep mentoring, to keep engaging, to keep offering a hand up to those who are trying to climb into the profession.

All teachers experience those sinking moments when we wonder if the investments of time, effort and personal capital pay off in the accomplishments of our students. Undoubtedly, there are always a few bright spots in the skies over every teaching year, but that is often not enough to light our path into the future. One way to add to the aura is to spread the flame to as many aspiring educators as possible. If the true currency of teaching is the satisfaction of touching the future, through the many students we encounter over the years, then mentoring fellow educators is the ultimate Ponzi scheme – no one benefits more than the teacher at the top of the pyramid.

Being a cooperating teacher for those completing field study or student teaching experiences keeps us in touch with technology, new techniques and the enthusiasm of youth. Another pair of hands and another set of eyes are invaluable tools in today’s classrooms. Working closely with new hires, in teacher mentorship programs, clinical fellowship year supervision, as professional development plan reviewers, or informally in day-to-day teaching duties invests not only in their success but in our schools and society as a whole. One of the great dangers of a wholesale departure of experienced educators from the profession is what current Elementary Teacher of the Year Marsha Herman described as “a sad loss of collective wisdom”.

In many ways it is harder today than it was when I began. I read with outrage the recent comments made by the chairwoman of the House committee on Higher Education, Virginia Foxx.  Her lack of understanding of the issue of student loan debt is appalling considering her position. The ratio of tuition costs to entry level wages has grown astronomically. It is almost always impossible for a college student to earn the funds to pay for a semester’s tuition without parent, institution, and government support. That is assuming that the student can find employment that accommodates a collegiate schedule.

Marquette did a masterful job of assisting me in financing my education. That package included the Pell Grants and Stafford Loans that are currently on the chopping block. I would like to believe that the government’s investment in me as a student has been returned multi-fold. I would hope that those who are at the top of our government’s educational policy will realize that the way to insure a future of well-educated workers who can meet the needs of an aging and varied population, hungry for technology, information, and innovation is to invest heavily in them.

Throughout this year of blogging, I hope that I have been able to offer some practical suggestions as well as Platitudes. Here are a few investments to consider for your teaching investment portfolio.

• Offer opportunities to observe. Invite new teachers to watch both innovative lesson and daily routines ,and ask follow-up challenges to assist them in using what they see in you in their own teaching plans.  Let them take as little or as much as they wish and make it their own. It is amazing how much can be accomplished when you don’t care who gets the credit. There is nothing more gratifying than watching both students and teachers use what you have demonstrated.
• Allow newbies to teach you. There are far more things available to learn than anyone person can find or filter. When a novice feels passionate about something, you can learn from that passion. It allows the new teacher to hone their skills as well. That old adage, To teach someone something, you must understand it yourself, rings true.
• Write it down. Remembering everything that you discuss is impossible. When you, in your role as mentor, provide the written feedback or resources, or share from your accumulated wealth of materials, you ease the burden and prime the pump.
• Share the tricks of the trade. Reinventing the wheel is unnecessary and wastes precious time and energy. Pass on your favorite book titles, websites, Apps, enrichment techniques, copy machine tricks, organizing ideas, classroom management strategies and coffee shops on the route to school. A gift card or two is also a nice touch. Introduce them to staff, district employees, parents and community members who are helpful and supportive and show them where the potholes in the road are, both in and out of the classroom.
• Praise them in front of their peers. I’ve written before about how this can be over and inappropriately used. Those comments still apply. But the teacher just starting out needs to know that someone is in their corner, and is willing to go public about it. Make the comments specific and positive, because that can be inspiring.
• Be available. You get to decide where and when, but then BE there, be totally there.
• Be hands off. You have your own classroom, your own set of students. Let your mentee do rather than watch. Active learning is much more likely to result in permanent changes than watching.

Making sure that supervision experiences are offered on a credit/no-credit basis rather than for a grade goes a long way to opening students up to asking questions to aid learning rather than worrying that revealing lack of certainty will negatively impact their performance assessment in college courses. These are the practical application of theory and

Pedagogy, the proof in the pudding. Teaching is not about what we know, but about what we can help someone else to learn. When you can be intensely happy because you can help someone else achieve their dreams, you have it in you to be a great teacher.

Why April Fools are Definitely Not Foolish

By Peggy Wuenstel – It is often said that teaching requires a sense of humor, and my personal experience has certainly borne that out. The willingness to be silly, to see the funny side of life, and to sometimes be the butt of the joke goes a long way to enhance the experience for both teacher and learner. Those activities that produce giggles, chuckles, or full-out belly laughs are likely to be remembered and increase the probability that student participation will be more active and outcomes will be positive. Both neurological studies of the brain’s response to humor and market research done by the advertising industry bear this out. The creators of the Super Bowl commercials are certainly banking on our memory and retrieval response to humorous ads and their impact on product name recognition.

Humor is also a way of encouraging the important skill of “thinking outside the box”. A slightly skewed view of the world can result in wry observations and a new level of understanding. It helps young children hear the similarities in words at the same time they learn to distinguish the specific differences. A kindergartener in our school recently enthusiastically thanked her teacher for the delicious “”graham crappers and milk” served for the after recess snack.

That smile producing comment was shared with our entire staff via e-mail, producing a shared experience and a springboard for a teachers’ lounge discussion. Did you hear the one about…? is often a communal event. I encourage new educators to keep a “Smile File” either electronically or in print to remind them of the pearls that come from the mouths of the “babes” in their classrooms. How wonderful to experience that connection with a colleague that comes when you must avoid eye contact after a particularly hilarious comment from a student. A young man of Mexican descent was reviewing a pie chart with me that represented the ethnic make-up of Wisconsin’s population. We discussed the nations of origin for African-American, Asian Americans, Native Americans and Hispanic Americans. His very genuine questions “I’m Hispanic? Does my mom know that?”produced one of those moments for me a few years back.

But as anyone who has tried to remember and deliver the punch line to a complicated joke knows, humor is not easy. Those performers we admire have that blend of wry observational skills, smooth delivery and impeccable timing that allow us to share in the joke.  Whether Jerry Seinfeld’s gentle musings, Jeff Foxworthy’s redneck observations, Robin Williams’ manic monologues, or  edgier rants are your preference, these top comics are praised for their quick wit, understanding of human nature and facility with language, all skills that they share with master teachers.

Social competence is often evaluated by the ability to use and appreciate humor. The nuance required in comprehending puns, finding the smile in a clever turn of phrase or a play on words, or understanding inferential language is one of the ways we assess student comprehension and vocabulary.  Constructing jokes and riddles is an alternative task that can assess student skills in a very interactive way. Games, skits, and performance art that allow students to shine bolster self-esteem, create bonding opportunities, and lighten the classroom mood. We can also teach lessons about propriety, respect, appropriate language choice, and cultural sensitivity by incorporating and explaining humor.  And above all, it’s just plain, fun! We could all use a bit more of that these days.

So what’s the comedy challenged teacher to do?
Dr. Peter Jonas provided the following recipe for injecting some fun into our classroom lives, for both the instructor and the student.

1. Develop a database of jokes, stories, sayings, puns, and material and keep them where you can access them
2. “Steal” your information from movies, TV, the internet, and funny friends (you can always credit when you know the original source, but that is often hard to determine)
3. Always look for connections with your material (vocabulary, setting, cast of characters)
4. Plan your jokes – but look spontaneous- (The very best comedians rehearse a lot, even dealing with hecklers)
5. Collect, label and categorize your files or clips
6. Keep track of the reactions to your material – not everything works equally well
7. Some of the funniest things to discuss come from reality. Keep your eyes and ears open for these in the classroom.
8. Humor is contagious! Let it happen. Encourage it. But also help students know the limits of propriety and when to say when.
9. Just Do It. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Humor is a muscle that must be developed. Even the naturally funny person needs work to relate effectively to an audience
10. Be smart, respectful, mindful of the audience and the situation. This can be an important lesson in tolerance.

So, for the day on which we celebrate and engage in the art of the practical joke, I offer this pearl. Why are we always so tired at the beginning of April?  We’ve just finished a 31 day March. And hopefully we’ve been laughing all the way.