on fear

I want to talk about fear. Here are some things I am not afraid of: storms, flying, snakes, the dark, spiders, fire, panhandlers at street corners, unfamiliar animals, credit card debt, blood, needles.

Here is what I am afraid of: low-water crossings. There’s a good reason for this.

In Texas, sudden rain means flash flooding. When I was young every entrance and exit to our neighborhood required passing through a low-water crossing. Once, my father decided he was going to brave one with my mother and me in the vehicle. We stalled mid-way. We were pushed by the current, the truck fishtailing from side-to-side. Water came in the doors. If not for a lone emergency truck which happened to be coming the other way, we may have been swept over. The truck pulled to our side, diverting the water around us, and we drove on. In high school, two of the girls who were in my group when we went to prom (casual friends, all piled into cars because we couldn't afford a limo) later tried to cross during a flash flood and one of them drowned. I’ve gone white-water rafting and been thrown out of the boat, and wasn’t afraid. It’s being trapped in a car that scares me.

So that’s a fear.

Recently I’ve talked about things that have changed my assumptions as a teacher, have made me question the established rhetoric, have made me look more deeply at what I’ve been told, especially when it comes to what is purported to work, and what doesn’t.

Dennis Fermoyle, and TMAO (via D-Ed Reckoning) have me thinking again. Dammit, you guys, I’m supposed to be on Spring Break! (Didn’t stop me from going up to school for three hours today, though. And I’ve been writing lesson plans for next year like crazy this week.)

TMAO's post says, "As I read these endless teacher accounts of being subjected to controlled curriculum, I grow tired rather than invigored, and think shut up rather than right on."

I’m not quite at the shut up stage, but I do wonder. I’ve talked about some colleagues who did not know what DI was, but they’d heard about it, and based their opinions of it on that. I’ve talked about how I was indoctrinated to be suspicious of DI through the subterfuge of calling it "teacher-centered" direction. My purpose here is not to expound on the merits of DI. Except for reading the Englemann book and some other resources found online, I’ve never seen it in action, nor have I seen any model for high school. (Though I do have one of the Englemann books on order to see for myself.)

I often question the idea of teacher autonomy coming, as I did, from several industries where there was no autonomy whatsoever. I’ve seen the argument time and again, and for a very brief time (while being subtly influenced to believe that DI was EVIL), was swayed by it.

Now, I like to think I can be graceful when the occasion demands (I do try not to feed the trolls), but let me just be blunt: Is it fear?

What I question is whether the debate doesn't sometimes stem from teachers' concern that with stricter accountability they may have to question whether a) they are experts in their subject matter, b) they have the skills to effectively teach subject matter they may be experts in, or c) the methods they believed to be effective actually are. Any of those is an easy fix, in my opinion, but it requires accepting responsibility, which is more difficult, especially if the acceptance of responsibility on the teacher’s part might mean the loss of a job due to ineffective measures to train teachers to mastery (or a preference for dumping low performers in favor of high performers for the sake of cost efficiency).

Somehow, I just cannot bring myself to believe that a more rigorously designed curriculum is the thing-under-the-stairs that will jeopardize teacher creativity. Truly, in my mind, it isn’t the play, it’s the way the actor delivers the lines. At the same time, I believe there is a deeper question of dignity to be addressed - devoted teachers do put themselves on the front line every single day, and we know that they sometimes come to harm at the hands of their students, and we know that they are often trivialized despite their efforts, and we know that they take care of children who are not their own, even though, by professional obligation, they should only be held responsible for the material (but that doesn’t stop them).

So, my question is: is it fear? Or is there a concrete argument against minimally standardized practices in education besides the loss of teacher autonomy? Are there assurances which might be made which could help maintain the dignity and enthusiasm of teachers while transitioning to something perceived as being restrictive and career-threatening? Can we get there from here, and how so?