Teachers protected under tenure's due process are best able to advocate for their students

Tenure does not mean "a job for life", but it does provide teachers with due process, enabling them to act in the interest of their students without fear of intimidation, recrimination or firing.  In the article below, Marla Kilfoyle and Melissa Tomlinson clearly outline the complexity of teaching and why tenure is critical for cultivating sound pedagogy, encouraging teacher advocacy for the multitude of student needs, and to protect the careers of dedicated teachers for stable school environments.

TENURE – PLAIN AND SIMPLE

By: Melissa Tomlinson & Marla Kilfoyle

Imagine you are charged with the job of making the decisions that concern the life of a child, including the protection of that child. If you are a parent, this is no stretch of the imagination.

Now imagine that you are prevented from doing this. You are afraid to speak up and have opinions for fear of personal recriminations that could affect yourself or other family members. Consequences could include temporary loss of income, loss of a job, even loss of a career. You become silenced, effectively opening the door to the possibility of harmful decisions to be made regarding children that are in your charge.

As a parent, you have power. You have legal guardianship rights over the lives of your children until they turn 18. For a large portion of that time a child attends school. While that child is in school it is in the best interest of all children that adults involved can advocate for the child. When you deny tenure rights of teachers you are silencing that advocate.

We are 2 teachers and we are 2 mothers. Melissa has 2 boys and Marla has 1 boy. As teachers we understand the importance of teacher tenure, which for the remainder of this article we will call due process. First of all, a teacher’s right to due process does NOT guarantee them a job for life. For example, in New York State any tenured teacher can be dismissed under 3020a law.

Here are some scenarios in which teachers would need due process to protect children.

Scenario #1

Mrs. Smith goes to a meeting for Johnny, a special education student that she has taught all year. She knows that Johnny needs to have speech therapy and plans to recommend that he receive it as soon as possible. Before the meeting Mrs. Smith is told via email that she is NOT to recommend speech therapy for any more children because the district does NOT want to pay for the services.

Mrs. Smith with NO due process rights – goes to the meeting and doesn’t say a word in advocacy for Johnny because she is a afraid to lose her job and/or goes to the meeting and advocates for him and is fired by the district directly after the meeting is over.

Mrs. Smith with due process rights – goes to the meeting and can ignore the district directive and recommend speech therapy because that is what Johnny needs. The district cannot fire her for ignoring this harmful directive without a due process hearing.

Scenario #2

Mr. Jones suspects that one of his students is being beat up at home. The student in question, Mark, comes to school with a black eye. Mr. Jones tells his department chair that he is calling Child Protective Services on the parents. Mr. Jones gets an email from the district telling him to NOT call CPS because they don’t want the bad publicity.

Mr. Jones with NO due process rights – does NOT call CPS because he is the sole breadwinner in his house and cannot lose his job and/ or he calls CPS and is fired at the end of the week.

Mr. Jones with due process rights – calls CPS, ignoring the district directive not to, and cannot be fired without a due process hearing.

Scenario #3

Mrs. Davis is an award winning English teacher. She has enjoyed teaching an amazing unit on To Kill A Mockingbird for her entire 15 year career. In this unit she can teach children about social justice and equality. In Mrs. Davis class is the new president of the Board of Education’s daughter. When Mrs. Davis starts her To Kill a Mockingbird unit the BOE President calls her up and expresses concern that the book has rape in it. Mrs. Davis explains to the BOE President that her focus on the book isn’t rape but social injustice. The next day Mrs. Davis is called into her directors office and told she cannot teach the book.

Mrs. Davis with NO due process rights does NOT teach the book in fear of losing her job. She is the sole provider for her mother and herself and/or Mrs. Davis teaches the book against the advice of her director and is fired at the end of the year

Mrs. Davis with due process rights explains respectfully to her director that she will teach the book as she has done so successfully for 15 years. She further states that she will be attending the BOE meeting to make a statement that the BOE President is attempting to censor reading lists in the district for children. She cannot be fired without a due process hearing.

Scenario #4

Mr. Bryant has been a math teacher at XYZ High School for 25 years. He is loved by his students and parents in the community. He has been active in school and advises the award winning Math Club. During Mr. Bryant’s 25^th year as a teacher the district hired a new Superintendent of Schools. This Superintendent sought to trim the budget and decided to cut several clubs, including Mr. Bryant’s award winning Math Club. Mr. Bryant made an appointment with the new Superintendent to plead their case. The meeting did not go well so Mr. Bryant rallied the community to raise money to keep the club. This angered the new Superintendent who

Mr. Bryant with NO due process is fired immediately and the new Superintendents nephew, a new math teacher, is hired to take his place.

Mr. Bryant with due process is called up to the Superintendent’s office and given a hearing prior to an attempt to fire him.

The above scenarios are only a few that we can provide to you. We could write a book but we hope that you get the overall simple reason why teachers need due process rights. Many people argue that no other job gets due process rights, and in many cases they are correct, but NO other occupation deals with the complexity of teaching children and making sure that the environment that they learn in is free of cronyism, favoritism, safe, and free from personal bias. A teacher’s right to due process provides a stable, safe, and productive environment for children to learn and thrive. It gives teachers the ability to advocate freely for children in their care without fear of losing their jobs.

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About Marla Kilfoyle and Melissa Tomlinson

Marla Kilfoyle is General Manager Badass Teachers Association and Melissa Tomlinson is the Assistant General Manager of the Badass Teachers Association.
Marla Kilfoyle began her adventure into the Badass Teacher Association by way of being a parent advocate on Long Island in such groups as Parents and Teachers Against Common Core and LI Opt-Out. Marla has been a teacher in the Social Studies Department at Oceanside High School (NY) for 27 years. In addition, Marla coached the Oceanside Girl’s Track and Field team for 15 years and runs her district’s social science program.
Marla is the mother of a 10-year-old son and wife of Allen, a retired NYPD Detective. She continues her work as a parent advocate in LI Opt-Out as a member of their leadership team.
Melissa Tomlinson: A teacher of students with special needs at the middle school level, realized that she was not alone in questioning the role of standardized testing in schools when she found the Badass Teachers Association. She was first pushed into the spotlight of fighting the methods of corporate educational reform when she faced Governor Chris Christie to ask about his public degradation of NJ Schools when they were rated one of the top three in the nation. Along with teaching and advocacy, Melissa runs the after school program in her school building, providing a place for students to receive extra educational assistance, exposure to career possibilities, and a safe place to be after school hours.
Melissa is the mother of two teenage sons and she fights for equitable education for all students, now and in the future.

Yes, And...Embracing the Awkward: Some thoughts on what rigor in school actually means

Improvisation is an edgy, spontaneous art form – and completely unscripted.  This means that you don’t know what will happen next, or what your co-players will do or come up with.  Unscripted is the key word.  When you engage with this, you’re offering yourself up to be thrown off and disoriented, uncertain, and inescapably awkward.

A while ago, I started an Improv Club with some energetic high school students at their exurban high school. The school was surrounded by what were once cow pastures in the furthest reaches of bucolic Westchester County, where kids have to make their own fun.

The club’s numbers grew as kids found they could let off steam in this after-school venue.  Kids who had sat numbly in class all day got to bring their most daring and “outlier” selves into room L207. But, with the exception of the two self-appointed “presidents”, none of the kids had any experience with improv, and had no clue as to how to play without a script.

I enlisted the help of my son, Zack, who is a professional improviser.  This sounds like an oxymoron, but he does earn a living improvising and making people laugh. He introduced the club to the most important principle:  Yes, and… This is the phrase you keep in your head while your co-players verbally lob something at you. 

The basic Yes, and…game might go like this:  Two students stand up:

Student 1 might say: I just got back from Mars.

And Student 2 says Yes and…is that how come you have green skin? …

Student 1 says Yes and…their spaceship is right over there…

Student 2: Yes, and…Can I go too?

At this point two more students may join in.

Student 3: Yes, and…This is my Mom and I would like to send her to Mars. 

Student 4: Yes, and I’m his Mom. I packed a lunch and weapons in case they’re not friendly…

There’s an emphasis on speed: Too much “think” time, and the game falls flat.  And, the second you think or say “No”, the improv dies on the spot. 

Frequently kids would get tongue-tied and go blank, flail around, and occasionally fall on the floor and groan – When it doesn’t fly, you blow your cover and everybody sees that.  But isn’t that the true nature of learning something new?  It’s messy and unpredictable.  The members soon changed the club's name from “The Waxed Beans” to “Embrace the Awkward.” 

Awkwardness? In our school?

In spite of its omniscience, we don’t like to associate Awkward with School.  We’re surrounded by the shrill rhetoric: Succeed! Achieve! Score High!... Stumbling and falling? Not in Our School. 

In reality, school is infused with awkwardness at every turn. Growing bodies are awkward, teachers are awkward, technology does weird things; the day is packed with socially confusing situations. Everybody did the math wrong today and it’s only first period.

As students reach to learn something new, they hear Wrong. Not it. You didn’t get it. Nope:  The daylong incantations of bad news.  “No” stops the learning in its tracks and shuts the door, like a failed improv.  

Yet, we are improvising as we learn.  Zack describes how an improviser approaches the unknown:  He or she is somebody who is willing to commit to a choice – If, say, I were to go onstage and do something funny with my body. The audience might just stare for a bit. But I make a commitment to keep doing that funny body thing.  They start to get it. They laugh. I then make it even more specific and do it harder.  Then I get past the fear of not knowing what will happen next.

All tangled up essays, sciatica, and finding the snakes 

This changed the way I taught writing because I wanted to help my students get over their fear of writing something wrong, and to open up what had been shut down over the years. But here of course, students aren’t doing something funny with their bodies.  They’re doing something “funny” with their writing.  

Aside from a few exceptions, on the whole, my students’ essays are filled with fragments, strange spelling, inconsistent paragraph spacing, disconnected ideas, missing citations. They get all tangled up in words used incorrectly and in the wrong context: It is a festival of awkward writing.  Yet, the effort that students put into a labored-over essay is evident – and the sheer energy of their effort activates my sciatica and fires up foot cramps.    There is something committed about their awkwardness.  

According to Zack’s earlier description, this kind of commitment is needed in order to push further into the unknown.  I began to see writing in a new light, and realized that my students were actually going way out on a limb to show me the insides of their minds, and their thinking processes.  

What a gift to reframe my role in this way:  It was my job to identify the mistakes, in the same way it’s a herpetologist’s job to go up to the mountain and find snakes.  Couldn’t we play with this?  Instead of no, wrong, you have a run-on sentence here, I learned to work with Yes, and - you have three thoughts going on here.  Yes, and- let’s separate those with commas.  Yes, and- this idea is ready for more development…Yes, and- this essay is ready to be organized now…

This became an energizing way to teach.  Students were writing more.  Teaching and writing became more interactive, and more filled with possibilities – like a game.  The principle of improv had opened up the playing field.  Kids were allowed to commit to the “wrong kind” of writing, yes, and – I could guide them toward more clarity.  It opened up our book discussions too – Beginning with the obvious and uninspired student statement: Jay Gatsby was a rich guy… Yes, and – why was it important to him to be a rich guy?  Odysseus took a long time to get back home. Yes, and – what was Penelope doing that whole while? 

If we’re willing to commit to putting it out there, even if it’s wrong and awkward, we’re in a far better position to learn something new.  The opposite would mean to stay cautious, shut down, and “safe.”  Being willing to commit to the unknown and play it harder is the rigor part.  Rigor can’t be thought of as an outcome.  It is a process. Even though it’s a noun, we should think of it as a highly active verb.  Instead of setting rigid and narrow specific outcomes, a rigorous curriculum should invite audacity, uncertainty and mistake making.  The latter is a far more sustainable kind of learning in terms of student and teacher energy.

Without the awkwardness that accompanies new learning there’s no forward movement.

We’re probably engaged with rigor if part of our brain wishes that we were doing something else that will provide some escape from the present task.

What if teachers applied Yes, and…to solving math equations, the narrative of history, and science labs? In what ways would teaching shift?

To become a better coach, I had to become a more patient teacher, even though patience is not included in the criteria on the evaluation forms that administrators fill out during Formal Observations.  Also, in conferences, I rarely hear parents or teachers say – Yes, and – if we’re more patient, we’re going to see Kevin understand this or that concept…Let’s give him more room and time to play with this. 

“Real life” messing up

Not too long ago, I chatted with a friend who has been an insurance attorney for years, but has decided to broaden her career in learning about courtroom law. Similar to my Embrace the Awkward club students, she is deliberately throwing herself into an unscripted situation – or rather – it has a script, but she doesn’t know what it is yet.  And, similar to the improv students, she has to field verbal lobs from other players, including the Judge, on the courtroom floor.   “I don’t know what I’m doing!” She told me. “I think the concepts are similar to insurance law – but the language and terms are so different!  I’m shadowing another attorney, but he had to leave the courtroom and when I approached the bench, I was scrambling for the right terms.  I’m standing there just sort of stammering… looking for my notes."

I commented that learning new things, no matter how old we are, is so uncomfortable. 

“I so get my fourth grader now –“ She nodded. “I get what my son goes through when he’s struggling in school, trying to get something like the math.  Based on what I went through this week, I understand now how hard school may be for him.”   

If we adults are willing enough to stay in-tune with our own awkward learning, like my attorney friend, we become sensitized to the peak and valley experiences that our kids are having throughout their school day.

Recently, I chatted with my lawyer friend again. "How’s it going?" She broke into a smile. "Much better!  I’m finding my way around…its making sense now."

When we watch toddlers who are powered by the commitment to take those first awkward steps, we cheer the falling down as well.  The falling down is part of the rigor in learning how to walk. We praise, we snap pictures, and instantly zip them off to everybody we know.  We shove the furniture out of the way to give him more room to step forward and to fall down.

Can parents and teachers cheer on, with the same kind of enthusiasm, our older kids as they sweat over essays and wrestle with math equations and science labs? Are we courageous and open minded enough to push aside our own “preferred learning outcomes” and instead, embrace the awkward in learning? 

Let’s clear the space so they can play with whatever is in front of them, and follow Zack’s suggestions-- 

Make the commitment, forget about what scares you and throw yourself into it.

                   

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Helping Students Stay Strong during Standardized Test Time

   
                                     The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss, picture by Crockett Johnson. Harper&Row 1945

Unless you’ve opted your child out from taking these - Common Core Standardized Tests loom on the horizon for public and charter school kids. As crocuses and allergies bloom, English Language Arts and Math teachers are expected to fill kids’ heads with strategies for taking the tests. Teachers work diligently, as they are graded on the standardized returns, and with consecutive low scores, careers are at stake.  But, preparing for the content of these mysterious and high stakes tests is always guesswork because students are not being tested specifically on content that has been taught in class. It’s all about thinking like the test maker.  Compassionate teachers try to make prep time less tedious and as commonsensical as they can, but it’s likely that your child may arrive home feeling toasted, stressed out and worried.

The test days arrive. Regular instruction is suspended. Kids are shuffled around to any available rooms for testing. (Last year, my ELA students were delegated to the tech room, -an unfamiliar setting - where they sat on backless stools for 1½ hours at a time.) Walls are emptied.  Guides to solving equations or writing a paragraph are taken down or covered. Conference rooms are stacked with teacher packets and bulky bundled tests that many trees gave their lives for, and where many tax dollars are spent.  I think back to the cupboard of dog-eared class novels, many of them falling apart, even with best efforts to tape them back together.  The tests, in comparison, are fresh off the press, in pristine condition.  A monastic silence in the halls is maintained, the regular schedules are disrupted, and the effect is disorienting for everybody – even teachers and students who are normally cheerful.  These days are about getting through these days. 

What you can do to help your child

Here are the emotional settings that (specifically younger) students tend verbalize as they get ready to while take these tests.  Students in upper grades tend to internalize these concerns more.   

I’m not smart. I’m a “1” or a “2”.

I can’t remember everything we did to prepare.

I won’t do as well as everybody else in class.

I’m afraid I’ll disappoint my parents if I don’t do well.

I’m afraid I’ll let (you) my teacher down if I don’t do well. 

Occasionally a student will say: I’m just going to do my best:  That’s all I can do.

It’s pretty clear that a parent has proactively cultivated that mind set. That student already has an advantage before coloring in the first bubble with his number two pencil:  His parents have done the footwork in helping this child put the test into perspective.  He’s more relaxed and is going to have more mental energy while taking the test.  And he’s probably not going to spend time worrying about how he did when he completes it.  His parents have given him a valuable life skill tool with this mantra, and he gets to practice using it. 

Keeping a Broad Perspective:

Before distributing the test materials while looking out at both sleepy and worried faces, I’d think through what I wished I could say: a disclaimer. The test I am about to give you does not reflect your performance in my class. But then I’d need a disclaimer for my disclaimer:  In fact, even though I’m a public school teacher standing here administering them, I don’t buy into these tests at all, hang in there, and we’ll get back to what we were doing in class.  

What I’d actually tell students:

This test has nothing to do with how smart a person you are.

This test doesn’t show all the talents that you may have. 

It doesn’t show that you are a good friend.

It doesn’t show the kind of learning style you have.

It also doesn’t show how hard you may work as a student.

If you want to know how you’re really doing, look at the assignments that we’ve done together over the school year.

This test is about just doing your best, just for today.

For all involved, it’s like spending a sweaty day down at the quarry chipping rocks.

So, when your child comes home from school after prepping and testing, remember that lots of energy (and funding) is being spent on something that is not the culmination of what he has learned from his teacher’s lessons.  He might appreciate your invitation for him to decompress from the intensity of the day by inviting him to talk about it. Or, he may not want to, and who would blame him?

These unsolicited questions are not helpful:

How’d you do? (He probably doesn’t know or doesn’t want to think about that right now.)

Did you get a “3” or a “4”? (This is a reductive way to look at the work a kid has put into something.)

Did you finish on time? (The test is a done deal.  Is this really that important?)

Did you answer all the questions?  (The test is a done deal. Is this really that important?)

Did you check your work? (The test is a done deal. Teachers have already reminded students to do this.)

Shouldn’t you spend time on review for tomorrow’s test? (…Really?....)

If anything, these kinds of questions reveal a parent’s anxiety, so now there are two stressed out people sitting at the kitchen table. In showing your own anxiety, you also may be inadvertently showing your child that you place value on this impersonal and inaccurate measuring device – over the teacher’s day-to-day classroom assessments of your child’s progress. Which is a better indicator? Which form of assessment do you actually take stock in?

These tests in no way determine how successful a child will be in the future. But, layered as they are, they can eat away at a child’s self value, and make her question her capabilities, and that does sabotage future success.  The most helpful comment that will reverberate with your child during tomorrow’s test:  I’m sure that you’re doing the best that you can.  

Instead of spending time on a post-mortem--examining the now dead body of the test, this is the time when it’s most beneficial to invite kids to let their brains breathe and to encourage them relax and replenish.

I was trying to daydream, but my mind kept wandering. ~Steven Wright

It’s a healthy practice to help your child cultivate for herself.  As a culture, we don’t seem to value the process of mind emptying.  It’s all about stuffing it with things. Although, many burnt-out adults fork out lots of money to re-learn how to daydream or step back through self help classes; through meditation or hiking classes to lower fight-or-flight cortisol levels, or some class that will help them channel switch from stress and strokes.

When my eldest was a four-year-old in preschool, the mom of one of his classmates wisely introduced to the rest of us new moms the value of ‘stoop settin’ time’.  She had grown up in Brooklyn, and shared that as a kid, when she and her friends got home from school, they’d set on the stoop and hang out without any particular planned or structured activity; they might play tag, or draw chalk people on the sidewalk, they might just chat; the only time constraint being that they needed to go in for dinner in a couple of hours.

We don’t give ourselves much ‘stoop settin’ time’ until we’re old and we can’t move around and we’re forced to sit and air out.   But it is key to mental health – we all need a breather in between.  Although it’s within a young child’s nature to stop and examine an ant colony, or, throw stones into a puddle, kids can be further encouraged to decompress from a packed school day – to daydream, draw pictures, play with the dog, listen to music, or play a simple game. It’s relaxing to set time aside each day to do “nothing.”

Relaxing and replenishing lead to better endurance.

If anything, the tests measure a student’s endurance.  If your child is taught the value of (unplugged) relaxing, and the importance of replenishing her energy, anxiety over the next test will be more manageable, and she’ll have more energy to continuing to sit for the tests, and then move on to more meaningful activities.

The tension-filled rituals of preparing for the tests and the anxiety of everyone involved can skew perspectives.  Sitting outside, looking up at the sky or over at the horizon, playing a game, daydreaming or puttering around are the best therapies for putting the Standardized tests in their place.

Sit in reverie and watch the changing color of the waves that break upon the idle seashore of the mind.  ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 
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