I confess that I wouldn’t be here if things had not changed so drastically and so quickly, if I wasn’t so personally affected. I teach in a Title I high school in rural Georgia that manages to find loopholes and waivers to avoid AYP’s naughty list, and as a result, my teaching philosophy and methods have not been questioned. However, things have changed over the last month, and now, I find myself confronted with crossroad after crossroad. I find myself having to re-evaluate professional and personal beliefs I thought I had come to terms with long ago. I’m in a full-blown, midlife crisis, and I blame it all on the politics of education.
Sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler “The Road Not Taken“
My Dilema
- I do not believe in a standardized education system, yet I’m being directed to use standardized methods of teaching, including standardized tests.
- I do not believe in the American Myth of Meritocracy, yet I know, from my own personal experiences, of the power and value of ‘hard work’ and public education.
- I do not wish to harm my students with deception, yet I could lose my job if I don’t “get on board” with and participate in the Mendacity of promoting the myth of meritocracy
- My personal and professional life would be easier and more secure if I participated in the mendacity and standardization, yet I want to do what my ‘heart and mind’ tell me is the right thing for my students.
- I love my job and do not want to lose it, but I feel the only way to keep my job is, at best, a ruse and, at worst, the brainwashing of children.
Yes, I’m at a crossroad confronting the darkness around me, and, like Simon in The Lord of the Flies, I must ask myself the difficult questions: “[Am I] the reason why it’s no go? Why things are what they are?”
I admit it. It was mine. “The Rural Carrier Stops to Kill a Nine-Foot Cottonmouth“
Honestly, my answers make me squirm. I confess, though I was willfull, selfish and blissful in my ignorance, I have been part of the problem in education. I admit that I was quiet when I should have spoken-out, that I acquiesced and became complicit because the problems of public education had not impacted me directly.
aurorasofautumn 