I am not the enemy.
I am the person that gets up every day excited about sharing the wonders of literature. I am the person that shows students the power of the written word and the beauty of the spoken word. I am the person that values each and every student in my class.
I am not the enemy.
I am the person that sits with a student revising an essay until they get it right. I am the person who keeps their door open after school for those students who do not have a place to go. I am the person that provides the attention to those who do not get it at home.
I am not the enemy.
I am the person that provides the tissue after a heartbreaking truth is revealed. I am the person that guides students to their future career. I am the person that is a sounding board when they are not sure how the parents will react. I am the person who provides supplies because there are none at home.
I am not the enemy.
I am the person that forfeits personal time to ensure students have extra time. I am the person who provides a shoulder to cry on when nobody is around. I am the person who smiles when everyone else is frowning. I am the sunshine in a world of darkness for many.
I am not the enemy.
I am the person that will show students the future and tells them they can achieve all of their goals. I am the person that will be the biggest cheerleader and the biggest critic. I am the person who will be there years later and remember where they sat and how they did. I am the person that calls them, "My kids".
I am not the enemy.
I am not perfect, but I strive for perfection. I am constantly learning because I expect it from my students. I provide a safe haven for the bullied. I love the unloved.
I do this every day.
I am not the enemy.
I am a teacher.
The heart of a servant is the best quality a teacher can have. This is a great reflection. Thanks for your thoughts and dedication!
ReplyDeleteI've seen way too much teacher bashing over the last few weeks.
ReplyDeleteFound someone I can relate to!!!! :) Great post!
ReplyDeleteAwesome - love this! Although if anyone does see you as their enemy, they'd better know who they're messing with :)
ReplyDeleteNice job. I, too, am a teacher, who after 30 years, still looks forward to seeing that light in their eyes when they GET IT! I am a that person, who, every day thanks students for stopping by. I am that person, who still looks for new ideas to share with the students and gets disappointed when they choose to interact with their text machine instead of attending to what I'm saying. I am that person, who is proud to be behind all of my former students whose biggest accomplishment was to make it alive through adolescence. I am that person, who is just as proud to be part of a staff that cares about kids, prepares them for the future, and excels in doing all that we do. You make me proud to be a Blue Devil teacher!
ReplyDeleteAs a parent (and fellow English teacher) I have become very concerned about the level of distrust in our schools among some in our community. I spoke about it at last night's board meeting, and I have been writing about it all day today. Much of what was said last night and has been written publicly today is offensive and unproductive. There were many people sitting around me at the board meeting who were genuinely surprised that they did not get the resolution they wanted at the end of the meeting. They didn't understand that when you walk into a professional setting and start denigrating people as communists, shouting at them from the audience, and blaming board members for decisions that they didn't make, you just aren't going to get the outcome you're looking for.
ReplyDeleteI do not for one second believe that the majority of my friends and neighbors in this community agree with the aggressive comments that have been made over the past few months about our teachers. I have been working very hard to bring people together on this. It has not been easy, and I have made a few enemies. I just want to assure you that there are people out there who want you and your colleagues to continue the excellent work you are doing; we just do shout at other people about it.
The problem is, Nick, you (and I) are the enemy.
ReplyDeleteWe are the enemy of those who are hell bent on making a profit from our profession.
We are the enemy of those who are irrationally attached to irrational dogma presented by the Tea Party and funded by those who are, again, hell bent on making a profit from our profession.
We are a profitable enemy for those who pander to the paranoid. We are a profitable enemy for Michelle Rhee, Michelle Bachman, Rick Santorum, and Rush Limbaugh.
We are a profitable enemy for Pearson, Inc, K12, and anyone else who panders standardized testing, cyberschools, and other big money ventures aimed at sucking the life out of our students, schools, and profession.
We are a profitable enemy for the Koch Brothers, Sam Walton, and others who live to destroy union wages and benefits across the nation.
We are a profitable enemy for politicians seeking sound bites and solutions that aren't even complete sentences, let alone carefully thought out. Our ADD society thrives on shallow slogans like "failing schools."
We are the enemy. And we are quickly losing the battle and the war.
Thanks for sharing this. I'm wondering what the impetus could have been. In my world, it could have come from other teachers, students, parents, district personnel, the media...so many could have made you feel the need to defend yourself and our profession. While I agree with you on all counts, we are the enemy. Not necessarily as sad teacher put it, but we are the enemy to ignorance. We are the enemy to isolation. We are the enemy to poverty, apathy and violence. And as individuals and a collective body of impassioned teachers, we're coming for our enemies. And eventually, we will win the war. We have to.
ReplyDeleteAs a first year teacher, this is so encouraging. I fell in love with being the teacher of my students.
ReplyDeleteThank you for blogging this. I am always positive day in and day out even when some students are not "with" me. I love teaching and couldn't imagine doing anything else. We do so much in a day and the rewards are many. We do our work within the confines of our classroom and often people don't see our love for our craft. I am a teacher too!
ReplyDeleteGREAT post. I am going to use this idea with my coaching parents. Thanks again!
ReplyDeleteAs a parent and school trustee, I hear you. I wish the same message for me as parents, for administrators, for stakeholder groups including PACs and unions, and for trustees. We are all in this together. There should be no enemies and no villifying - only collaboration, support and putting learners first. If we villify, what do we have left? Likely, we would have people uninspired to do what they came in passionate to do.
ReplyDeleteInteresting and it is so true. We teachers can't kill the passion we have for the pupils.
ReplyDeleteThis is right on target. Thank you. I have taught for a year now and have already found that the most stimulating and rewarding educational environment is one in which students can trust their teachers and have a voice in (and outside) the classroom that is on par with our own. The NYC public school system is replete with amazing teachers that understand what you are saying, and I have had the privilege to learn from many of them. Unfortunately, I have observed the opposite. I've watched students become wary of their teachers, viewing them as the domineering "other," not a willing partner in their social and academic lives. We may be nerds, but that's okay, because the way I see it is that students really do, deep deep down inside sometimes, want to learn from us if we are willing to be completely and genuinely open, honest, and cooperative.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to point something out. The attack comes from both sides. Yes, the corporate education reformers are tearing down teachers and calling them the enemy. That's not a new thing. They've been manufacturing the crisis for three decades now.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I've seen streams in the progressive and alternative education movements (including the student voice movement) that are bashing teachers. How many blog posts have I read that say teachers are irrelevant? How often do I read a post saying that kids can learn everything on their own, free of teachers?
Lately, it's been the teacher bashing from the alt-ed movement that I find so disturbing.
Thank you! It's good to hear that there are still like minded teachers.
ReplyDeleteLove it.
ReplyDeleteThis is such a great post. The pressure on teachers is so much right now, and sometimes it feels as though we have no allies, or very few. I saw a commercial recently that put teachers in such a bad light. The pressure is coming from all sides, that it is hard to tell who is on your side. Parents are supposed to be, yet we get told we are too hard on the student. Administrators should be too, yet our plates are more full now than ever before. And the policymakers, who say that they want better education for our students, well they make it hard for us to do this when the main focus seems to be on test scores. It is nice to see this perspective, and it brings back to mind why I do this job, and why I am NOT the enemy.
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