The adoption of the Common Core State Standards, the move to standards-based diplomas and the implementation of the new Smarter Balanced assessment system have gotten a lot of attention and have been the topic of much necessary discussion among teachers and parents of school-age children. I believe there are problems and merits within the Common Core, but this is not an editorial for or against the Common Core, nor is it an editorial for or against any mandated standards or assessments. I am writing about the love of teaching.
I recently read an article written by a veteran teacher who quit teaching in reaction to the implementation of the Common Core. One of her complaints was that the English/Language Arts standards take the joy out of reading for kids. And I agree that in isolation, that may be true. But remember, there is a passionate human being presenting this material and teaching these skills. Until you replace the English/Language Arts teachers with robots, kids are still exposed to the joy of reading and the joy of learning. And as long as students are still coming to school, I could never quit teaching.
I worry that the talk of how the Common Core is “ruining education” is extremely unsettling to parents sending their kids off to school. I also worry that young, smart, vibrant college grads will be scared away from considering teaching as a career. I worry that the negative banter about the trends in education is louder than the celebrations of what happens in classrooms every day. And so, as a high school English teacher in my 15th year, let me reassure you that even in the face of all of these changes and reasons for concern, teachers still have students’ best interest as our number one motivation. I love teaching, and I look forward to going to work everyday. I know that teaching is an art, not a science. And I know I’m not alone.
Put a good teacher in front of his or her students, and the human connections established there will always shine through all the paperwork, data collection and assessment scores. No matter what the mandates say, teachers will push kids anyway, to write more, to read more deeply, to try harder. Even when we feel the pressure of test preparation, or when we are exhausted from committee work to realign our curricula to yet another set of standards, when the kids walk into our classrooms, every teacher I know greets our students with a smile.
We are working hard to incorporate the standards, yes, but we also still work just as hard to positively influence the effort, ethics, sense of humor, level of engagement and kindness of our students. I am still teaching novels that I adore and helping each student find his or her unique writing voice. Teachers still have time to laugh with our students and to notice the little things. We still compliment the new haircut and mention the goal scored in last night’s game. We praise the students who stand up to recite a poem even when it scares them to death, or the student who will always willingly pair up with the kid who doesn’t have a partner. We understand that kids’ lives are bigger than what happens at school and that, sometimes, they need a break. We also insist that every student, no matter his or her background, can meet rigorous academic goals.
Teaching has changed during my career, yes. But the fundamentals have not. Every day, we stand in front of a room full of kids who all have a unique story. No matter how jam-packed our unit plans are, we teachers still figure out ways to know these stories, to know these individuals we spend our days with. The conversations about policy must and will continue. But I hope that parents send their children to school trusting that teachers are still teachers to the core, caring about kids before all else.
Emilie Brand Throckmorton is co-chair of the English department at Bangor High School.