The Call is Coming from Inside the House!

I can't tell you how many times I've seen this cartoon at a professional development meeting or a conference. I hate this cartoon! It means nothing. It's essentially saying that we need to give more to some people who need extra and take from those who don't need it. The way I've heard some people in education speak to this is, "We really need to focus on the kids that don't understand it because the kids that do understand it won't be hurt if we don't help them as much." Essentially, the kids that get it, will be fine no matter what, so we don't need to worry about them. 

This cartoon makes me think of an educator preparation program conference I just attended in California. The entity in charge of this conference is the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE). I've attended the last couple of years, and every year, I tell myself, "This is the last time!" Most of the attendees and presenters are part of the university system, and it shows. This last conference was especially awful because "Orange Man" won the election, and he's threatening to take most of their money away. That was the number one issue of concern this year. 

Maybe they should've been focused on better preparing our new teachers for life in the classroom. Maybe they should've focused on how to improve math and reading levels since the NAEP scores had just come out and showed declines in most 4th and 8th grade students in math and reading around the nation. But instead, here are a number of sessions that they did think were important for new educators to focus on:

- Critical look into Children's Racial Identity Work in 4th Grade

- Examining the AI Landscape for Black Students in Grades 6-8

- Views of Black Girls in Dance in the US and Nigeria

- From Stress to Symptons: The Impact of Racial Trauma on Physical Health and Development in Black Children

- Empowering Holmes Scholars: Navigating Predominantly White Spaces

- A Comparative Study of Eco-anxiety Among Students and Faculty of California and Ohio

- Humanizing Frameworks to Support Teacher Candidates of Color

- Looking to the Future: Researching Gender and Sexual Identity in Middle Level Education

- Kuwentos as Resistance": Revealing White Emotionalities in the Social Justice Leadership of Asian American Educators

These are all from one morning session. Imagine how long this list would be if I wanted to show the whole day or the whole conference. Do you start to see a theme of what their other focus is? Nothing about helping students read or how to help teachers feel more confident teaching math. Just social justice activism being researched with government-funded dollars. And they wonder why the government is looking at cutting their funding!

It's not all bad, but it's mostly bad. I've been working with universities for the last few years in my professional role and have been through a bachelor's program, two master's programs, and several endorsement programs. If there's one thing I've learned in all of my time working with the university system, it's that they believe very strongly in the hierarchy of positions and titles. Not unlike most businesses, a lot of those in the university system are just trying to obtain those positions and titles to put them higher up in the hierarchy. I hate being in such a system because communication is so tense, and you have to be so formal that it's hard to get anything done. 

However, unlike the business world, the universities don't make a profit off of what they offer. Most universities were terrified about losing research grant money or Pell Grant money. Why? Because without it, these institutions would simply fade away. As a K-12 teacher, that's the part that really upsets me the most about our university system. Every month, I get a newsletter from the institutions I graduated from telling me how much funding they got for different research projects and how many donations they got from alumni in order to build a brand new building on campus. And without hesitation, with no consideration as to whether or not I still have student loans or what my current economic situation is like, they will ask for donations from me! They literally just gloated about the millions they just received and they have an open palm out asking for more! How much will be enough? 

To put things in perspective, when I was a 4th-grade teacher, we had an assembly to say thank you for all of the money we received through donations that year. I say the word donations, but really, it was money earned through the BoxTops program. Our total haul that year (drum roll please) was roughly $800! The sad part was that we were happy with that and cheered gladly for that money. 

Trust the "Experts?"

I've been watching some interesting debates on X (formerly known as Twitter) that relate to educational best practices. Maybe the algorithm has targeted me in a way that pushes me towards one side of the debate, but sometimes the most common-sense idea or practice is the right one. When I was a new teacher, I would often look at more senior teachers with disdain because they were unwilling to adapt and change with the times. I'm no longer in the classroom, but I can very much appreciate where they were coming from. 

There are so many theories on learning and different teaching methods that it's hard to sift through what is good and what is pure rubbish. At least, that's what I used to think. Anytime my district introduced a new program or we had new standards to align with based on what the state dictated, I went along with it because who was I to question the experts? Now that I work in the building with the experts...I can confidently say that most guidelines, standards, or rules are purely made up. You'll hear things like "research-based" or "data shows." Still, one thing I've learned about education is that it is nearly impossible to have good research or data in education because each student, teacher, classroom, school, district, state, and nation is completely different. 

 A podcast that came out a few years ago called "Sold a Story" gained a lot of popularity by diving into how the American education system teaches reading to elementary students. For years, universities and school districts had been sold on the idea of teaching reading using "balanced literacy" or the "Three-Cueing System" as opposed to learning phonics and other strategies in what is now called "The Science of Reading." The debate isn't completely over, but most would agree that the Science of Reading should be what is focused on in our schools. 

 But how did these other models of learning become so popular? Essentially, a few influential authors and companies were able to convince most states, universities, and school districts that their program was the best. The experts merely claimed they were experts, and people believed them because they were so convincing. This is upsetting on so many levels because it's hard to believe that a whole nation can be duped into something that seems so obvious. 

The most frustrating part for me is that I currently see the same thing happening in science and math instruction. A few charismatic people are pushing a specific way to teach backed by specific teaching practices to implement, but there is no evidence these practices work. I'm seeing this pushed down nationally by certain organizations and universities, but also by state content "experts." 

 The thing that irritates me the most is that I see it happening, but I don't know what to do to prevent it from being pushed across the state. How do I tell an "expert" that they are wrong? I've reached out to university professors to see what they are teaching and have reached out to "experts" that push against what I'm currently seeing. This podcast really got to me because everything they push makes so much sense, but I don't know how to share this with other "experts" when it essentially says everything they are doing is wrong.