End of the Year: The Ugly

This coming week marks the end of my seventh year teaching in the classroom and my second year at my current school. There are so many big wins worth celebrating and discussing, and I realized that I might not get that opportunity if I didn't take it here. Currently, my department is going under a total restructuring that mirrors and is in response to the new initiatives coming from the district office. Our director of curriculum for ELA is retiring this July, and leadership is uncertain at this point.  The teachers at my school were just told about the possibility of a wholly new curriculum, assessment, and technological platforms in the last department meeting of the year. We found out yesterday that we would no longer have course teams or team leads, and that our curriculum would be banded 9/10 and 11/12. There are a lot of positives with this new model. I do not know, however, if I have ever experienced this much change in a single year all at once, especially at the end of the year.

Our last meeting was not about celebrating wins, honoring the faculty who are no longer here or the students we have lost, or even giving shout-outs. Instead, it was spent restructuring our course teams, level-setting on a single standard, and getting a taste of "how it will be next year." Like so many components of education, I do not disagree with the what, but the how. While these changes will ultimately be positive, the timing couldn't have been less so. 

We end the year with uncertainty: "we might not know what the curriculum looks like, but as long as we can agree on the standards, we'll be okay, even if they get us the curriculum late. We don't know what testing platform we'll be using. You all will have new laptops when you walk in, so back up your files now." These were just some of the additional messages we heard to start our meeting. 

I believe that I am discovering a tenant of the neoliberal standards-based education system I have not seen in publications.  It's Orwellian in its perpetuation of fear, chaos, and uncertainty. Never letting teachers rest, heal, and reflect further pushes educators towards a career change. It prevents the stability necessary to exist as a professional or a master of the craft. It delegitimizes our professional identities and undermines our competency.

This year can't actually end if we create enough disruption and destabilization that we spend the summer stressed about what is to come. I've read a lot about teachers' fear of losing their jobs because of performance-based evaluation systems, but this is something different.  We're already stressing about next year before the summer even starts. When teachers are the most stressed and overworked, restructuring the entire department feels violent.

Another Orwellian aspect is doublespeak. Our county is talking with one mouth about how social-emotional care for teachers is a major concern. It should be obvious that creating safety and reassurance would be a goal here at the year's end. Instead, we have a consensus activity where we stare at and pick apart what a learning standard means. We didn't actually finish the activity - so our final moments as a department were spent filling in a worksheet. 

Our teachers and our department are better than this. We did so much more and are worth so much more than a level-setting activity (unfinished). It is the empty futility of it all that stings the most. I can only think about our students, who are also worth so much more than all this. They too are tasked with filling in spaces on a worksheet - of struggling with a learning standard out of context.

To quote a good friend I was in conversation with afterwords:

"So much time we cannot get back."

While this won't be my only post today - I have so much to write about - I wanted to get these final thoughts down...to get this frustration out. Please, let it be clear that I think our leadership is fantastic. I think, though, that it is possible for everyone to get lost in the trees. The neoliberal forest has grown so fast and thick it is almost impossible not to lose your way. I don't have a problem with the "what" - it's the "how, and when and why" that I think needs refinement. I think we need to celebrate our wins and reflect on our progress and growth as educators. Components of a "continuous improvement organization" get cited as for why we are doing this new work, yet other components like reflection are lost. We never get a chance to finish what we start.