“Listening and Learning” = feigned interest + intentional shut out
Separate, but very similar, experiences of a set of public school teachers, members of the NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English), students in Philadelphia, and Alexander Russo, inform us of the Department of Education’s modus operandi.
Earlier this week, nationally certified science teacher-coach Anthony Cody (of Teacher Magazine’s “Living in Dialogue”) reported on his recent “meeting” with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Cody initiated a campaign to provide a way for teachers to hopefully share their ideas with the administration. After six months of working on the project, he and 11 other teachers obtained what they had been seeking: an opportunity to talk to Duncan.
Here's Cody’s account of the meeting, “Talking into a Tin Can on a string 3000 miles long: Our Talk with Duncan”:
So we twelve finally had our thirty minutes to speak with Secretary Duncan. We spent weeks preparing what we would say. We polled the 2000 members of Teachers' Letters to Obama and got more than 270 teachers to take time to share their ideas of what we should say. We knew we would not have much time, so we paired up, and wrote short statements carrying our experiences