‘Shut up and teach’: The high stakes of teacher voice
I remember the moment I stopped resenting the deduction in my paychecks that went to my union. It took me three years, and happened suddenly.
Eric Shieh
Halfway through my third year of teaching music, in 2007, administrators in my St. Louis district decided to cut student time in the arts by 64 percent at the middle-school level as part of a plan to improve student test-scores. Appalled, I sent an email to my fellow arts teachers across the district asking what we were going to do.
The response from my colleagues? There is nothing you can do; this has been happening for the past 20 years.
