Do we have to choose between student voice and teacher voice?
It turns out my support of student activist Jeff Bliss caused at least one teacher to announce on his blog that he wants to quit Tweeting and blogging.
Friends bombarded me with the link, accompanied with comments like, “This is great. We don’t need someone like that representing our profession.” Or, “Wow. He must really be threatened by students being heard. I think that’s a good sign.”
I represent, apparently,all that makes him want to quit. The problem however, is that what he expresses in his blog is a poorly articulated, almost despondent rant. The discouragement that he is feeling is completely understandable; he sees Bliss’s attack as one more on the pile laid upon teachers whose hands and voices are tied tighter every day. But what he expresses can have a dampening effect on those trying to amplify the voices that matter.
This is about more than one frustrated student’s angry words, and the shouts of praise and derision that followed. This is about whether a voice representing one view can marginalize or even erase another.
In his blog, Red Lines and Highlights, he says:
People like Nielsen, Seth Godin, et al would rather trump up the “Student Voice” for their own purposes and marginalize whatever contrarian teacher voice may exist in the conversation. And this is so prevalent that it has led me to ramble on incoherently on a Sunday night about how I just don’t think I can do *this anymore.
(Note: “this” refers to blogging and tweeting)
(Note: “this” refers to blogging and tweeting)
Let me give short shrift to the actual accusations:
Have I concocted a story with an intent to deceive?
In my post I was clear that I was responding to a particular video that I verified as authentic as well as reactions