What’s Love Got To Do With Education Reform?
by M. Shannon Hernandez.
Call me radical, or just call me plain crazy, or even an idealist, but I believe the missing ingredient in public education reform is love. And compassion. And gratitude.
Please, let me explain.
Love has many definitions. As a noun, it can mean “deep affection, warmth, adoration” or “enjoyment, appreciation, passion”, or “compassion, caring, kindness”. As a verb, love can be defined with words like “adore, delight in, and hold very dear.”
Look over that list above again. Is there one word up there—just one—that if applied to the everyday world of public education, wouldn’t make our schools a better place for our students and teachers?
As a 15-year veteran teacher, professor, and education activist, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since releasing my book: Breaking the Silence: My Final Forty Days as a Public School Teacher, in August 2014.The very incident that inspired me to start speaking about the flaws in public schools was a sexual misconduct charge brought forth by my principal.
The crime? Embracing the students in a group hug, much like a team huddle, after a high-stakes ELA test. Thankfully, the charge was dismissed, but that incident opened my eyes, even more, to the lack of love, compassion, and gratitude many teachers, students, and parents face day-in and day-out in our public schools.
When a teacher can’t hug a student, or a group of students, we have a problem in this country.
When a principal could potentially ruin a career and life, of a teacher who wants nothing more than the very best for her students, we have a problem in this country.
When a school board can investigate a teacher for over a year, traveling around New York City, trying to gather statements from students and teachers (with tax payer dollars!), and the teacher has no idea that this investigation is even happening, we have a problem in this country.
And this, my fellow teachers, parents, and administrators, is only the beginning…
My student teachers at Brooklyn College spent weeks preparing for their first round of parent-teacher conferences. As teachers, we know how important it is to make contact with families, have quality discussions about students’ successes and progress, and create an environment on parent-teacher night where students and families feel welcome and at ease.
As the student teachers filed into class on a Thursday, following conference night, we held a discussion about their first conferencing experience. I learned that many of my teachers didn’t leave the building until well after 10 p.m. The reason? They are grades 7-12 science teachers who have been given class loads of well over 160 students each. The administration failed to recognize that conferencing for this many students would take so long. But even worse than this, were the student teachers who shared with the class that they were allotted 5 minutes per parent. Yes, you read that correctly, 5 minutes.
I listened to their stories with heartache and anger, wondering a few things:What’s Love Got To Do With Education Reform? - Living in Dialogue: