Bad Teacherist [Reading Roxane Gay]
I’m not the perfect teacher.
At my best, I have a meticulously thought-out lesson plan with activities that access multiple pathways, and I can get an active discussion going even with the least engaged students in class. At my worst, I can barely put my thoughts together, and little that I set out to do translates to the students in class. I’ve been told I’m a great teacher by my former and current students, and in many cases, their parents, but I’m also not cocky enough to think that I got it together.
If I can achieve good teacher-ness 90% of the time, I’m happy, but I recognize that I haven’t even reached that peak yet. Or so I think.The education debate we’re having right now, complete with frameworks for either compliance or resistance, don’t take into account the humanity of the subjects left in its wake. I do believe that most teachers are doing their best given the circumstances they’re given, but I also believe we need adults from top to bottom, including myself, willing to rethink the ways they approach teaching all of our children, especially those most disenfranchised by this country. I vehemently oppose the use of test scores for assessing teachers as it’s mostly invalid for individual teachers in the short and long-term, and I am in favor of subjectifying (yes, I made that word) teacher evaluations so we can get it as right as possible.
I don’t like or appreciate the framework that our current set of reformers have for fixing our nation’s education system and would dump it in a heartbeat if I could. However, it also means that I ought toBad Teacherist [Reading Roxane Gay] | The Jose Vilson: