The Stories Reformers Tell
When I was in college, I heard a riveting story.
Actually, you probably heard it too.
It went like this: American public schools are failing. Teachers have abysmally low expectations of their students. They are getting paid to spend their time in rubber rooms! This is the civil rights issue of our time.
I was indignant. And I needed a job.
And so, like so many college students of my generation, I went straight from college into a classroom in the Bronx as a New York City Teaching Fellow.
At first, I was elated. I had always wanted to teach elementary school, but it wasn’t really what you did if you went to a fancy and expensive college like I did. But now I had a way.
I was, of course, rudely awakened. You probably know this story too: young new teacher discovers she is utterly unprepared to manage a group of unruly students. She cries a lot.
I had taken a position teaching children with the “emotional disturbance” label in New York City’s district for students with severe special needs, and could do little more than hang on by my fingernails for the first year. They fought, they swore, and they saw me for what I was: a white girl from Maine who had no clue what she was doing. My experienced colleagues – the ones who were The Stories Reformers Tell – Save Maine Schools:
