By Mark
The education blogs lit up recently about a technologically-botched conference call between a group of accomplished teachers and USDE bigwigs (including Big Arne), and Duncan's subsequent personal calls to Anthony Cody and Marsha Ratzel, two of the educators who lead the outreach from teachers to the USDE. After reading Cody's descriptions of the conference call and the follow up phone call from Arne, I came to the same conclusion that many other teachers have:
They may be hearing us, but they're certainly not listening.
This is the classic complaint, of course, workers have had about management since the dawn of time. That doesn't mean it's okay.
In a nutshell, a reading of Cody's account of the conference call illuminated the kind of selective hearing my wife accuses me of perpetrating. For example, out of an articulate and well developed statement by teacher Heather Walport-Gawron where she discussed the kinds of innovative uses of technology and authentic real-world application of student skills, the listeners are the USDE summed it up with "We hear you saying we need more critical thinking, right?" Wrong. There was so much more to what Ms. Walport-Gawron was saying and such a trite, cursory, and in my opinion dismissive statement such as this clearly shows that while the sound waves may have been received the message was simply and willfully ignored.
This apparently happened again and again–the officials at the USDE would listen to well-prepared, highly articulate educators, and then hone in on a single word or phrase to parrot back as if to say "yes, yes, we're listening." Then, most disturbing at all, after the teachers finished, everyone simply hung up the phone. Conversation over. Teachers were able to express their feelings to the top brass: Someone hang a "mission accomplished" banner.
Perhaps it was already planned, or perhaps Duncan had a sense that those teachers involved with the conference call were not satisfied (perhaps someone forwarded him Cody's blog), but soon after the conversation Duncan reached out and touched via phone at least two of the teachers involved. While the initial conversation was clearly white noise to the USDE, I'm as skeptical about Duncan's follow-up calls and am doubtful that he or his crew will listen to and act upon what these teachers have shared with him. After all, these teachers don't own textbook companies.
There's nothing more insulting than being told "Go ahead, we're listening" when what is really meant is "Go ahead, we're listening for what we want to hear." Unfortunately, this is what I see happening: the USDE can now say that it is listening to teachers, and they can also say that in fact what teachers are saying jives with USDE policy (if, as they seemed to do, one only parses out certain words and phrases). Now, they have something to use against any teacher who claims that the feds are not listening… "But we had the conference call with Anthony Cody and Marsha Ratzel…" It feels like they're saying "make them feel like they're heard so they'll get out of our way."
They may be hearing our voices, but to me the only way they can prove that they are listening is to actually change policies and practices based on majority practicing-educator input. I'll believe they are listening when every panel, task force, committee or think tank is populated by practicing public school preK-12 educators comprising the majority of the roll call. Of course, though my natural pessimism is raging here, I commend Anthony Cody and the other teachers in his army for being willing to take this task of challenging Duncan and the USDE to listen. They are certainly far more proactive than I am, and if or when the USDE really starts to listen, thanks will be owed to Cody, Ratzel, Walport-Gawron, and the many other teachers who stuck out their necks and tried their best to project their voices so Washington can listen.
Hi, Washington Bloggers.
Thanks for noticing the flurry of blogs on the Duncan Call and responding. I was one of the 12 teachers on the call (slotted to speak last–so I never got to open my mouth). The followup is much more exciting than the call–and I’m not referring to the “damage control” calls that Duncan personally made to 2 of the group. We have decided to build a large, grass-roots, unaffiliated, teacher-voice discussion site at Teachers’ Letters to Obama Facebook group.
Tracey’s totally right–we can’t wait for them to come to us, we can’t simply whine, and we must be persistent. By far, the topic that has raised the greatest angst among the 2300 members of the Teachers’ Letters group is misuse of testing. There will be two national real-time virtual seminars–free registration, special expert guests–where teachers can discuss the issue of standardized testing and what the US Dept plans to do next (guess what? it’s national tests…).
I hope several of you, as Reality Scribes for WA teachers, will join the group and participate in the seminars and BLOG, BLOG, BLOG about testing (including recycling your previously published blogs), so we can start sharing the best teacher voices more broadly.
Because–you guys rock.
First of all, Mark, I read Cody’s post and came away with the same conclusion: Duncan wanted to be able to say he “listen to the teachers” without actually listening to them. On the other hand, I have to ask myself, “Which teachers should he be listening to?” I heard recently that one our of every fifty workers in this country is a teacher. we’re the third-largest sector in the work force. Which means that we aren’t all saying the same thing. There was a time when the unions spoke for the teachers. They still do, but I’m not sure everyone feels like they accurately represent even a fraction of all teachers. Does Anthony Cody speak for the teachers? Do we? Who knows. I do know this, however: It’s going to have to take someone from outside the teaching profession to loosen the ‘accountability pressure’ that’s gripped this profession. It sounds too self-serving to guys like Duncan when we speak out against it.
Tracey–very valid points. That is why I appreciate people like the teachers who did meet with Duncan and his folks, because they have the faith that this fight needs, whereas I don’t. Perhaps its the end of the year talking, but I’m very much in the mode of just making sure I do the very best I can in my classroom and letting others handle the bigger picture. I’m very thankful to have teachers who are those “others” who have the skills, patience, and ability to craft language more tactfully than I.
Mark, I totally agree with you. But I balk at where this line of thinking leads. If it’s true, and there’s a lot of evidence to support it, then what are we teachers to do? Complain, saying “No one ever listens!”? Make a ruckus? We’ll come off sounding whiny. Whether it’s true or not, I want to assume that the people who are making these decisions without asking what I think, also want what’s best for students, and like me, want them to be successful. I have to assume that they’ll appreciate my input, because I’m in the trenches and I have a certain perspective they lack. I’ll probably need to remind them over and over and over again. I’ll have to be very persistent. But, I have to assume that because they also want what’s best for our students, they’ll want to know when I think they’re making a huge mistake that will not result in the success of our students.
One reason to continue assuming the best is that it might keep the lines of communication open. This might matter later on. If I assume the worst, I don’t think we’ll get anywhere. There’ll be no questions and answers, no phone calls with bad reception, nothing. I’ll be left to think that they really don’t respect teachers. And they don’t want our students to be successful. Rather, I’ll have to come to terms with the idea that they want to bring about the demise of public education. And, to be honest, I don’t want to live in that world. It’s a choice. I’ll just have to resist the temptation to say, “I told you so,” when all this is over.
My bosses like to ask for our “input,” but they really just want feedback. They make decisions without teacher voices and then simply want to check a box meaning they talked to us.
Teachers tend to view input as information impacting the decision; whereas, feedback seems to imply a reaction to a previously-made decision.
Buy-in (my bosses like the word “commitment”) will not occur without input. It’s basically that simple.
Whether it be the feds or my local decision-makers, I don’t see a true attempt to include teachers in the conversation. Our profession is in serious trouble.