This is something I was hoping to go through my whole career without having to face.
I am so incredibly torn over the issue of teacher walk outs or work stoppages in protest against the legislature’s non-support of public education. I understand that desperate times call for desperate measures, and that the goal is to draw the public’s attention to the issue.
On one hand, a teacher walk out or work stoppage certainly gets the public’s attention. The news reports it, the internet trolls chime in about lazy and greedy teachers, and the flames of what passes for discourse in our country are fanned once again. The hope: the public will rise up in support of teachers, demand accountability from their elected officials, and tides will turn in favor of students, teachers, and voters.
On the other hand, I wonder whether it will really have the effect intended.
Me not doing my job will not really impact someone sitting up in an Olympia office, where he has already made up his mind that teachers are whining, lazy and greedy.
In the private sector, strikes and work stoppages have a clear impact on the “higher-ups.” No work means no profit. If the little guy in the factory bands together with the other little guys and little gals to protest poor working conditions or low pay, their work stoppage literally stops the flow of money into the higher-ups’ pockets. A teacher work stoppage has no material effect on a legislator… and certainly not a legislator’s pocket, considering that they get to set their own pay anyway.
Teachers are already so easily cast as the whiners, the complainers, the lazy. We know that these labels do not represent the reality of who we are. So where does this impression come from? Perhaps when we choose not to go to work and instead chant and jeer on some marble steps somewhere, we are not helping replace those labels. I shudder at which ten seconds of film the television news will choose to serve as proxy for this whole movement. My gut says that it will neither represent us nor our intentions well, but it will make for “great news.”
My worry is that no matter what our best intentions are, the collateral impact will be negative. Who is really impacted by a teacher walk out? Not a policymaker. Who is impacted is the parent who has to scramble to figure out daycare that day. Also impacted are the students, who lose a day in their routine. Since we’re not talking about hitting our higher-ups in their pocketbooks, for whom does this move have consequences? I feel like the attention a strike draws is the kind of attention that has far more consequence for us, our students, and our communities than it does for legislators. Worse, it too easily plays into the selfish-teacher narrative that fuels the very fire that is destroying our system.
But.
We do have to draw the public’s attention to the legislature’s public failure to fund education, and their willful disregard for voter-approved initiatives. Not only is the legislature in contempt by the State Supreme Court, they are showing contempt for educators and the profession of education.
I wish I knew the answer. Walk outs and work stoppages do not feel right to me, but in my life and work I have always tried to stay solution oriented.
If not a walk out, what?
That problem I do not know the solution to. That is where I feel stuck with Option B.
So if my local votes to go along with impending walk outs that are slated to happen very soon here in the southwest, I won’t be reporting to work. Instead, I’ll be doing what I can to inform the good community that has so consistently supported its schools. What that will look like, I’m not sure yet. For me personally, though, I hope my part in the solution involves transferring my skill set from teaching students that day to teaching their community. I will try to find a way to help them understand as many nuances as possible about the issues at hand: Teacher pay, class sizes, McCleary, levy dollars, the COLA, the legislature turning the voter initiative process into a farce and thumbing their noses at the Supreme Court.
The linchpin will be whether I can convincingly justify why me not doing my job is excusable while the legislature not doing theirs is not.
Image credit: Capitol dome in Olympia, by Michael Wimpee, https://www.flickr.com/photos/bufferchuck/2935313403/
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I’m not as torn as you, Mark. I’m opposed to walking out, for the same reasons you cite. The alternative? doing exactly what you do: speaking the truth from your classroom on this blog. If more of us simply wrote about what we do in and out of our classroom, eventually the other stakeholder might get the picture.
I have reconsidered. I’m in. Let’s do this! Writing reveals. I have been working all day on school projects and my NB renewal. There are a myriad of misconceptions about what we do and I think this is an opportunity to educate our community and set an example for our students. As I was watching my classroom videos I was trying to watch myself as an evaluator. I saw someone who loves what she does. Friday was a complete blur of activity. I don’t think I sat down until I got on my bike to head home. I say that because I think we need to show the public and the legislators what our days look like.
Take a look at this app, http://1secondeveryday.com It could be something we use to create some videos the work we do each day. Let’s do this so we can get back to work.
Thanks for a Saturday night gift – w/o folks like you, we had no chance, w/ folks like you, I can’t see how we lose 🙂
I had this epiphany the other week, being one of 4000 agitated people confronted by a politician w/ an utterly out-of-touch message – the preternatural howling was striking – suddenly I understood what Danton meant when he said, “Revolutions are not made with rosewater.” 🙂
Doesn’t look like lawmakers’ minds are changing: http://www.columbian.com/news/2015/may/02/teacher-walkout-target-legislators-listening/#
I still think we need to help the voters realize that voting doesn’t matter any more… that’s the message I get when we as voters pass initiatives and nothing happens. That’s what I think will resonate more than the same-ol teacher-pay-and-class-size refrain.
I am torn as well. I loathe missing time with my students for any reason: a sick day, a snow day, even, so help me, a late start for training of limited value and most of all for a labor action. I am disappointed that Jodi Hufendick’s mention of a “Grade In” has not garnered more comment. Mark and others are correct there is a certain segment of our community that will always complain and even hate public educators. A significant portion of that community will NEVER be assuaged by arguments based on reason and fact. Many of those will be very public and loud in their condemnation of a limited work action no matter what.
Our goal should be to create images of respect, concern for our whole community, and especially, our children. Will one day do irreparable harm to our students? That is a knee jerk reaction, as if a snow day harms the rest of the year that follows. The day will be made up. The impact is minimal and is carefully being planned to be minimized further by the planning of our union. AP tests will continue AND without the distractions of classes going on simultaneously. Extracurriculars will continue unaffected. The strike action is inconvenient, but the argument based on time away from students appears to me merely expedient to those who are already predisposed to oppose any labor action.
I respect those who may still disagree on those and other grounds so I consider the other arguments. Will this impact the levy elections? First, there will always be a levy election. There is no acceptable time a public protest for what are viewed as distractions by those most deeply invested winning the levy process, but that IS all of us. Any distraction is an inconvenience to be avoided or argued against.
We are, as a nation founded upon principle; everyday we repeat our oath of devotion to that cause, that birth certificate and promissory note of our nation with words modeled on Lincoln’s at Gettysburg.
That speech Lincoln made was THE pivotal point in American history; our historical balancing point. It changed us linguistically from the United States “are” to the United States “is”. It unified us into an inseparable oneness.
We are devoted patriots. I observe teachers throughout my hallway in my school pause and repeat the Pledge alone in their rooms unaware that someone is watching. It makes the heart swell, the throat constrict and one’s eyes to tear in a poignant moment of real concrete patriotism. “Mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves” (Declaration of Independence) WE have been predisposed to suffer the ever accumulating minor evils because each one on its own appears sufferable. We are constantly being exhorted to do more with less. At some point less becomes simply less. Cuts to education in real dollars over decades, an unfair and unequal tax system penalizing many districts and benefitting others, increasing responsibilities and duties without additional compensation, an increasing workload, uncompensated work-time needed if one takes pride in teaching their best, 7 years of pay cuts due to inflation, increasing time removed from my own family, wife and child, the willful game-playing by the legislature over funding and the very purposeful deafness to democratic process and all the citizens of our community concerning initiatives on both class size and COLAS…
Like those 239 years ago we need to make clear to the community what we do stand for. If we are successful in that and can create the right images and get them out to all then we can only serve to increase the support of the levy election. The ones who oppose will always oppose. We need to plan public actions that do not fit their narrative but fit ours. “Work Ins” across the community with teachers working on planning, grading, showing work of our students as we grade and collaborate make for great visuals. Let’s keep the focus on our service to students and the community. Let our message not be on COLAs and us but on the rights of our community itself. This is a chance an once in a lifetime opportunity to bring to the public our “Showcases” that we invite out parent to. Images of teachers working FREE, on what the haters will say is just a selfish day off, is what is needed. The public should not be allowed to go anywhere that day without seeing a group of teachers working hard for the benefit of our students. Moreover, we need to invite the press to video, photograph and write about the message WE want to be heard. We need to have our own member’s videotape and photograph as well for future television spots and print advertisements. What we do for students and the community IS our message here.
Whew! I guess I don’t see the persuasive logic of a harm to students, a worsening of community relations, or a negative levy outcome. Thanks Mark for the forum I am not so torn anymore. Albeit, only if we think this through to reach the hearts of our community.
I do see the possibility of Mark’s, other’s and my fear being realized IF we stick to old tactics of simply rallying, carrying signs and shouting ourselves hoarse. As Mark pointed out those are the images that turn off people as well as many of our members. In this 21st Century world, image and image control is everything. Let the other side shout hate to teachers and public education. Let us show LOVE for our students, city and State by WORKING for them. We cannot out-shout them but we can out-love them.
I can think of Safeway downtown as a good location, as well as a few others: Burgerville intersection, in front of the library on both main entrances, Hilltop Market, the police station, Crown Park at both east and west ends, the bridge area by Round Lake and Lacamas Lake, the main intersection south and north of Skyridge, the Washougal River Bridge on 3rd, the area by Squeeze and Grind and the intersection of Division and Sixth by the war memorial. Our signage should emphasize we are working for students and defending Camas voters rights to their own levy dollars staying in Camas for our children. Let’s avoid the stereotypical. Can anyone else think of good places?
I love this line: “We are constantly being exhorted to do more with less. At some point less becomes simply less.”
It boggles my mind that we (society as well as policymakers) make such demands for change and improvement from schools but can’t acknowledge that this requires an investment.
Law-makers minds change like continents move. Everest wasn’t made in a day.
At this point I am satisfied with the arguments for taking a day to walk, with one exception. I haven’t heard a plan for what we’d do that day. I’m always averse to stereotypical political actions because they’ve never worked for me and–not to sound too self centered–I doubt very much they sway many other opinions either. No candidate, union, PAC, etc has ever won my support by knocking on my door, calling my phone, waving a banner or showing me a commercial. If we don’t have a better idea than those, I believe we do run the risk of our message being lost in a well-fabricated photo or quote, as Mark stated earlier.
I really have no fear about what the walk would look like to our community. The majority of people would get it. Still, knowing that the message got out is no excuse for not being productive on our end.
I’m extremely eager to hear from others on Tuesday and hear the variety of ideas.
I would also ask for true, sincere, frank contemplation of those who advocate a “softer option” on this question: what have you done to this point to effect the powers-that-be, to avoid this call for a “hard” one? Many of us who are agitating for this action are the ones who’ve been making phone calls, sacrificing personal time and money, gathering signatures for ballot-measures, talking with legislators in Olympia, writing e-mails, voting for educator-friendly legislators, etc. How can we be blamed for losing hope? Legislators who openly laugh at ballot measures passed by public majorities remind me of President Jackson laughing at a Supreme Court that sided with Native Americans. I can’t do anything about a disgrace of justice done nearly 2 centuries ago. I can do something about such a disgrace today.
Also agreed, our community does love and support us through levees and through every-day word of mouth. Yet they have elected a good many legislators of late who are openly hostile to teachers like you and I (I know, I’ve met them). We can’t get rid of them, only our community can.
As Mark says, the day will not be lost, but added to the end of the year. Seniors are the only group that will lose the day, and I will be sure to tell mine that we did them the favor this year of telling THEM when their senior skip day was, not the other way around (for once). I’m ordering good weather in all of our favors. 🙂
I love you Connie, always have – you’ve got a great vibe, are widely respected for your intellect and passion for the profession, and surely no one could call you a money-grubbing lazy-bones! I hope you’ll keep your mind open until the moment of truth. If we can’t win over folks like you, I’m truly afraid our cause will never go anywhere but straight to the back of the bus. 🙁 (I say that with a friendly laugh, no mean-ness intended, I have faith in your belief of my good intentions – we teachers tend to remember our school days rather fondly, and the lords of the school, in the wild and heady days of 1984 (as i can recall it)l had the back of the bus as their own private club! 🙂 )
There are actually several TV ads recently produced by the WEA – they were shown at this year’s Rep Assembly and I imagine are out there on display in that strange part of the world where people actually watch commercials (God help them, in this marvelous age where escape is so easy, who does that to themselves?). I’m sure there will be print ads too. I can’ remember the last time I saw a citizen reading one. We’ve had all these thing in the past 7 years too. What did they do?
We’re not walking out on our family, we’re walking out into our family. I plan on spending the whole day with folks in Camas, from soon-to-be kindergartners to soon-to-be-octogenarians. Why do we assume that, just because the kids won’t be in a classroom that day, that they won’t learn anything? Don’t they learn on field trips? How can we make this action take on those dimensions for them? Perhaps we could offer to do just that to some of the families who will be scrambling to care for their kids that day? We won’t have buses and buildings, but we’ll have parks and sidewalks and other public places, and a whole lot of troubled people looking for a way to put their talents to good use to promote a cause. It’s just the first flush of an idea, and terribly rough, but I’m sure brilliant people like you can polish it and make it perfect 🙂
I agree with you whole-heartedly Connie, we need to generate some publicity about our state congress shirking its responsibility. That’s exactly what this will do, and if properly managed, it could be positive indeed.
I do not want to walk out. There, I said it. I am completely against a walk out. The Camas community is family. Walking out feels wrong and disrespectful. Our issue is NOT with Camas. I think our community knows we work very hard and put their children first and foremost.
What if we paid for a full page ad in the Columbian and the Post Record and maybe even the Seattle Times, maybe a short TV spot? What if we challenged the politicians to do their jobs and obey the law? What if we created our own headline without walking out?
We need to generate some publicity, highlighting the lawmakers’ refusal to obey the constitutional amendment.
Connie–thank you for voicing your position. We need everyone to feel comfortable articulating their feelings on the matter and keeping it discourse, not disrespect. I sincerely hope we can all voice our opinions and not have the kind of division that Mike alludes to in his last paragraph above.
I agree in particular with what you say about us focusing on the lawmakers’ refusal to obey the constitution…the Supreme Court…and voters.
I entered the classroom in the fall of 1974 teaching high school mathematics in Oregon. After teaching at the high school level for thirty-one years I chose to teach at a middle school for five years. After my middle school experience I volunteered at a prison to tutor and teach for one year. I am currently finishing my fourth year teaching mathematics part time at a local community college. I think I could be considered an experienced teacher.
During my 40 plus years in the classroom the one thing I considered sacred was time with my students. Interruptions of any kind were a serious irritant and were to be avoided at all cost. It is difficult for me to understand why any teacher would choose to willingly leave their classroom for any reason and miss out on valuable and irreplaceable time with their students.
I know you are experiencing issues with your legislature and their non-compliance with “things.” I submit that those “things” should not distract from our more important role as teachers. We all teach at the pleasure of our communities and it’s the communities’ responsibility to take care of us, or not. There are some brilliant, dedicated, and innovative teachers in the state of Washington. Focus your horsepower and discover a “better way” to get your message across without distracting from your primary role.
A walk-out or strike will get you press but there’s no guarantee that your desired message will be received or understood. There is a guarantee that three things will occur. There will be members of your community that will view you with bitterness. There will be teachers torn between their dedication to their profession and their desire to support their colleagues in a union action. And, most importantly, you are guaranteed to lose valuable time with your students.
This is the perspective that some of my colleagues have shared as well. While it is true that in my district we will be adding a day to the school year, that time is lost for some. For me, teaching seniors, that day won’t be returned.
And I also found out that May 13th is our district’s kindergarten round up. I’m thinking that messing with a new parent’s first experience with kindergarten (particularly if we’re talking the first child in the family heading off to school) is not great PR. If the membership votes to walk, I sure hope a good plan is figured out for this.
The long term potential divide among staff is very real. That’s an angle of collateral damage we need to be cognizant of as well, and proactive around regardless of the outcome of the vote.
Glad to see I’m not the only one filling up pages and pages with words and words! 🙂
It’s odd that teachers get the rap of whiners – I’m not even certain how dominant that stereo-type is, but certainly it can be found if we go looking for it. In nearly twenty years I can count on one hand the number of unhappy, un-supportive parents I’ve interacted with – the parents generally care for us and trust us, and they, like us, are just as eaten up by a thousand worries and have to have faith that someone is minding the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s as easy for them to bury their heads in the sand and try to get by as it is for us. Truly, it’s time for all of us to rouse ourselves.
I know it’s just a choice of words, but the world can turn or not on something as simple as the choice between one word or the other.
This will not be a “walk out,” it’ll be a “walk about.” This will not be a “day off,” this will be a “day on.” Instead of teaching in our rooms, so cut off from the rest of the world, we’ll be teaching in our community, the place we pat ourselves on the back and say we’re serving in the first place.
We often say teachers are their own worst enemies. We’re inclined to compassion, to altruism, to tolerance, to second (and third) chances, and to internalizing our emotions, to taking on the burdens of our charges and suffering them in silence. We’re used to waiting for the impatient and the indulgent to finally get it.
We’re used to teaching history, not making history.
We’re used to teaching kids to go change their community, not going out into the community to make the change ourselves.
It’s time for us to serve as examples of everything we want our kids to become.
This battle over public schools is a century old now – public schools provided the citizens that endured the Great Depression, defeated Fascism, staved off global communism, managed to survive a Cold War without blowing up the world, and put a man on the moon. All that time it was under attack here and there, and so most likely it’ll always go on that way.
Struggle is the great constant of the human experience.
It’s a big, big battle that’s been going on for a long, long time. This is our time to fight a small action on a small part of that battlefield. In the midst of the clatter and confusion of a vast battle, the value of any single action is utterly unfathomable – it is only latter that historians can parse the chaos and praise the heroes who won the day.
We should not kid ourselves that winning this fight will alleviate us of the need for action in the future. Equally, we should be resolved that, if defeated, we’ll face the next day with a spirit undiminished.
All very valid points, Eric, which is part of why I am torn. In all this, two thoughts dominate.
Thought one: My first year teaching, I participated in a very large and muddy protest in Olympia. Perhaps that experience forever tainted my perspective on the effectiveness of big groups of people with signs. It was a disheartening experience, and I was dismayed at the behavior of those supposedly advocating for solutions.
Thought two: I have no clear picture of what plans there are for this day of protest. I guess I need a clearer game plan than “walk out” or even “walk about.”
And in that plan, I hope we can do a better job with what my students struggle with: “audience awareness.” I think we are shooting ourselves in the foot the moment we mention teacher pay, or even class sizes. I think the angle that the public will respond to is this: The state legislature has made an utter mockery of the voter initiative process through their willful and repeated disregard for fulfilling the duties the voters democratically charged them to enact. I think about it this way: I only know that the legislature has not adhered to voter approved-measures related to education… I am totally ignorant to whatever other voter-approved measures might be likewise going ignored. Chances are, non-educators who are not invested in the workings of a school simply don’t realize that what the masses voted for is simply being disregarded.
Along those lines, the apparent threats to local levy monies. That is about a community’s investment in itself, and ought to be something voters get fired up about.
If this “walk about” ends up happening (as my conversations at work today are starting to make me think is likely), I think it will be most wise for us to lead with issues of voting and democracy rather than issues of teachers and students. We already see such voter apathy, and why should a voter cast his or her opinion if the legislature can leave it in limbo for years…while voting themselves pay raises? That’s a message every voter should connect to…whereas the arguments around teacher pay or class size easily fold into the negative narratives about teaching and education that I do believe are pervasive in our country.
The exact and specific questions of message and method must be solved by our representative council, once given the mandate to do so by a vote of the general membership. You are a member of that representative body, and I am positive you will be a big part of producing The Plan.
If the fates find us choosing this course next Tuesday (and my analysis squares w/ yours – there’s revolution in the air), we’ll have to hit the ground running right after it. It’ll be a 6-day window, and we’ll need all hands on deck.
Additionally, up or down on the “walk about” vote, we need regardless to be prepared to take our school board and our principals and our superintendent up on their written offer. They said they’ll do a similar walk with us through the community on any given Saturday so, regardless of whether we do our thing on a work day, we’re by our own logic squarely committed to assisting them in getting out a message we all agree with: our legislature is wrong. 🙂
Well put Mark! I’m struggling with this as well and feel like educating the public is the key. People outside of education only hear “teacher pay” when there is so much more we’re standing up for. Fully funding education, providing kids the best possible educational experience is key.
Exactly! Our soundbyte and twitter hashtag culture reduces “we need to provide better resources if we want a sustainable, quality education system” to “teachers need more money!”
While our compensation is certainly a key part, compensation is important for attracting, retaining, and adequately acknowledging the kind of professionalism and quality that is expected of a teacher. There are two competing cliches at work here: “don’t throw money at the problem” and “you get what you pay for.” We need to help the community see that funding education is not “throwing money at the problem,” and that if the public is not satisfied with the current state of education, they are “getting what they’ve paid for” by not prioritizing investment in schools, students, and teacher.
I’m as, if not more concerned with the levy issues…about which I am admittedly uninformed. I need to understand more what the legislature is playing with about getting their hands on local levy dollars. Maybe this evening after I finish grading quizzes I’ll do some web research…
In another life, when I lived and taught in another state, we staged “grade ins” a couple of times. We brought all of our grading and paperwork to the mall and we sat there and graded, entered grades, created lesson plans, essentially did all of the work we usually did after hours at home, publicly at the mall. We set up house in the food court. One time there were more than 20 of us from multiple schools. It showed the public the work we had to do outside of our regular contract day. Get 10 English teachers and all of their papers together in one place and it makes for something to see. We also had signs but I can’t remember what they said. I know part of it said to ask us about what we were doing. That can be done without ever walking away from the classroom. The other thing our district did, after I left, was do a contract only campaign. The teachers showed up to work at contract time and walked in together and met in the front hall together at the end of their contract day and walked out together. They also did not do anything that was not in their contact, e.g. high school teachers didn’t write any letters of recommendation. It was really rough on the teachers but they still reported to work and taught. Somehow we need to show what teachers ACTUALLY do to offset the common misconception. As usual Mark, your blog post is timely, well thought out, and consistently thought provoking.
I love the idea of a “grade in.” I think that helping the public see (firsthand) how much time, effort, and thought we really do put into our work would have a stronger payoff than a very public “not work” session. It’s tricky, though. I can empathize with those who want the walk outs…the sense of desperation and the need to make a bold statement. I think it is the kind of bold statement that I am not used to in my own life…and that I have not really seen convincing evidence in support of its effectiveness. I’m open to shifting my perspective if I can find examples where this kind of protest has had a positive impact on state-level policymaking (versus local bargaining, where I do think this kind of action can sometimes work).
A thoughtful approach, Mark. It is refreshing to hear from teachers who are experiencing some cognitive dissonance over these walk-outs. I like that you draw the comparison to the private sector where these actions can actually have leverage by affecting the bottom line. Our bottom line, however, is student growth, and nobody wins when learning is negatively impacted.
Thanks, Craig. Since I’m presently a building union rep, I’ve had many teachers come to me with questions, and nearly all are just as torn…and unfortunately afraid to speak up about their misgivings around this kind of action. Like I said above, I wish I knew the solution. I’ve been encouraging teachers on both sides of the issue to think through their positions, develop clear and rationale arguments, and be ready to share in a reasonable, thoughtful manner when we gather to vote.