School and Community reflections

I wrote the following in response to some reflection questions we were asked at school in my SLT meeting. I joined the SLT (school leadership team) this year in an effort to try to make some changes to our school from within. I am tired of complaining and whining. I need to make an effort. We are reading the book The Courage to Teach, which I don’t really like and find a lot of issues with. Anyways, these are the responses I wrote to the questions that proceed them. I know it’s going to push a couple buttons of my administration, but I think it’s not that crazy and needs to be said. It’s my truth even if it’s not the truth of others in my building. It’s not revolutionary or anything, but it’s about community and school and my feelings on how they need to overlap.

What structures at your institution promote a sense of disconnection from students, parents, colleagues, and the administration? What keeps us beholden to these structures?

One of the things I get frustrated with in our school, and see in other schools in the area, is an overall lack of community in a sense that there isn’t really an outside world for the students once they are within the school. They come to school, go through the assembly line of the day, and then go home. I realize we do more than that and it’s not that simple, but I feel that we often push away experiences and see them as less important than “class time” or time to study in the classes that will be most valuable to them for testing later on. I think this it is a wrong assumption to believe that experiences, trips, speakers, presentations, etc. are not as valuable. This chapter (chapter 2) discusses our fears and that what we fear holds us back as teachers. I think we fear the loss of time in place of an experience. Experiences and presentations don’t always hit a specific standard or “help them on the test”. But I remember the local symphony coming to my middle school to play and discuss music and how it affects our senses. I remember it vividly. The feeling when the music got loud and reverberated throughout the entire auditorium.  I remember smiling and looking at my friends who were as giddy as I was. I feel that it was extremely valuable to me in the development of my person. I remember seeing plays put on at my school by other school or travelling professionals, going to see a plays locally or in nearby cities, listening to inspirational speakers, watching school-wide talent contests, dance showcases, students groups going to different seminars to learn to become leaders or engineers, or whatever. I realize we have groups that try to create experiences. We have assemblies sometimes. We have spirit weeks, and fundraising for causes, etc. But what happens at the end of it? It almost always stops at our doors and doesn’t head out into the community. Taking my class to see some real 3D art by some great artists on a field trip at a great arts center was not celebrated as an opportunity for something amazing. It was seen as a hassle and a distraction to what should be happening. But in my opinion, THAT’s what should be happening. I am teaching them to prepare them to go out into the community and see and experience and explore. What are we here for otherwise? We go to school to learn and get good jobs and careers. But we need those so we can afford to experience life and the world!  There are so many places I want to take the students. I know the guys at Blake street glass who would probably demonstrate for us and show us live glassblowing and have them even participate. I would love so much to show them this. The Denver art museum, the outdoor art museum, the Denver tour of modern spec houses from the 1960’s, the Kirkland art museum, first Fridays, etc. This is where life is happening. I know the work we do is good and I know that we can, as teachers, make the learning experience fun and valuable and often they are. I see the great and amazing activities happening. But I think we can better prepare them to be part of an active community by bringing it into the building and also going out into it. Speakers, plays, causes, etc.

            Being a PVMS Tiger should mean more than being in a specific building to go to school. I think we need to create a small community of our own to make them feel comfortable out in theirs. But the community in our school and world outside of it can’t begin and end at the door’s threshold. Seneca, the Stoic philosopher, advocates taking on an issue and of whether or not to do something by making a list of worst case scenarios. You take those scenarios and write out what the damage would be. Then you write out how long it would take to get back to where you were. Often times this shows us that the risk is worth the reward because it’s not as risky as we thought. I realize in writing all this that I could go out and find these experiences and bring them in, but I think they need to be valued to do so. We hold on tight to our schedules and plans and standards to the point of strangling the life from them  and I am guilty as anyone. I worry about fitting in projects and will cut out valuable discussions and experiences for the sake of time and ease, but I shouldn’t and I know it. I know better but often get caught up in the day to day scheduling.

What negative images are there for today’s students?  What fears do young people face in today’s society?  And what are some positive traits for today’s students?

I think my answer to this question goes easily with the previous question. There are tons of negative images out there for students, most of which are created by social media and other forms of media found so easily in their pockets. This is another reason I feel it important for them to become a part of their community. The stuff happening on TV and on Facebook and other sites isn’t real life. It’s a hyped up version of it, sensationalized. But students aren’t experiencing their own neighborhood or area. They are experiencing a bizarre version of reality though a small screen plugged into the internet. A great number of the kids I took to Stuart Middle School for a basketball game had no idea it even existed where it did. That neighborhood was a foreign land to them. Stuart is 5 miles away at most. Denver, to them, is another state even though we can literally see it from my classroom. Everything else seems like another country. On my XC team I tell the new kids we are running to the Fairgrounds and they look at me like I’m crazy until I explain it’s literally 2 miles away. Not even that. There’ so much negativity and fear the students have access to now and they feel it is part of their world. It is, but not necessarily within their community. We all fear the apocalypse and what might happen, and I hate to be the bearer of bad news…. But it’s here. But it’s just not HERE. Terrible things are happening all over the world, but the area around our school is relatively safe and sound. Yes, it has its own issues, but how can we feel able to combat them in the face of the terrible things happening elsewhere? This question must be daunting to the students.

I think there are positive people and experiences within their communities all over if the kids know where to look and they can find them easier maybe with technology, but for all the great and good technology does for them, it hinders them in its ability to connect them to their own friends and people next door. I feel so sad when I see two friends hanging out and talking and one of them is on their phone, ear bud in, and only half listening. While a positive is that the kids are more “in the know” than I ever was at that age and can find the answers they needs, the support they need, and others like them, it also shuts them out of their own surroundings. This is why I feel the growing need for creating a better sense of community with those around them. All these things can be said of myself and our staff as well. I am not free of sin and stupidity. I am not free of the want to check  Facebook and email and read articles that only confirm my ideas of the world, but I have recognized it in myself and try to resist. I think as a staff we can create a better sense of community, too. There are opportunities and I don’t always take them. That’s true. But I am speaking in generalities and hopes for our own peers that needs to include on effort on my part as well.