Teachers' time is precious, and many are willing to take it without compensation, recognition, or reward. Hence, teachers have to think carefully about who they give their time to.
As an educator, presenter at conferences, beta tester, committee member, NBPTS, union member, team member, and learner, I have tried many venues over my career, and in the last few years in particular. I have learned a lot, and enjoyed the learning. I have also worked to be an open, transparent contributor to each of these organizations and groups, and like most teachers who want to learn and contribute, I've donated considerable hours of my time.
Some of these organizations and groups really don't care about students and teachers even though some of them claim they do. These organizations have grown in ways that serve themselves more than the educators and children they claim to serve. In part the Common Core is part of the problem. While the Common Core has offered the country common language and goals with regard to teaching, it has also created a common market place for educational testers, curriculum companies, and consultants who create and promote materials, some for which profit trumps education.
So what is a teacher to do?
First, consider your affiliations, and support organizations that put children and educators first. While some organizations don't care, others do. I will support organizations and individuals that take teachers' time and ideas seriously--organizations that truly make important change, change that positively affects children.
Next, prioritize children in your own work. I'll continue to do the work I enjoy the most which is teaching young children in vital, creative, and meaningful ways. That's what matters.
After that, continue to advocate for what is right and good for students, families, and learning communities. Speak up when initiatives, decisions, and goals hinder the promise, possibility and potential education can bring to lives young and old.
This is a crazy time in education with countless initiatives in the works, initiatives that oftentimes are led by those more concerned with profit than promise. It's also a time when many public schools are resisting innovation and change, demanding that students learn each day in ways contrary to the world around them--ways that even our children understand as unnatural, out of date, and/or insignificant. I believe the best answer to education today is to keep children center stage with the best of the old and the best of the new with careful attention to the context and needs of your school community.
Time is precious to teachers, and how teachers spend their precious time matters to students. What does this mean for you and your time?
