Freedom, Opportunity, and Hip-Hop

"I know I can (I know I can)
Be what I want to be (be what I want to be),
If I work hard at it (if I work hard at it),
I'll be where I wanna be (I'll be where I wanna be)…
Read more, learn more, change the globe."

                                                                            -Nas


           I have always loved the lyrics to the above song by Nas.  It is one of my favorite songs to run to as it inspires me in so many ways.  On a personal level, it encourages me to keep working, to keep running, and to keep putting one foot in front of the other on long runs when I feel like I can't make it any further.  More importantly, on my long runs I often think about my students and about education, and I see their faces in my mind as I hear the words to the song.  I think about my students who struggle in the classroom both in terms of academics and behavior and how so often those struggles are linked to the struggles they face outside of my classroom.  This song inspires me to keep trekking through the marathon that teaching sometimes feels like, especially when my morale and the morale of other educators is down.  This song helps me remember why we teach and who we do it for--our students.

             This song has been particularly powerful for me over the past week for two main reasons.  The biggest reason why this song has been on my mind (other than the fact that I am training for a marathon in November and am listening to a lot of music to keep me motivated!) is because of the amazing experience I had when I visited the Freedom School in my home county of Guilford.  The Freedom School was one of the most rewarding educational opportunities I have ever had the pleasure of being a small part of.  The Freedom School is a summer camp for K-8 students in Guilford County who are in transition.  Many of these students struggle with having consistent places to rest their heads at night and are at risk of falling behind in school due to outside circumstances.  The Freedom School, a project sponsored by Guilford County Schools and Greensboro College, gives students educational opportunities, important literacy and math review, and provides them with two delicious meals daily at the Greensboro College cafeteria.  The students engage in fun lessons during the day and also take educational field trips in the county and surrounding areas.  The school provides consistency to students who need to feel safe and loved, helps close the achievement gap and reduce the losses to literacy that students experience over the summer, and promotes self-improvement and self-esteem.  Plus, the students love coming to Freedom School and learning!

               My role at the Freedom School was to attend as a guest reader.  Every morning the students at  Freedom School take part in a harambee.  Harambee is Swahili for "let's pull together," and during this time, students get excited for their fun-filled, educational day.  After eating breakfast together, students enter a small gym, participate in a pep rally, listen to a guest reader read his/her favorite children's book, ask the guest reader questions (I got a lot of "What's your favorite ___________?" questions), cheer as the guest reader "struts his/her stuff" (some friendly girls helped me practice my strutting during breakfast, but they told me it still needed "a little work"), and then sing and dance to a motivational song.  The entire harambee is a thing of beauty with enthusiasm, hope, and love filling the air.  During the motivational song, the students shout out Nas's refrain "I know I can be what I want to be.  If I work hard at it, I'll be where I want to be" and then hug themselves.  My heart filled with joy while being a part of this.  These kids shouted with such conviction and showed so much emotion in their faces that in an hour I now believe in them just as much as they believe in themselves.  I also witnessed the true intention of harambee, as one very small girl became upset during the motivational song.  She sat down, weighed down by a despair that I can only imagine, and an older student came over, talked to her, helped her up, and danced with her as the little girl started smiling again.  At this moment, the students truly "pulled together."  My words really cannot do harambee justice, but I will say this: If we all started school or our jobs with harambee, I think we would be much happier and productive people!

                 So, my experience at the Freedom School placed Nas's song back in the forefront of my mind, but it wasn't until the passing of the state budget that the song was most firmly planted in my thoughts.  As I read through the details of the budget, I was disheartened by many of the cuts to education, but the most upsetting cut for me was the siphoning of public funds into private schools in the guise of Opportunity Scholarships.  My mind immediately drifted back to the wonderful, courageous, passionate students at Freedom School who would genuinely benefit from having additional "opportunities."  Yet, knowing that the ten most popular private schools in Greensboro range from $6,000-$23,000 a year, a $4,200 voucher will not provide them with a feasible opportunity when often they do not even have three full meals a day when they are not in school.  Instead, with all of our students receiving just $8,433 per student in our state (48th in the nation for per pupil spending), wouldn't more opportunity be provided to all students, especially the low income students that the scholarship claims to support, if we just put that money back into public education?   I am concerned that the Opportunity Scholarships will only serve a small group of students whose backgrounds predispose them to gaining access to vouchers or other means to attend private schools.   We need to continue the opportunity for all students in the state of North Carolina to succeed, and not just a select few.  I would hate to see the hope and positive energy that I witnessed at the harambee as children shouted "I know I can be what I want to be" melt away as opportunities seem to constantly slip through their fingers while others around them get more and more.

                 Finally, Nas's song resonates with me not only because it relates to our students, but because it also relates to our current state as educators.  Our race to the top for the next few years will not be easy, and we will face many roadblocks along the way to achieving our goals.  However, if we desert our state because we are frustrated, if we stop preserving the foundation of freedom within our constitution--a strong education for all, and if we give up without making an effort to change North Carolina back to a state of educational progress, then we only further take away the opportunities all students in our state need to improve.  Educators in North Carolina are the most important factor in a student's educational growth, and I would hate to see teachers in our state go elsewhere because the opportunities are missing for them as well.    Let's have our own harambee  and "pull together" for our students and our state.  Like Nas asserts in his song, we have to "read more" about current legislation, "learn more" about how we can make our voices heard, and we have to believe in ourselves if we want to see education in North Carolina go "where [we] want to be" and to "change" North Carolina.

Moving Forward and Not Looking Back

             Last week I attended my first State Board of Education session as a non-voting advisor.  I had such an outstanding experience sitting with the members of the school board and sharing some of my opinions on Common Exams (Measures of Student Learning), Race to the Top, and the new Common Core and Essential Standards.  I had the opportunity to share my opinions both formally at the meetings on Wednesday and Thursday and informally during conversations with school board members and members of DPI.  I am so appreciative that General Statute in North Carolina mandates the advisory positions of two state teachers of the year, the current state principal of the year, the current state superintendent of the year, and two student advisors.  It is so important that those whom educational policy most directly impacts are given an opportunity to share their voices with those making decisions.

                While I attended the meetings, Dr. Atkinson, our state superintendent, posed what struck me as the most interesting question of the two-day session.  It was not an agenda item, but was in response to discussion concerning Common Core standards and Common Exams.  She asked, “How do we move beyond twentieth century artifacts to the twenty-first century?”  The discussion that followed, while brief since we had an agenda to follow, was extremely thought-provoking for me.  Members of the school board brought up important areas that we could examine and modify in order to address the needs of our students today.  Members mentioned changing the school calendar to a year-round model, changing the way we grade students’ work, focusing on project-based learning, and changing the structure of our educational system from a fragmented K-12 model to a more inclusive 0-20 model.  Please note that these were merely discussions about education and not policies to be enacted.  During these discussions, the English teacher in me couldn’t help but to ponder the semantics that are tied into the efforts of educational reform across our country and our state.  Be forewarned, what follows is full of English teacher nerdiness, but directly addresses the culture of reform in education today.  J

                If you look at the word “education,” its origin can be traced to the Latin word educare, meaning “to bring up, raise, or train,” and educere, meaning “to bring out and to lead forth.”  The word “educate” was first commonly used to describe teaching children in the 1500s.  We still have a very similar association with education today: we want to assist in the raising of our students into culturally sympathetic, life-long learners, and we expect our teachers to “bring out” the best in their students and to serve as the guides to help “lead [them] forth” in their educational journeys.  The role of a good teacher does not end when the students leave the doors of that teacher’s classroom, but continues as the students reflect on the skills they gained from the teacher and use them to help navigate an increasingly complex world. 

                Although most people understand the definition and role of education, the semantics that people seem to ignore the most is the difference in reform and in progress.  There is a lot of talk about educational reform in the media, among politicians, and in our communities today.  After our conversations at the State Board meeting last week, I am fully convinced that reform is not what we want.  What we really need to see in our schools is progress.

Think about it: reform starts with the prefix “re-, “which means “back to the original place, again, anew, once more.”  If we want to improve our schools and bring about positive change, do we really want to go back to the educational artifacts of a different century?  Do we really want to rework, reuse, and essentially repeat what we’ve been doing for over one hundred years?  Our students exist in a world where they are inundated with information via the Internet, smart phones, and other forms of instant communication.  Should we really attempt to prepare them the same way we did in the early 1900s when public education first became compulsory and automobiles were only just becoming a primary form of transportation?   This is not what anyone really wants for the future leaders of our communities, our state, our nation, and now more than ever, the world.

                We have become so caught up in the systems that have been in place for a hundred years, that in our efforts to reform public education, we create sweeping mandates that do little to address the fundamental difference: that our students are learning in a vastly different world from the one that many of us once learned in.  We tend to throw money at the problem and withhold money from other areas without really bringing about any true change.  What we really need is progress and not reform.

                Progress comes from the prefix “pro-, “which means “forward, forth, toward the front,” “beforehand, in advance,” and “taking care of.”  It makes sense to structure our educational system around these concepts.  We want our students to move “forward,” and we certainly want their education to place them “toward the front” in a globally competitive world.  If we want to see our students advance, our educational policies must also be forward-thinking.  We cannot continue to be content with looking back to the past.  We can learn from the past, but we cannot dwell in it.  We cannot become a nation of educators that like Lot’s wife or Orpheus look back too much and lose the opportunity to move forward.  We must also be a system that “[takes] care of” our young people in order for them to be the best that they can be.  It is our responsibility to help our students move farther forward than they ever thought possible in order to achieve their goals and dreams.

                Finally, artifact has two primary meanings.  First of all, it is “anything made by human art.”  Our educational system over the past one hundred years has been a work of art, a beautiful creation to serve the majority of our citizens and to make our nation stronger.  However, we cannot let education fall into the second definition of artifact, “an object…of archeological or historical interest.”  Artifacts are lovely and should serve as a reminder of where we once were, what we once did, and how far we have come.  Let us not get so caught up in the history of having summers off, of an A-F grading scale, of traditional testing, or of a fragmented K-12 model that we become a nation of relics that serve as a collection of artifacts for other countries who were willing to keep moving forward.   I am not saying that we need to implement all of these changes, but I do think we need to take some time to consider which changes will best move us forward into the twenty-first century. 

                In thinking about the semantics of education, reform, and progress, I think it becomes clear that we have to be willing to make some changes.  Is change scary?  Absolutely.  Is it necessary in public education?  Without a doubt, but only if we are attempting to progress instead of to reform.  So, in the words of Dr. Atkinson, we all need to ask ourselves, “How can we move beyond twentieth century artifacts into the twenty-first century?”  The lives of our children depend on our answers.

Losing and Finding Our Voices

                Think back carefully to when you were in school and you first learned about our governmental structure and the Bill of Rights.  How did you feel?  What did you think about living in a country where freedom of speech is allowed and where our government accepts letters from the people about their concerns?  Now ask yourself, do you still feel the same way today?

               When I first learned about our government in elementary school, I remember feeling an overwhelming sense of pride, patriotism, and confidence in our government.  As I got older and went through high school, my teachers encouraged us to advocate for ourselves and to make our voices heard as part of our democracy.  I eagerly registered to vote as soon as I turned eighteen (and have voted in every election since then, even voting in absentia from Scotland while I was studying).  I also adamantly voiced my opinions about politics, the world, and hot-button issues in society and government.  I left high school feeling empowered and part of the collective whole that could make a difference in this world.  This sense of empowerment continued into college as I joined a campus political organization, attended political rallies, and put my efforts into being a responsible, active citizen of the United States.

                Then, something happened to me towards the end of college that continued into my adulthood.  What happened to me happens to most other adults and is a major problem within our society.  I found that I started to develop more than a healthy dose of cynicism concerning politics.  I still believed in our government and the principles that served as the foundation of our country, but I found myself disillusioned by the Politics that came into play.  Politics for me became a capitalized word, a personified entity that threatened to ruin the democracy that I held dear.  I began to question the systems of bureaucracy both in our government and in other social services that seemed to create too much red tape in order to get anything truly accomplished. I doubted whether the government that was founded “by the people, for the people” was still “for [ALL] the people.”   I lost the belief that everyone’s thoughts and opinions mattered and became disillusioned by the increasing negativity I saw in newspaper articles, on right-wing and left-wing news networks, heard in conversations, and read on different social media sites.  In short, I began to consume the same vitriolic dialogue against which I once stood in opposition.  I, like so many others, began to let the media’s portrayal of Politics devour the possibilities that our country has to offer.  If you still are not sure of what exactly I am talking about, just spend some time reading comments at the end of any news article online or reading updates on Facebook or Twitter.  You will immediately be inundated with the cynicism of a world that would rather complain than attempt to do anything to bring about change.

                Yet, in the past few years, I’ve slowly started to regain my voice.  Part of the recovery of my voice came from teaching my high school students.  As I encouraged them to think inquisitively about the world, to question everything around them, to come to their own conclusions, and to voice those opinions, I recognized my hypocrisy of not doing the same.  Now, there are some places where it is appropriate to share your beliefs and opinions, and I never do so in the guise of an authority figure in my classroom.  I would never tell my students what to think, nor do I ever tell them exactly what I believe in a classroom setting.  If I did, that would stifle their abilities to find their own voices and their own beliefs.  I refrain from sharing my opinions on interpretations of literature as well as politics in the classroom.  But in hearing my students share their opinions and in seeing their passion to make the world a better place, I started to feel empowered again.  My youthful optimism returned and started to overcome my cynicism.  Then finally, when I had to defend a couple of books that were taught in our school at the school level, the district level, and at the school board, I found my voice again.  I valued the opportunities for discourse provided by the conversations between faculty members, parents, students, and school board members.  I carefully weighed opposing arguments and started to learn more about the delicate balance needed in our schools to reach all students.  In addition, I rediscovered my passions, and I found my beliefs.  I regained my faith in the governmental system and discovered that Politics are really what you make of them and how much you are willing to work within the democratic system that our country provides for us.

                As North Carolina Teacher of the Year, I view my title as one weighed with great responsibility.  I feel that now more than ever, I must not be afraid to let my voice be heard.  But, I am also aware that my voice now must be the voice of more than just myself: my voice is really the voice of the other educators in North Carolina and the voice of our students and their parents.  If I want to make my voice strong, I must listen to the voices and ideas of others, so that I can craft a voice that resonates across the lines of politics and frequent media perceptions to find the possibilities that lie before us in our state. 

                This rediscovery and redefinition of my voice is both terrifying and thrilling for me.  My responsibilities as North Carolina Teacher of the Year must serve as my guide and will sometimes take me beyond the comforts of my life when I allowed my voice to be hidden.  Today I took my first step: I addressed and mailed forty letters to the governor, members of the Senate, and members of the House of Representatives.  The letter was a collective effort created by a team of teachers of the year across the state of North Carolina.  We hope that our collective voice will help bring about positive change for our students in North Carolina. 

                Finally, I want to encourage everyone reading this to develop their own voice.  Let’s drown out the negativity of the cynics around us and rediscover the voice of the child or the young adult who once wanted to change the whole world and found hope and promise in the governmental system. Let’s stop complaining and start fulfilling our civic duties.  Once we find these old voices within, develop them with our maturity and years of insight, and find viable ways to express them, we can achieve so much more than we ever will if we never seek the opportunity to speak and let our voices be heard.