The Times They Are A-Changin'

“The Beginning of Speech” by Adonis

The child I was came to me

once,

a strange face

                He said nothing              We walked

each of us glancing at the other in silence, our steps

a strange river running in between

We were brought together by good manners

and these sheets now flying in the wind

then we split,

a forest written by earth

watered by the seasons’ change.

Child who once was, come forth—

What brings us together now,

and what do we have to say?

            Change seems to be resonating across public education classes in North Carolina right now.  Some schools districts just finished their first year with the new adopted Common Core Standards, and other school districts are just getting started with their first administration of Common Exams for students.  Amid hallways, teacher workrooms, online discussion forums, and different forms of media, change echoes loudly and at times can drown out many of the other voices, including the voices of our students. 

            There are two ways to approach change: to resist it, heels firmly dug into the ground and to refuse to give way, or to embrace it as an opportunity for personal and collective growth.  Sometimes it is extremely difficult to determine which response is the most appropriate.

At my school this week, we issued Common Exams for the first time.  We tried a new schedule to accommodate for Common Exams and EOCs separately, and during each of the three days of Common Exams, we kept modifying and changing the new schedule.  Teachers and students were frustrated, weary, and resistant to the changes that occurred in classrooms across our school.  Are Common Exams new?  Yes.  Are they challenging for students?  Yes.  Are they part of high-stakes testing for teachers and students?  Yes.  Are they perfect at this point?  No.  Do they serve a valuable purpose in the education of our students?  Yes.

You see, I believe that the new Common Core Standards and the Common Exams have the potential to be great assets in education.  They encourage students to develop their higher-order thinking skills and encourage reading and writing across the curriculum.  As an English teacher, I can’t help but to rejoice at any educational plan that promotes literacy!  At the same time, I understand that they create an incredibly terrifying moment of change: we are asking more of our students than ever before and are using these higher standards to determine if educators are effective.  We are asking students to jump from point A to point Z in a year without the scaffolding that is part of the Common Core.  That is initially a very scary prospect for all stakeholders in education: students, parents, teachers, principals, superintendents, and state officials.  But, change is often distressing.  We are creatures of habit.  Once we get used to the new exams and standards, we can see that they have outstanding potential.  Who doesn’t want to push students to think critically and to navigate an increasingly complex world?  Who doesn’t want consistency across classes in schools, the school districts, the regions, and the state?  Who doesn’t want to see students achieve more than they ever dreamed?  The answers to these questions are easy for all educators.  In time, the changes will no longer seem terrifying and will only become exciting opportunities. 

However, there are other changes creeping in to education that are tougher to handle.  New Senate budget proposals indicate much change that would only continue a lack of funding for our students and for the educators who work with them on a daily basis.  Eliminating class size caps in schools, reducing funding, eliminating teacher assistants, and stopping master’s degree pay increases will not improve education for our students.  If we talk about education reform, let’s make our reform be about providing more quality teachers, more quality resources, more quality technological access, and more quality opportunities for our students—all of our students in public schools.  Perhaps a major change that we need is in how we view the most important area of our funding: the future of our towns, our counties, our state, and our nation.  If we are going to look to businesses as a model for educational reform, then why not put our most precious goods, our students, and our most precious commodity, education, back at the forefront of our discussion of change?  Why not listen to the voices of our students as much as our own?

On a more personal note, I also face a moment of great change.  As this school year draws to a close, I grade my last essays until 2014 and start to pack up my classroom in preparation for my journey as North Carolina Teacher of the Year.  While part of me wants to dig down my heels in my amazing classroom (complete with a small stage that is a relic of when it was part of the media center when the current school building was first built in 1929!), I also look eagerly to the opportunities that I will have to advocate for education, to meet with prospective and current educators across the state, and to witness the outstanding teaching that occurs in classrooms in North Carolina daily.  As I start to accept the change that the next year will bring about for me personally, I also acknowledge that educators as a whole sometimes have to be willing to accept some elements of change that might initially frighten us in order to bring about more positive, impactful change for all.  I just hope that we can work together to bring about the right changes for our students and all our voices can unite with “what...we have to say.”