Category Archives: education

The Guardian

It is graduation season, and I am saying goodbye to my wonderful sixth grade class.  As they head off into their adolescence, and all the challenges, joys, and discoveries of that tumultuous time, I ponder how I hold them– forever in my mind– at age 12.  Here is a poem I am reading tomorrow night at their graduation ceremony, and it is featured at the beginning of my book, Why Great Teachers Quit and How We Might Stop the Exodus. 

Guardian

I am the guardian of your 12 year old self

I bear witness, child one second

teenager the next

developing a sense

of what is right

what is wrong

and all in between

pushing boundaries of childhood

like water on the levees

intense daily interactions

reading, writing, thinking

talking, laughing, brooding

until poof! you’re gone

like summer in Vermont

or a flock of birds overhead

flying fast out of sight

I squint to see

the tiny dots disappear.

 

So when I see you in town

at the grocery store

don’t think I’ odd

because I stop in my tracks

 

shaken

 

because while I’ve stayed

the same in the mirror

you’ve gone through a

swirling metamorphosis

when I wasn’t looking

you’ve danced, sung

played, changed

and done more than

I’d ever known

or could teach you.

I’m looking for the relic

for the tiny piece

of your preadolescent

clumsy, shining self

searching the pictures

in my mind

head spinning.

 

So when you see me

on the street

stop and say hello.

Tell me who you are now

and I will tell you

who you were then.

image:  by Ro’smom on Flickr under Creative Commons

Stop the Exodus (new article in Educational Leadership magazine)

Everyone seems to be talking about how to attract quality teachers to the profession.  This is absolutely important—but not many people are talking about how to provide a rich, supportive, engaging, and inspiring climate to help retain high quality teachers once they are working in America’s schools.

Why should we care about this?  With one in five teachers quitting in the first five years (NCTAF, 2003), and some early data showing these very teachers who quit are the ones with a higher measured ability (RAND 2004), this is a problem we can’t ignore.

Many of our schools have become institutions focused only on student achievement in the form of standardized tests—to the determent of the climate for students and teachers.

We need to make teaching a sustainable career, so that the people who enter this important profession can be challenged, supported, and empowered at every stage. With dwindling budgets, pressures from No Child Left Behind and an anti-teacher culture, making teaching more sustainable is not on anyone’s radar.

This has to change, because of course, the problems are interrelated.  Districts spend tens of thousands of dollars every year interviewing, hiring, and training teachers (Shockley, R., Guglielmino, P., & Watlington, E. 2006). With effort, planning, and a little more investment, schools can reduce attrition and improve the climate overall for students and teachers.

Read the complete edited version of this article in Educational Leadership magazine’s digital edition.