Of tattered sails
Dear Reader,
As a soggy sailor, I write to you, having been swept away on the fervent seas of internet discourse. The reading wars swirl eternal, but as I reset my Twitter password, I landed in the bubbling gyre of Edutwitter 2022.
Nymphs and sirens, in perfect profile pictures, litter the hellscape and espouse malignant diatribes.
“Not enough, not enough!” they wail.
As though a curriculum, another law, or due process regarding existing laws, stands a chance against the ghost ship fleet of American public schools.
Phantom marauders are at the helm, too restricted by some stakeholders, and too incentivized by others, to chart a course where kids learn to read and do math.
This post was originally in regards to these recent events:
Lucy Calkins NYTime piece, May 2022
Sold A Story Podcast, Emily Hanford, November 2022
The Rebuttal to Sold A Story, co-signed by 58 ‘experts’
The Rebuttal to the Rebuttal, co-signed by 650 teachers
Don’t Forget the Parents! Rebuttal, co-signed by ‘over 1300 parents, educators, children’
On all sides of the aisle, people are claiming to be victims: Teachers didn’t know better, parents had no idea. There was some phonics included. Capitalism did its thing.
And yet…
If teachers really thought the three-cue system was reading, that’s a teacher problem, not curriculum. It took watchful parents a few hours of witnessing zoom instruction to realize something was wrong.
And the now indignant parents that needed a pandemic to realize their kids couldn’t read, a larger problem is afoot there as well.
And to the academics and activists, thinking that publicly lashing one model of literacy, to replace it with another, will do anything to address the woeful lack of good teachers responsible for teaching it:
It is one thing to take education seriously. It is another to take yourself, as an educator, too seriously.
And lest you think I am some salty crustacean from the deep, let me be clear. My opinion is that the only way to get ourselves out of this mess (which we must, and should do) is to recruit and retain better teachers.
Teachers who understand the most valuable resource they have are the students sitting in front of them each day. Teachers that have enough judgment and intelligence to work hard and do what’s best for their kids. Teachers that appreciate the work-life balance teaching can afford (if you let it). Teachers that are human beings, with lives outside their phones. Teachers that understand the best jobs in education are with the kids and not in the office.
It's no surprise that people are staying “untethered from social and institutional constraints” in their COVID-era learning pods. The growing popularity of home and unschooling echoes that sentiment. But this is a luxury not afforded by most.
The inescapable truth is that schools are both a reflection and perpetuation of the values within the communities they serve. We need our best and brightest voices to step up and teach in our schools.
I understand there is a litany of counter-arguments, subplots, and intricacies to fixing public school. But if teacher quality, let alone quantity, doesn’t improve, our students will inherit nothing more than a dungeon of bones.
At port for now,
Winter grass through fallen leaves,
-Laura