Justin's post yesterday got me thinking about silenced voices in school settings. He focused on the voices of students being silenced...but I see another issue: the voices of teachers.
They--"those administrators"--often ask for teacher opinions. However, in my experience, they want the teachers to say "Yessss, master. Whatever you wish." "Those teachers" who go against what They want are rarely listened to, and often silenced. Sometimes, they are persecuted to the point of them leaving the school.
How many of us have been there? How many of us have learned to stoically hold our tongues so that we keep our jobs?
We are the fire-starters, the troublemakers, whatever you want to call us. Whether we are outspoken or subversive, we are still "causing trouble." Why? Because we aren't just "going along with it"--shutting up, putting our heads down, and doing the work. We are making it harder for Them--the administrators. We're "those Students"--the ones that ask questions and persist and argue until they get an answer.
I was talking with Justin yesterday and he mentioned that all the teachers and admin at his school want is for their school to be "good and adequate." I said, "Why not exceptional?" And he replied, "Because exceptional is too hard." I sighed. Why can't we shoot for the stars? Are we really that complacent? Or do we have that much inertia? I mean yes, work is hard. But three Latin quotes push me forward as I think about this:
Ad astra per aspera. (To the stars through hard times.)
Non est ad astra mollis e terris via. (There is no easy way from the earth to the stars.)
Aut inveniam viam aut faciam. (I will either find a way or I will make one.)
Google+, Twitter, wherever we find our kindred fish, tell us we are not crazy. But how hard is it to believe that when we're silenced in our schools?
So it's hard for us to make sure our voices are valued, but how do we make sure that we are not silenced? What can be done to open the deaf ears of the 20th Century schools?
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