An Invitation to the Table

I’m becoming increasingly concerned about a trend in the Classics world right now. (Yes, I understand that this trend is part of the broader world, but I am specifically addressing Classics right now.) There seems to be this mindset that one group needs to make change for another group but the first group will neither participate nor listen to the first group’s story, opinions, or reasons. 

Let me make something clear right now: I agree wholeheartedly that change is needed in the world of Classics, the ACL, and the NJCL. However, I fear that the way some are going about it is going to backfire spectacularly. We need to understand what is actually happening from those on the inside before we snipe from the outside. Rage about how things have been done in the past without taking concrete action is not going to help us moving forward--but knowledge will.

I am becoming increasingly frustrated with the idea that those of us who are “in charge” in ACL and NJCL aren’t “doing enough” quickly enough. This is a huge process, with teachers and students all across the discipline in the United States and beyond. The leadership takes as much time as they can to address the myriad concerns and suggestions being brought to them and need to consider all aspects of implementing changes. Being on the Board of Governors, any of the ACL-affiliated committees, the National Committee, or a State Chair is a volunteer position. We do not get paid for *any* of this and yet we put in countless hours working to make all of these organizations and the field of Classics as a whole more multicultural, inclusive, and compassionate. Yes, I hate that change takes time. But I don’t want to see people posting statuses that say “you are enough” and then turning around and lambasting others for not “doing enough.” That is, quite frankly, toxic and tears apart those who could be allies. 

The ACL is a huge organization. I always see it as a Thanksgiving Dinner with all of your family and friends. Such a dinner can be a different experience for every person involved. 

*Perhaps you arrived and were welcomed with open arms, fed well, and then you helped clean up.

*Perhaps you arrived and were judged for not helping immediately.

*Perhaps you showed up with your own version of mashed potatoes and everyone went, “huh….that’s interesting…”

*Perhaps you got into it with someone about how to prepare the turkey, but ultimately, made a compromise or even made two different, but very tasty, turkeys.

*Perhaps you showed up and you can’t cook, but you brought dishes! And someone helped teach you how to be helpful in the kitchen.

*Or perhaps you had an entirely different experience.

For the dinner to be successful, everyone has to chip in and bring something to it. Maybe everyone will love it, maybe only a few people will, but it is meant to be an experience for all. In order to do that, we must all come to the table, bring our strengths, and work on our areas of weakness.

The point here is that we need to get involved and see the organization from the inside. Walk the mile in those shoes. There was a lot I could have said before I became a State Chair. I became one because they needed someone, but I stayed because I saw the opportunity to make the changes that I could have complained about before I was a State Chair. 

We need to stop trying to pit people against each other--teachers against teachers, students against teachers, and students against students. We’ve created a huge us vs. them mentality and it’s not making those who could have something to contribute feel welcome. We, Latin teachers, need to do better--not just by the profession, not just by the students, but by each other.

We have so far to go and to get there we *all* need to get involved and do our part rather than putting the work on those who will take it on. We can’t expect people to make changes for us while we stand by and direct from the sidelines. I highly recommend volunteering and making yourself known to your State and National Classics leaders and offering your time and assistance to help implement the changes that you feel need to be made. And all of us who are leaders, let's listen.

Words, Actions, and the Culture They Create

These days in Education, and honestly in the USA in general, there's a lot of talk.  We talk about everything...but what do our actions show?

We talk about how we want our students to "advocate for themselves" and we talk about how parents do everything for students and the students don't know how to do anything, but when students go to their counselors to change schedules because they have decided they don't want to take a class, or can't handle that work, or it just simply isn't what they want, they get told to "deal" or just plain "sorry" until their parents call or email and suddenly the class changes. Students can literally spend 3 weeks "advocating for them self" only to have a parent phone call or email do in 5 minutes what they have been using their time trying to do and stressing out about in their hard-earned, over-scheduled time.

We talk about how we want to raise kids to make their own decisions, but when they make a decision about what class to take or what extracurricular activity to do, we question it at every turn. "Are you sure you want to take French 4? You should take AP or honestly just drop language all together and take AP Bio." Why do we do this?  There is a difference between, "Hey look, you're good enough to take AP French. Is there a reason you're taking French 4?" and "Look, if you aren't going to take AP, then it isn't worth it and you should take this science course that you never even mentioned wanting to take." The difference is listening to the student. Students are smarter than we give them any credit for. Personally, I hear a lot of, "I want to take Latin 4 because I really love Latin and want to continue it, but I don't feel like I can really commit to AP.  I mean, I'm already taking 6 APs!"  Aside from the fact that feeling like they have to take 6 AP classes is probably bad for students' mental health, why are we asking them to drop something they love and draw pleasure from to take something they don't?

I have watched several students literally cry in my classroom because their parents are questioning their college choices. While I understand that the parents are paying for it, and all issues of financial ability aside, this is the place a person is going to spend 4 years of their life and learn and get ready to jump into the world. There is all kinds of research that says a student is not going to learn at a place they aren't comfortable, so why are we trying to make them go somewhere they aren't comfortable?

Ignoring students' wishes and their attempts to self-advocate is creating passive, uninterested young people. And then society as a whole has the nerve to blame the students, rather than examine what we are really teaching them with our actions. We are teaching them to settle. We are teaching them that well enough is fine, no matter how much we say that they have to be perfect. We are teaching them that their happiness does not matter.

And yet, the expectations placed on students are unreal. As adults, we have what we call our 'bad days.' Students are not allowed to have 'bad days.' They are reminded all the time how one 3.5 rather than 4.0 will completely erase their chance of ever going to college.  And it has carried over and up.  I watch as my generation (I'm 34) and the generations below us have "learned" that we are not allowed to make mistakes. We feel so much guilt when we mess up anything. Perfect is the name of the game, folks. We have to literally work ourselves to death or we will never amount to anything.

THIS. IS. NOT. HEALTHY.  It isn't healthy for us, for our students, for our families, for our relationships, both with our peers and our own families.

No one will ever give you the tools you need to overthrow them. We need to realize this. It is hard to stand up for yourself, especially when you are trained not to.  But it's time to take it back, to realize that we matter, that our students matter. Overthrowing this toxic culture certainly is not going to happen overnight, but we need to START. Everything begins somewhere.

Too Busy to Learn? To Busy to Care?

It's been a long time since I have posted here. Almost a year, to be honest. But now I do so again to share some observations that I have made over five years of teaching in Virginia.

Everywhere we look these days, we see articles about how busy today's students are and how busy today's teachers are.  We read about and hear about how destructive it is to students and to teachers.  Yeah, yeah, I know.  You've heard it before.

But I want to take this apart a bit and look at this from the point of view of a "non-core" teacher.  I am a Latin teacher.  Not only is this a somewhat overlooked program because it isn't "core," but it is also overlooked because there are many who still believe that Latin is irrelevant.  But I am not here to talk about that.

What if I told you that today's students are too busy to learn?  And not just that, but also that they are too busy to care about learning, or anything, honestly?  "But," you say, "my students are getting great grades!  They are totally learning and they care about it because look at how much they study for those grades!"  Here is my response to that:

Every day, I watch my Latin Classes.  They diligently take notes and do work in class, but every day, I watch them dash through assignments so that they might have a prayer or studying for their test next period for math, or so that they can start their English homework, because they won't get home from sports until 9 PM and they have 5 hours of homework for other classes.  Recently, one of my classes begged me not to have to do anything for Latin that day because they had SO MUCH WORK for other classes.  At first, I didn't believe them.  But then they showed me.  I decided to try something.  "Alright," I told them. "We won't do anything today.  You can use this time to work on work for other classes." I watched them. I really thought they were playing me. Walking around the room, all I saw was work.  Every single student was actually diligently working on something that they needed to do for another class.  I didn't see a phone the whole class--they were so focused on getting their work done.

Here's something else I hear a lot: "Well, it's not good at all, but if I pass, it's fine."  I once asked a student who said something like this why she had not done her best. "Well," she told me, "I don't have time to do my best.  I have at least 7 hours of homework per night and I have music and sports after school. There simply aren't enough hours in the day for me to care enough to do my best."

At this point, students don't even have time to do things they WANT to be doing.  I have a student who is a Section Leader in Orchestra, a Consul in Latin Club, and in NHS.  They give up their lunches to do do Section Leader Stuff, get to school early to help with NHS stuff, give up their time during the day to tutor for NHS, run around and get dates for fundraisers and information for Latin Club business.  They have no time to just drop into my classroom to say hi anymore, or even just to relax.  Sure, I would do the Latin Club stuff for them, but with all the duties assigned to teachers and lack of sufficient planning time in which to do them, I can't really do that either.  So, I have to use my officers to do that...and I feel horrible doing so.

Recently, I was at a conference and was talking with a few other Latin teachers over breakfast. One of them said the following, "I just keep thinking about how inhumanely we treat students. In Elementary school, the need for one to rest, to socialize is at least remotely valued. As they go up to Middle and High school, it is no longer even allowed." This stuck with me. It's true. Students have no time in or out of school to rest, relax, or recharge. One cannot learn like that--it goes against Maslow's basic hierarchy of needs. We as a society have created a bitter, competitive culture where the only reinforcement students get is to compare themselves to others. This is not healthy nor is it worthwhile. Students are robotic--they do what they have to do to get through the day and get good grades and do every single possible thing that they are told to do so that they get into a good college. In this process, they lose themselves.

Students are trained, conditioned to give signals that they are "fine." But get past that and listen to how they actually talk. Fatalism pervades their speech, and anxiety creeps into much of what they say. Here are five links about that, but there are several more!

I write a lot about teachers and how we are over-scheduled and treated unfairly, but we need to think about the students too. The Education System in this country is doing no favors for anyone.

Consolidating Some Thoughts about Teaching

I want to start off by saying that I truly and utterly LOVE my job.  However, nothing is without its flaws.  Some of this, I’m sure you have seen before; some you may have not.  But I want to make some things clear.  

What do we as teachers actually do?

As teachers, we put in hours each day planning lessons. No, that does not mean “just tossing some stuff together and handing out worksheets.” That means finding sources, critically examining what we want our students to get out of what we are doing, and making it meaningful to them. It means writing specific, detailed plans and notes. It means trying to make difficult information easy for students to grasp. To you, this might seem easy.  However, the truth is that it takes literal hours. While it does get easier after the first few years, it never takes less time.  Different classes require different kinds of activities and explanations.  Even if you are teaching the same class twice, you might need to do so in two completely different ways. After all of that prep, we arrive at school.  Our school starts at 8, so we are expected to be there by 7:30, although we are technically only paid for the time from 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM.  However, many teachers come early to help students or give them time to retake quizzes or have professional meetings, such as with their own team of teachers who all teach the same subject. Teachers use that time to make copies for their classes, often waiting in lines because there are so few copiers in the building and heaven help you if one isn’t working!  

With copies having been made, students helped, and meetings had, we then spend 7 hours teaching.  Remember, this is not, “Do the worksheet.” This is active stuff, carefully prepared so that students actually get something out of it.  It’s discussions and debates, assisting each student if they are doing individual work, or executing an activity that will help your whole class understand the Future Tense.  We are supposed to have 1.5 hours of “planning time” per day.  However, this time is often taken up with meetings, or other administrative demands, such as data logging, IEP paperwork, answering emails, phone calls, or other duties, such that most of us are honestly lucky to get time to use the restroom.  

At the end of the day, do you think we just leave?  Nope!  We spend hours after school providing extra help to students, giving them time to retake assessments, and being there as club sponsors, something for which we do not get paid.  Yet, we do it.  Because all of this time supporting our students is worth the lasting relationships we build with them.  It’s why we go to their athletic events and their concerts.  It’s why we make sure we arrive early and stay late.  We LOVE our students and we love what we do.  

What does our salary get us?

I’m going to be honest. No one has ever taught for the money.  With that said, however, it is nigh impossible to live in Fairfax County on the salary of an 8-year teacher with a Master’s Degree, especially if you are single. Does that look like a lot of money?  It’s ok to say yes. But start looking around.  Rent will literally eat half your paycheck.  You can choose to live farther away, but it isn’t necessarily cheaper, and then you pay for gas. It doesn’t even out.  There is not a way to make it work easily.  Many, but not all, other surrounding counties have higher pay scales, which make it remotely viable for their teachers to live in them. Many teachers I know have had to take out personal loans so that they can make it and most of the ones I know live paycheck to paycheck, making it impossible for them to save money.  

As teachers, we are expected to “Dress Professionally.”  I want to unpack this for a minute.  Clothes cost money.  Good, nice, “professional” clothes cost even more money, especially for female teachers.  Female teachers especially have lots of eyes peering at them and how they dress.  There are many more requirements made by society on what they can and can’t wear.  This needs to be taken into account. I am not asking in any way that female teachers be paid more.  That’s ridiculous.  However, I am asking that the costs of food and housing and clothing and gas and child care/pet care be factored into these decisions. I also ask that people THINK for just a second about what we say about teachers. "They only work for 9 months and get the summers off." Did you ever think that we only get paid for 9 months too?

My mom is a lawyer.  She made what I make now when she was just starting out.  Ok, I’ll be fair.  She had to go to school for longer. And pass a really hard exam.  But wait...the requirements to become a teacher, are also quite stringent. And it is state-mandated that we do continuing education at our own expense.  “But doctors save lives.”  So do teachers.  We listen, we help, we coach. I have had several students tell me with and without tears but always sincerely that they would not have made it through high school without me. We are literally educating our country’s future.  Yeah yeah, you’ve heard it.  But I’m asking you to stop for a second and actually think about it. What does that actually mean?

Why the “well why don’t you….”s don't work.

“Just get a roommate”

This one simply isn't always an option. It also doesn’t necessarily cut costs.  More people need more space.  More space is more expensive.  

“Get another job”

Teaching is NOT a part time job.  We can’t plan effectively or get anything done that we need to do with another job.  One simply cannot be a truly effective teacher with another job, even one on weekends.  We are human too.  We have families.  We need time for ourselves, so that we can recharge and be good teachers.  It is downright unfair to ask this of us.  

Oh and Families….

I’m not even going to get started on what it means to be a parent and a teacher  I have had so many people try to tell me how we should be saving money for college or even feeding our families. Simply put, if the other parent gets laid off, our salaries are not livable.  If you are a single mom, you are in even more dire straits.  But we’ll save that for another time.

I do not write this to complain.  I write to inform.  I really do want people to think critically about what they say to teachers or how they support teachers.  We don’t want your “thoughts,” “prayers,” or “blessings.”  We need funds and supplies to make our work possible.  If you want educated students, perhaps paying a bit more for a meal to support education in the county might not be too much to ask.  With that said, it would behoove the county to truly put their money where their mouth is.  I will close this with a quote from one of my own students, a Sophomore at the time they wrote this.  Reflecting on education in our County and our Country, they said, “"You (the county) preach that the educations and futures of the students are at the heart of your ideals. Then how are you considering cutting jobs in the schools which will most directly affect the teachers and their families, whose children are probably going to school at the school you just cut their guardian from, but the colleagues as well, who have lost a set of hands and eyes with which to double check projects and work. You talk about cutting electives, throwing around the future of the things most students drag themselves out of the house in the morning simply to come to school to play an instrument or to cook or to practice medicine or to learn how to use computers more efficiently. You toss it around as if it is some toy with which you have become bored. But you don't realize that this is what keeps the system alive. Electives teachers far outnumber most other teachers in the school. Do you know why? Because math, history, science, and English are not the only facets of the world in which we live. Cutting electives will not make things better. Not wasting money on superfluous things like new couches for a rec center and instead using it to bolster the education system will actually solve the problems we have, instead of just putting them off for another generation to handle."

Summer "Schedule"

Greetings, Loyal Readers!

Summer has begun!  So, the schedule will be a bit irregular.  My Summer schedule consists of a trip to ACL in Memphis, a vacation to Maine, two weeks at Rusticatio and Pedagogy Rusticatio in West Virginia, and then a trip to San Antonio for Worldcon with Sassafrass at the end of the Summer. 

I will have a lot to write about, but not all that much time to write it....So, I will post when I can.  Sorry for not having a more defined schedule!  However, if I don't post for a bit, I am not dead.  :) 

Hope you all are having a great start to Summer!

~Emily

Change

Over Reunion Weekend, I spent much time exploring the campus of my old school and catching up with my classmates.  Since we've left, many changes have taken place at the school.

The Leadership changed.  When that happens, you know changes are in order, for good or for ill.    A new headmaster, who is an alum, came in and made sweeping changes to the Deans, the academics, the college process, and the school design in general. 

The "new" headmaster has now been there for seven years.  In those years, he has turned the design of the school we knew on its head.  Good thing, too.  The school we knew was a strange place.  The priorities were strange.  A disproportionate amount of energy and resources were spent on Athletics, while music and theater struggled.  Education, too, was strangely funded and cared for. 

For the students, we have had a hard time getting "over" the experiences we had with the Dean of Students that came in our Sophomore year.  That had been an extremely unwelcome change...and dealing with her was like dealing with a Dementor--she just sucked the life right out of you and the school in general. 

But now?  The students are happy!  They say hi to you and hold doors--something, I am ashamed to say, we never would have even considered doing.  The faculty, too, seem happy.  The interior of the school received a much needed update two years ago, and yet, still retains the classic feeling that the Main Building once had. 

Good Change at a place like that requires careful, thoughtful people who are invested in the school or the company they work for.  You have to change an entire culture, create a community where there was none, and turn a place of low expectations on everyone's part into a place of high expectations. 

So how does one do that?  The answers are both simple and complex.  You don't come in waving your agenda around as the cure-all.  You meet the people--the students, the faculty, the staff.  You listen to their concerns.  You take walks around the campus and become a presence in the life of the school.  You reach out to the alumni.  Above all, you remember that this is a process and takes a huge amount of work and time and energy.  You look at the faculty and the leadership and you may need to make a bunch of difficult decisions about who stays, who goes, and what you want the leadership to look like. 

But it all takes me back to a few simple questions:  How do you make Good Change happen at a company, school, or in general?  What are the steps that make it different from "bad" change?  Obviously, these are a bit subjective, so here's an example:  One could argue that the INTENTIONS behind No Child Left Behind were good ones.  The implementation, however, was poor.  What could have made it a good change rather than a bad one?  Is there anything? 

That's a lot of questions, I know, but I would love your thoughts on it all!

Reunion

This past weekend was my high school reunion.  I had a really good time seeing old friends, meeting spouses and babies, and networking with members of my class and older classes.  I sang for the retirement party of my old Choir director, who was truly amazing and will be sorely missed. 

There were lots of moments that made me think--especially in light of my posts about dress codes and school.  Many members of my class hold clothing in high esteem.  I realize that clothing is a status symbol and all, and that at reunion you want to look good.  I, personally, had spent quite a while picking outfits and making sure I had a dress for each night and that they were the appropriate level of formal.  I tried to make sure they were tasteful, while still being fun. 

Believe me, I was pretty damn surprised to see one of the women, who has a 4 month old baby, show up wearing a silk dress.  Now, to be fair, she looked fantastic in it.  I hope I, too, will look that good when my hypothetical baby is 4 months old!  However, this woman quickly proved that she was still as spoiled as she always had been, because she was a) surprised and b) ran off crying when her 4 month old baby spit up on her dress. 

There are many things I could say about this.  I do not have children, but many of my friends do and I babysit for them a lot, so that my friends get breaks.  However, I guess what it made me realize, even though I knew this theoretically, is that I think practically, learned to laugh at myself, and don't run away from my problems.  This is clearly something that this particular woman never learned to do.  She had always struggled with it in high school, and I guess I had always assumed she would grow out of it.  I felt badly for her husband, who had not gone to school with us and was a stranger to us and to the culture, left alone with a crying baby, while his wife fled her problems and wept inside. 

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised at such childish, petty behavior from an adult...I mean, I see it every day.  But I try to hope that people will grow up.  But this one little incident left me thinking the whole weekend about learning to function as an adult human being in the Real World.  We don't do a great job teaching students how to do so. 

Instead, we teach them that you can hide from your problems, that it's OK to do something as long as no one sees/finds out, that everything is high stress and high stakes.  Instead, the real life skills are that you have to think practically, and that you have to learn to take life with a sense of humor. 

I guess, the best place I can take this is to two simple words that adorn the front wall of my classroom: DON'T PANIC.  Approach things rationally.  So, how do we teach our students and our children and ourselves to do this?  What are the steps and lessons that we should teach?