Teachers, grief and growth

When Jared Loughner killed Christina Green in Arizona last Saturday, he disturbed the lives of other children across the country as well, raising questions about the world “out there.” But the children at Mesa Verde Elementary School, the ones who will not see Christina again, are more than disturbed (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/11/us/11schools.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha23). Their parents and their teachers face the nearly insurmountable challenge of helping them to make sense out of this event, and to reconstruct their world as safe enough to move about, sleep at night, trust the other, and think about something other than the possibility that someone might shoot them.

A new rhetorical battle royale has broken out between the adults who think that nasty political rhetoric framed this attack and those who think that Jared was mentally deranged and unaffected by that rhetoric. They are both right and both wrong – as is so often the case in life’s interesting moments. Jared Loughner is mentally ill; his asocial and antisocial behavior is definitive of mental illness. And the use of targets and gun metaphors by political and media figures makes certain things imaginable, especially to the mentally ill.

But the teachers at Mesa Verde and elsewhere are dealing with a different issue. What is the right emotional tone in the classroom now? What does one say – and not say? How can I comfort this child without alarming that one? Where do we draw the line on self-absorption, encouraging students to live through their pain and their questions?

As a mother of now grown children, I appreciated both facets of President Obama’s address at the memorial service at the University of Arizona: healing eloquence and choking silence. He framed a vision for bringing us together with his words and made us feel the unspeakability of it all with one long telling minute near the end of the speech when he simply could not continue.

As a teacher educator, I’m left wondering how we ready our aspirants for moments like this. How do we teach future teachers to value both words and silence? How do we enable and encourage them to be present to tragedy in the lives of their students without being felled by it? How do future teachers learn to respond – always as educators – so that their students grow in mind and heart and action?

Today I have ideas but no concrete answers to these questions -- except to say this: teacher education must always remain education. Technical training and a professional knowledge base, though necessary, are not a sufficient basis for becoming an educator. The Mesa Verde teachers responding to Christina Green’s friends and schoolmates this week will draw on more than “professional development.” They will do with their students just what President Obama called on all Americans to do: “to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy, and remind ourselves of all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound together.” This is growth; this is education.

Duncan a Consensus Choice: Obama Retains Tension between Competing Policy Camps

The Associated Press today reports in an article that Arne Duncan, selected to lead the Education Department in the Obama administration, is a consensus pick whose selection avoids picking sides between the two educational policy reform camps.

Obama managed throughout his campaign to avoid taking sides in the contentious debate between reform advocates and teachers' unions over the direction of education and the fate of President Bush's No Child Left Behind accountability law.

"Duncan's selection may satisfy both factions. Reform advocates wanted a big-city school superintendent who, like Duncan, has sought accountability for schools and teachers. And teachers' unions, an influential segment of the party base, wanted an advocate for their members; they have said they believe Duncan is willing to work with them.

Duncan deliberately straddled the factions earlier this year when he signed competing manifestos from each side of the debate."

Teachers in Portugal

It’s back to school time in Portugal where I’m spending the semester at the Universidade de ‘Evora as a Fulbright scholar. I just arrived a week ago, but have learned enough about the national system to learn that individual teachers are not hired by local district administrators; instead, the (central) Ministry of Education places teachers throughout the country. Until this year, teachers were given a one-year placement, subject to change every year. Starting this year, teachers are guaranteed to remain in the same place for four years. I’ve been pondering the implications of both the one year and four year policies.

Let me acknowledge right off the bat that I don’t know the history of these policies, and would welcome clarification from those who know more. I am told that Portugal has more than enough teachers. I am also told that people in Portugal don’t like to move (unless they emigrate to another country). It’s a lot like Pittsburgh, PA (or at least how Pittsburgh used to be); when you grow up, you move in down the street from your mom! You don’t leave the old neighborhood – or region. I can only guess that these policies are intended to give the Ministry the flexibility to place teachers in all the regions of the country, no matter what their place of origin or preference. I doubt that teachers are moved willy-nilly each year, and I assume that Ministry officials have good reasons for doing what they do. Still, it’s seems that school directors (principals) – and students – can’t count on working with the same teachers year after year.

Because I side with educational scholars and practitioners who view relation as central to pedagogical possibility, I am perplexed by any policy that impedes continuity of relation between teacher and student. Continuity (suggests Nel Noddings among others) is one of two elements in the development of positive pedagogical relationships (the other is engagement). If some critical mass of teachers does not remain in the same school for any predictable period of time, the possibilities for relation and community, i.e. for caring, diminish. It takes time and attention to construct and nurture generative relations. Policies that move teachers around for the sake of bureaucratic convenience seem to be counter-productive to creating the relationships that can foster learning.

So the cast of characters changes. Children come back to interact with adults they’ve never seen before, adults who don’t know their names or the siblings or their histories. Sometimes that’s a good thing – past histories can complicate any relationships, but more often, it is good for children to know teachers by reputation if not personally, and for teachers to recognize the children with whom they will work. (It’s even better when teachers can work with children for more than one school year!)

And what of the teachers? Educational research over the past decade in particular has made it clear that good teaching is context dependent. That is, how “good” a teacher you will be depends on where you are and what and whom you are teaching. If I am moved from pastoral Evora to urban Lisbon to the sunny Algarve, will I be supported as I spend the time and effort to come to understand the ways that life in that place pushes and pulls each student? Again, I assume that those in the Ministry who make the placements try to be respectful of teachers’ background and talents. And a change of location can be a very good thing for a teacher, heightening one’s sense of self and the rhythm of a teaching life. But to be reassigned regularly seems to be an assault on a teacher’s professionalism as well as a drain of energy that could be devoted to the practice of teaching.

I am a guest in Portugal where I have found only hospitality and welcome. I confess readily that I don’t know enough about the system to make any judgment. I write not to criticize a particular system but to raise questions about the relations between teachers and students, and about relations between teachers and the administrative structure that determines their professional positions.