Nails on the Chalkboard (for me)

Why are we all so trapped by one shared notion of “school”?  Tell me if I'm wrong. Was the first image that came to your mind any of the following? A room with the one board where the teacher stands. The single beige desk with its uncomfortable chair and the arrangement of rows or groupings oriented to that one place. A classroom door that students look to and continually plan for ways to exit. 

Here we are, having sent private citizens into space, having created a global connection through handheld devices, enabled anyone with a smartphone to make mini movies in mere seconds and use artificial intelligence to cull the history of millennia faster than it took the once revolutionary dial up internet to connect, and we still have classrooms based on the one-room schoolhouse. 

We are, collectively, still dragging around a few notions that do not serve us:

• Notion #1: Teaching is an act of sacrifice and those who are in education are dedicated (i.e. do not need competitive salaries, professional growth plans or working environments commensurate with their peers who hold advanced degrees) and so we can complain, but no meaningful change needs to occur.
• Notion #2: Schools (the classrooms, the hallways, the physical buildings) need to merely be a variation on a theme. Add a contemporary mural, brighten up the lunchroom, but fundamentally, continue to operate from the same bell schedule, daily flow and instructional emphasis that has been in place for more than a hundred years.
• Notion #3: We are doing the best we can. This connects directly to number one and two. Before I dive into what I mean, I want to wholeheartedly echo, amplify and explicitly state that schools have been tasked with all the support that young people and youth in our country need without sustained increases in the funds, facilities and people to deliver on the supports. This section is a book in itself and  you will not find me disagreeing that schools and the teachers, aides, facilities teams, nutrition services, health, special education and administration are being asked to not only be expert but manage the operations and excellence in areas that would require many more staff and a much more guaranteed budget than any public school truly has solely as a result of government funds (barring individual education foundations and other grants). What I want to get at with this is the idea that we are okay operating in this state of mediocrity and burnout because “poor public schools are woefully underfunded”. And the idea that “We are doing the best we can” absolves everyone outside of education from voting to massively restructure and increase funding for necessary support, personnel and services to realize our vision of serving all young people.

Tonight, my husband and I watched the latest episode of Abbott Elementary which we’ve been enjoying since it started. Twenty-five years into my own career in education, I see the true people behind each of the characters. I know the administrator with the unconventional and larger than life personality of Ava, I recognize myself with a cringe in the white-liberal “Jacobisms”, and three Head Custodians/Facilities leads come to mind with the quirks, fonts of knowledge and other dimensions that could be Mr. Johnson. I value each of the characters, Gregory, Mrs. Howard, Janine and Melissa. I applaud the show as it shows the absurdities of how politics derails a focus on whole child learning, how lack of funds impedes basic access, and how it captures the scrappy culture that emerges in these settings.  I see how the chronically underfunded, predominantly Black school that Abbott depicts is calm and joyful (contrary to public opinion on schools like Abbott).

But Abbott is stopping short of the real change that it could initiate in the mind of the public.

Not once have I seen creative, dynamic and contemporary instruction that can be done with skill and depth and isn’t dependent on budget. Not once have I seen project-based learning, student-centered learning, learning stations or broad representation across the hallways and curriculum. Abbot has the chance to show innovation, to move beyond models that have outgrown their origins in the 1950s and 1960s and embrace what we know about brain science and the value of contemporary learning.

The narrative of “We are doing the best we can,” continues. It’s as if the idea that all the hundreds and thousands and more than 49 million children who are in US public schools will have to settle for something a little more mediocre than we want, a little more dated than we need, a little more teacher-centered than we know is effective because, well, that’s as good as it gets. And then it keeps the field of education trapped in this subpar level of excellence. 

We KNOW what dynamic, engaged learners look like in classrooms. We have so many wonderful examples of how flipping the flow of school can open new opportunities and levels of learning.

And yet, time and time again, we stay tied to the trope of “the poor public school and the scrappy and loving teachers” who work there.

Why?

Tonight, even the smallest choices truly felt like nails on the chalkboard to me. The episode centered on making the school a historic landmark, which would come with some additional funds and status in the mind of the central characters. After realizing the school namesake was a white racist man (during a large celebration, community activists raised the point to the inept Chief of Education, a white woman twisting herself to dismiss the claims and whom Mrs. Howard has to remind that even one “racist” in the description of someone should be enough to end the conversation), the event was rescheduled. The next convening was downscaled and, at that gathering, the environmental justice activist, who was a descendent of the original namesake, revealed himself to believe that the earth is flat, even if his social justice vision was aligned.

In the final minute of the show, the episode ended with a small hallway gathering and an even smaller framed photo of the real historical figure John Quincy Allen. But that’s a REAL story that deserved to be told and modeled. Instead of an impromptu speech to a small number of people on their way to the next class, why didn’t the show model what it is to CENTER and to UNLEARN in a school community? End with a school wide assembly, a video (in the style of TikTok or anything current) of Black visionaries and leaders who made Philadelphia but whose stories are not widely told. Model a dynamic, contemporary assembly that doesn’t match our collective outdated ideas of what “school” is.

Use this powerful platform to show brilliance and invite the show's following into a vision of what could be in education.