• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Advertising
  • Write for Us
  • Job Board
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
    • Consulting
    • Advertising
  • Shop
    • Books
    • Shirts

The Educators Room logo

  • Start Here
    • Impact Statements: Teacher Expertise
    • Newsletter
  • Browse Topics
    • Content Strategies
      • Literacy
      • Mathematics
      • Social Studies
      • Educational Technology
      • ELL & ESOL
      • Fine Arts
      • Special Education
      • Popular Topics
        • Teacher Self-Care
        • Instructional Coach Files
        • Common Core
        • The Traveling Teacher
        • The Unemployed Teacher
        • The New Teacher Chronicles
        • Book Review
        • Grade Levels
          • Elementary (K-5)
          • Middle (6-8)
          • Adult
          • New Teacher Bootcamp
          • Hot Button Topics
            • Menu Item
              • Principals' Corner
              • Charter Schools
              • Confessions of a Teacher
              • Interviews
              • The State of Education
              • Stellar Educator of the Week
            • Menu
              • How to Fix Education
              • Featured
              • Ask a Teacher
              • Teacher Branding
              • Current Events
  • Podcasts
  • Courses
    • Practicing Self-Care to Avoid Teacher Burnout- An 8 Week Course
    • Becoming An Educational Consultant
    • Teacher Branding 101:Teachers are The Experts
    • The Learning Academy
    • Books
    • Shirts
  • Education in Atlanta
  • Teacher Self-Care
  • The Coach's Academy
menu icon
go to homepage
subscribe
search icon
Homepage link
  • Advertising
  • Write for Us
  • Job Board
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
    • Consulting
    • Advertising
  • Shop
    • Books
    • Shirts
×

January 7, 2018 Child Development

Teaching: Taking on the Moral Imperatives (Part I)

  • About the Author
  • Latest Posts

About Dan McConnell

Husband, father, and teacher. Hoping to earn full redemption through the written word and shaping the dangerous young minds of tomorrow.
  • This is Not the Way it Should Feel to Teach - December 2, 2020
  • Remote Elementary Teaching Sucks. Get Over It and Prepare for Survival - October 27, 2020
  • Betsy Devos Need to Spend More Time In Real Schools with Real Teachers - September 8, 2020
  • Teaching from Home Part 2: Using Google Classroom to Stay Semi Connected - April 9, 2020
  • Teaching from Home: Tips for Focusing on Results- One Teacher's Reflection - March 29, 2020
  • A Pandemic Brings Opportunity to Rethink Standardized Testing - March 23, 2020
  • Getting Students to Write (Part 1) - August 7, 2019
  • Why I Worry About My Students - July 9, 2019
  • Activists Are Needed in Education - May 13, 2019
  • Your Students and Video Games: Adult Supervision Required - April 29, 2019

What moral imperatives?

I have been thinking more about the moral imperatives of teaching. These imperatives can hinder instruction and progress. That's why the only option is to address and hopefully resolve them. They are moral imperatives because it's wrong to not handle them.  Preparing students academically-now that's the job, a duty. Consultants, education experts/leaders (folks who travel around and talk about stuff others do) mostly focus on that academic data. But teachers are on the front lines for children and dealing with much more than just test scores. They contend with the moral imperatives daily, and it's one of the reasons we need good teachers so badly. They deal with things others wouldn't and couldn't deal with.

That said, I've never assumed the power to teach to "change the world," but I do understand that world. I see what it does close up. I know that other teachers do too. It imposes some horrible burdens on children, and those burdens become imperatives for teachers. It also means that teachers do more than "education reformers" care to admit. Criticisms of public education and teachers usually stick to an academic focus. You know: test scores, graduation rates, "college readiness"... These stats are used to define official expectations placed on educators.

Teaching: Taking on the Moral Imperatives (Part I) Click To Tweet

Then those stats are used to describe how schools have fallen short or failed. Having sprang from the metaphorical loins of wealthy elites' and their desire to consume more of the public commons-this approach is no surprise. If you can attach lies, damn lies or statistics to something, it becomes easier to demonize and capitalize. It also becomes easier for the wealthy and politically powerful to exploit the weak and poor. Promoting the primacy of tests, data and accountability for others makes their brand of reform easier.

Who avoids moral imperatives, and why?

Avoiding the boots-on-the-ground moral imperatives is one way to provide "school choice" while keeping your load light. Taking on the more personal challenges of teaching in a truly public school is a daunting task, so having a system to avoid those challenges can help build reputations and an industry. That's why offering "school choice" to parents requires parents to be involved and aware, and students to "fit" the choice a school provides. Regardless of the petulant foot-stamping that might come from some advocates (I am a choice advocate, but not a foot-stamper)   "choice=reform" ain't really a public education model. It's more of a market that sorts the most vulnerable to it's own benefit. Still the praise for the sorters can be effusive and sometimes a bit over the top.

"She gleefully assumes the mantle of arch-reformer from a long line of disruptors like Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, Arne Duncan, John King, Wendy Kopp, John Deasy, the first generation of charter school founders, and others with the courage to challenge an educational system that cannot get even one in 10 low-income students through college." (Peter Cunningham, writing about Eva Moskowitz in Don't Get Angry, Get Eva)

If stats are the focus, it isn't hard to understand why a consummate self-promoter like Eva Moskowitz would garner high praise. Admittedly, children at her Success Academy schools get opportunities they wouldn't have otherwise gotten, and students are getting good test scores. But it's certain children getting them, and she makes no bones about keeping some students out of her school or sending others on their way in order to avoid some of those moral imperatives.

How teachers take on those moral imperatives

You remember teachers? This is an article about teachers and how they take on those moral imperatives.

Few reformers are willing to include this type of recognition in their narratives about traditional schools. Psychological, social, emotional and physical abuse; homelessness, hunger... Teachers are faced daily with young people bearing these traumas, and they handle them in the moment. While plan books and academic pacing demand steady forward movement, teachers often spend time healing children in order to acacademically prepare them.

If "healing" seems a little extreme (though I would argue teachers do heal), at least consider it triage. It has to happen in order to advance a large group of students with varied needs and abilities. So while the "poverty is not an excuse" crowd might praise and defend efforts to sort the poor before they are served, true educators know the impacts of poverty and dive in to serve them all.

Some schools even explicitly implement programs to address the impacts of poverty. And their efforts go far beyond the simple-minded grit-and-rigor B.S. that test-advocates prescribe for . children Fairmont Neighborhood School in the South Bronx, for example, there is practice with intent when it comes to addressing the needs of their students., and clearly they understand the challenges their learners face.

"...49 percent of kids are growing up in single-mother households, according to Census data. Nearly half of families earn $25,000 a year or less; 17.5 percent make less than $10,000 a year...students are sleeping in shelters, or not even in shelters but on the streets. They’re thinking about, ‘Where is Mom right now? And where am I going to sleep tonight?’"

true educators know the impacts of poverty and dive in to serve them all. Click To Tweet

Teachers, here's the first thing you can do: be proud

In this KQED article about Faimont, Anya Kamenetz describes a school wide understanding about the condition more and more students come to school in.

"Chronic stress and uncertainty, not to mention missed meals and restless nights, make it physically and mentally difficult for children to concentrate or form trusting bonds with adults. They become hypervigilant, prone to emotional meltdowns, with bodies thrown into fight-or-flight mode at the slightest disturbance."

Teachers, first off: your education, training, instincts and experience have already revealed the reality of that last quote to you. And if I haven't already made it clear, I know you drive yourself crazy trying to heal/help/teach the children coming to school with these burdens. So be proud.

That's my first "to do" for you. Be proud. I am proud of you every day, and I don't care what kind of school you work at. Thank you for your service, regardless. There is a growing body of children that desperately need you and your understanding more than they need an extra helping of "grit and rigor" served up by pious, elite reformers. Of course we want our students to move on to bright futures-but that requires much more than just being prepared academically. This is something those "arch-reformers" know but sidestep in their advocacy. Humility, reflection and appreciation are cards missing from some of their decks, though, so it comes as no surprise.

Which leads me to my second "to do" for you: be fierce

Be fierce. Don't be humble. The clowns looking for every opportunity to demean and diminish the importance and contributions of you, your work, our profession, of our schools...they are fierce. So you be fierce. That doesn't mean be defensive or proudly complacent in what you do, what you have always done, and the way you've always done it. Of course change and grow. If you don't, you really do become a liability. But don't sit quietly and get rolled over by haters and opinionaters.

Be fierce. Our mission is to serve children, not serve them up for approval.

“I do worry about our test scores,” says Wolfson. “Unfortunately, that’s like the bottom line for us. But without the social-emotional support we can’t address the academics. We have to support the whole child.” (Scott Wolfson, Principal)

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Related posts:

Failing our Poor Students: A Crisis of Morality and Character The Mental State of Teaching Poverty, Parents, Homework and Kitchen Tables Making STEM Matter in Schools
« Coaching the Players: Teaching the Teachers
Is 2018 the Year for You to Teach at a New School? »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

The Educator's Room was launched in 2012 to amplify the voice of educators. To date, we have over 45+ writers from around the world and boast over twelve million page views. Through articles, events, and social media we will advocate for honest dialogue with teachers about how to improve public education. This mission is especially important when reporting on education in our community; therefore, we commit our readers to integrity, accuracy, and independence in education reporting. To join our mailing list, click here.

What we do

At The Educator's Room, we focus on amplifying and honoring the voice of educators as experts in education. To date, we have over 40 staff writers/teachers from around the world.

Popular Posts

  • Want to Keep Special Education Teachers? Try Mentorship
  • An Idaho teen who won his school board election has a message for educators
  • Moving Beyond Diversity to Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging: Lessons from a Sunday Sermon
  • Ask the Educator's Room: What do I do if a student won't stop lying?

Featured On

Buy Our Books/Courses

How to Leave Your Job in Education

Practicing Self-Care to Avoid Teacher Burnout

Using Your Teacher Expertise to Become an Educational Consultant

Check out our books on teaching and learning!

The Learning Academy

Footer

↑ back to top

About

  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimer
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Accessibility Policy

Newsletter

  • Sign Up! for emails and updates

Contact

  • Contact
  • Services
  • Media Kit
  • FAQ

 

Copyright © 2021 The Educator's Room.