I'll be having dinner with my father tomorrow.
I'm not looking forward to it.
He'll say something like
"Why aren't you teaching? You should be teaching."
I'll say,
"Well, I am teaching. Teaching other teachers how to teach."
He'll go on as if I hadn't spoken.
That's alright.
I'm used to it.
For years, it made me angrier than a category five hurricane.
Now, it just makes me sad.
Truth to tell, I would love to be teaching.
There is nothing like being in a classroom, challenging your students to go beyond themselves. To reevaluate their understanding.
To reestablish their limitations in ever expanding depth and breadth.
To take the plunge into the unknown.
Even without a safety net.
Right now, I simply don't have that luxury.
Not when I know what I know.
About administrators.
How they feel compelled to curb strong teachers.
Teachers who will speak their minds.
Who will challenge the administrators on crucial issues.
They don't like a challenge.
They like to have people reaffirm their pronouncements.
They even fancy that they understand kids.
They miss the reality of that fancy.
Which is that they don't.
Administrators are all over schools.
They make the decisions that affect the kids, and those who teach them.
Yet they are bereft of true understanding of what kids really think, and how they learn.
There's an old saying:
"Those who can't do, teach."
I believe that's wrong.
Well, misstated.
It should be,
"Those who can't do, administrate."
Those who teach well have the ability to create the environment wherein kids learn how and what they can do.
Their individual power.
The power of self.
It is not testing.
It is not continually evaluating and reevaluating teachers,
or coming up with questionnaires which are slanted in such a way that there is only one answer you can truly give, and that answer does not truly fit the question.
It is not a check list, a set of "rubrics".
It is not SATs.
It is not ERBs, either.
Or any other sort of three letter words.
Give me someone who can challenge the young mind.
That is the person I want teaching for me.
I don't care if they have an MA in education.
I'd prefer it if they didn't.
I'm not looking for them to tell me the answer they think I want.
I'm looking for them to harness their minds.
I do that on my terms.
CAGSE is the expression of those terms.
drg