My Student's Commencement Speech

Meghan Blackwood was a secondary English student in my student teaching seminar this semester at Mercy College's Manhattan campus. Our college finds that mixing secondary and elementary and early childhood teachers in these seminars makes for powerful cross-fertilization of ideas and perspectives. One week Meghan revealed in her weekly reflection that high school students will do work for food. A planned debate on Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique in her creative writing class got her students going when she said there'd be donuts as a prize. Here below are the remarks she shared at commencement to an enthusiastic crowd of graduates and their families and friends. I just had to share it too.

Good afternoon graduates, family, friends, and faculty,

My name is Meghan Blackwood also known as “Missuhhhh” to my eleventh-grade English class. Did you notice the stressed ending sound? I have learned it is purposely stressed to show intended attitude or frustration usually in response to my outrageous requests to read and respond to specific pages from classic works of literature such as Arthur Miller’s play, “The Crucible,” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wall Paper.”

Ever since I was five years old, I knew I wanted to become a teacher. I would line up my stuffed animals in front of my mother’s wardrobe and put on her heels. I would walk back and forth with a book in my hands pretending it was a lesson of great importance. I liked the way the heels sounded against her hardwood floors. It sounded noisy to those downstairs, but to me those sharp sounds were everything, it was the sound of my dreams becoming my future reality.  I knew I wanted to be a teacher and I knew that I loved to read…. At spontaneous times during my “lesson” I would look up from my book into the large mirrors and smile at my reflection. I wish I could have told my five-year-old self that walking around in heels all day can be very painful, and often cause you to walk on your tip toes.

In 2012 I enrolled into the five-year program, where I majored in English and worked towards my master’s in education.  While I learned much in the classroom, it was also outside the classroom that I learned …mostly from my high school students…The first thing I learned is you have to know your students by being aware of their likes and dislikes.  You have to try to select texts that students can relate to and will be motivated to read.  This can help students to engage in in-depth discussions with their peers when responding to a text. 

I have also learned to be prepared at all times. I know this is a cliché, but it has proven to be true time and time again especially as an educator. I learned this lesson within the first few weeks of my student teaching experience. According to Murphy’s Law, “Anything that can go wrong, will.” This is proven true, especially when it comes to using technology within the classroom setting, specifically that beloved Smart Board. One must learn to be flexible and be able to adapt to any situation, because it will happen when the light bulb on the Smart Board may blow, your laptop charger is missing, all of your dry erase markers are dried up, or you may even have on the wrong shoes that day. Regardless of the situation, flexibility is essential.

Another important concept that I have learned is that you are so much more than a teacher to your students. The students need that enthusiastic voice acknowledging their achievements, that high five affirming their success, and that grin reflecting their accomplishments. They need that encouragement, no matter how old they are, because sometimes you have to cheer them through very unlikely situations. When I was student teaching, one of my eleventh-grade students was absent for a few weeks from class. When he finally returned to class, he told me he was in jail. I did not ask him anything else; I just went to the back of the classroom and cried. I then returned to his desk and reminded him of all his wonderful accomplishments within the class.  I told him he was important to this class and that he belonged within the classroom – and not in a jail cell.  His eyes brightened and I could see his spirits lifted.

The most important concept I have learned, and am still learning, is to never lose sight of my initial purpose in becoming an educator. I often reflect on my five- year-old self in those heels reading a book to my “students.”  I knew then that I wanted to share my love of literature with students, to encourage their questioning of texts, to inspire their challenging of ideas and to motivate them to pass on their love of literature to others. Sometimes it is easy to become discouraged when embarking on your journey but just remember your five-year-old self.  Remember that passion, that longing…. and that desire to make a difference.

To my fellow teachers in the audience – be the teacher you often wish you had.  To my classmates setting out on other journeys…best of luck to you.

And to all of us – Congratulations class of 2017! Thank you! 

When Anxiety Rules: Report from the edTPA front lines

I am pleased to host one of my current student teachers from the Manhattan campus of Mercy College, Melina Milanovic. She just passed the EdTPA with flying colors, but she has some important thoughts to share. Pass this along, it should go viral.

EDTPA! Where should I begin? How about the handbook? The handbook is a great place to begin because the handbook is where the anxiety starts. A teacher candidate might have heard about the edTPA in passing, I know I have. However, the reality of what is being asked of a teacher candidate only becomes real once the handbook is read, and though you feel like student teaching is the completion of this long journey, it is only the beginning. The first time I read the handbook I remember feeling overwhelmed. I thought how would I be able to complete this much work in a seven-week placement? Will my cooperating teachers understand? How will I get to know these kids in a short amount of time in order to plan, teach, and assess during this learning segment? To be honest, if you are dedicated enough it is possible. It is possible to finish the edTPA in about two months. I would say on average I spent three hours a day on edTPA for 60 days. That is only the amount of time I spent working on the edTPA, but not the amount of time I spent thinking about the edTPA. I even had people around me such as co-workers, and family members that are not teachers, being informed about edTPA because of my constant talking about it. They kept asking, "Why do you want to be a teacher again?" It is important to not let edTPA take that away from you, the reason why you are becoming a teacher! Always keep the end goal in mind. 

Spending this much time on edTPA comes with sacrifices. First, you can forget about taking your time to plan lessons that you will teach outside of edTPA in your first placement. It is nearly impossible to plan, teach, and assess lessons outside of edTPA. Of course it needs to be done because your cooperating teacher and your college program expect you to take the role of the teacher. However, you will definitely not be as prepared as you could have been because of the edTPA. Also, you must be quick to learn about your students, the community of the school, and the culture of the school. Luckily, I am student teaching in my own neighborhood, and I know the diversity and culture of my students. However, I can imagine the difficulty of trying to figure this out without any prior knowledge. Also, you must take full control of the classroom and not treat yourself as a guest. Thus, there is really no time to transition into the role of a lead teacher; you need to act quickly in order to become the lead teacher!  

Next, you can forget about focusing on your student teaching experience as a whole. I am currently in my second placement and I am burned out. I am not even excited to be here, which is saddening because this is the experience I have looked forward to since the start of my first education class. The edTPA literally drains your energy. That is the best way to describe it! By the time you reach the second placement you are mentally done. Many people might still even be working on edTPA during their second placement. Fortunately, I am not worrying about it during this placement, and can focus on the students I am teaching. 

I mentioned reading the handbook, but I did not mention reading it over twenty times?! Is that necessary? Well, for me it was. As a result, I can now sit down and discuss any page of the handbook with anyone that would ask me a question about it. I can tell you about the elementary edTPA as well as I can spell my last name. How does this benefit me as a teacher? In short, it doesn't. The edTPA is only a repetition of what I have learned in college, but with more rigorous requirements, different fancy language, and of course an expensive fee of $300.00 (yes, American). 

In the end I earned a 61 out of 90 points on my portfolio. The portfolio I did my very best on, and worked on without any help from anyone. When I say I did my best I am not exaggerating. I spent long days, long nights, weekends, free time, and time that I did not even know I had to spare on this portfolio. I did the maximum for this portfolio. If nine pages were required, I wrote nine. If six were required, I wrote six. Thus, the commentary total across my four sections came out to about 32 single spaced pages, excluding my 12-page lesson plans, my context for learning forms, my student work, my videos, my instructional materials, and my assessments. So, I guess I am a teacher that is classified as a "61" even though I worked as a teacher that left no room for error. Thanks Pearson for the mastery score! I can only imagine how one can reach a 90 out of 90, if I poured everything I had to receive this 61. Do they take into consideration that we are practicing to teach? They sure do not grade like they have taken this into consideration. 

Student teaching is not figuring out the kind of teacher you want to be, it is about figuring out the kind of teacher edTPA wants you to be. Remember everyone, plan and plan until you cannot plan anymore. Then teach under edTPA's exact requirements until you cannot teach anymore.  Then assess and continue to assess until you cannot assess anymore!

Try to use your built-in teacher compass and not lose sight of who you want to be as a teacher. Do not let edTPA discourage you, instead embrace and learn from it. I decided not to do that, and I spent the semester frustrated. If I could go back, I would try to be more optimistic, which is easier said than done, because this experience almost leaves no room for optimism. You are like a robot that is programmed to only one way of teaching, the edTPA way. I would suggest using any resources that are available to you in order to help you during this process, and take it seriously! Be as explicit as that handbook tells you to be because it seems like that is what they are looking for. Also, remember that teachers are creative. There is always room for creativity, which can be beneficial for both your students and you. 

A Trip to Albany

Today United University Professions (UUP), the State University of New York (SUNY) union, held a news conference in Albany’s Legislative Office Building and called for an investigation of the State Education Department regarding the new state teacher licensure reforms. UUP President Fred Kowal invited teacher candidates, teacher educators, Board of Regents member Kathleen Cashin, and NYSUT Vice President Catalina Fortino, and Tom Pinto, a parent of a teacher education student, to share their experiences with the new certification exams. I braved the snow and drove up to participate, and I'm so glad I did.

The press conference happened against a backdrop of growing public outcry regarding new Common Core aligned curriculum and tests, and Governor Cuomo’s draconian budget and education reform proposals. Yesterday, supporters of charter schools from SuccessAcademy, KIPP, and Achievement First descended on Albany while teacher unions held their own rallies. 

As the education debates heat up, the teacher education debacle has to fight for any attention from the public, but as Tom Pinto passionately pointed out today, many families with college students who have admirably chosen teaching as their calling, find the new exams, implemented without the customary trial period and with obvious intent to increase failure rates, cause intense frustration of dreams derailed, new obstacles and financial hardship. Julie Gorlewski of SUNY New Paltz outlined the most serious concerns with the edTPA rollout and its negative impact on a diverse teaching force, saying it “will contribute to the creation of a teaching profession that is increasingly whiter and wealthier than the students it serves.”

            Below is a copy of my statement, and a commentary by one of my current student teachers, Sami-Beth Cohen, that she gave to me to share at the press conference. I strongly urge my readers and their friends to add their voices to the debate, to write letters to policymakers and legislators, to Governor Cuomo, to comment on media articles and multimedia coverage of these events, and to make some noise before budget decisions are finalized at the end of the month.

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“We ask schools to promote equality while preserving privilege, so we perpetuate a system that is too busy balancing opposites to promote student learning.”

                    David Labaree, 2010

          The degree to which we are setting up our educational institutions for failure in the United States is unprecedented. To satisfy the public’s need to believe that education can mean a better life and greater opportunities for success and happiness, we promote the idea that all citizens should be entitled to a meaningful education. We look for easy targets to blame when our lofty goals of equal opportunity fail to materialize as we had hoped. At the same time, those with privilege, power, and financial security seek to protect their self-interests to ensure those advantages will endure for generations to come. As David Labaree has written of schooling, “We want it to meet the ambitions of our children and also to protect them from the ambitions of other people’s children” (2010, p. 6).

            The dominant American value of competition has led to standardized testing being misused throughout our educational system, even as we acknowledge it is a flawed measure of quality. The testing industry is expanding exponentially, with more tests and more expensive ways to administer and score those tests, than ever before. We endlessly rank, sort, compare, rewarding the winners and humiliating and punishing the losers. Inevitably, those in the bottom seek desperate measures to improve in a contest that must result in failure for some. We know that these high stakes lead to undesirable consequences such as reduced learning, cheating, skewed priorities, and more inequity.

            At Mercy College I am blessed to work with teachers seeking to make a difference in the lives of children. It may seem corny and idealistic to a cynic, but these are people who have known hardship and have been positively influenced by teachers who helped them both academically and socially. They want to pay it forward, to work in their high-poverty communities inside schools that desperately need teachers who understand both how to reach children and inspire them, and how to teach them in ways that will leave a lasting impression. They embrace the challenges and opportunities afforded them in these highly diverse classrooms.

            The botched implementation of licensure reforms for new teachers in New York State has created havoc in its wake. Exams that lack requisite validity from pilot testing and analysis, with unreasonably high cut scores, have created financial hardship, low morale, and have little to do with the goals and values of improving teaching and learning. Peter Goodman provided data not publically available from early testing results that shows two of the exams, the EAS and ALST, are racially discriminatory. “The exams are not only reducing the diversity of our teaching force,” he wrote last November on his Ed in the Apple blog, “the exams ignore standards set by prior court decisions.”

These exams are not benign. They also don’t tell us what we need to know about prospective teachers. Consider these two stories, both from real examples:

A first year teacher, despairing at the learning needs of her first graders, declares to colleagues in the staff room that she has a class of “ones” even though those students will not take the state standardized tests in math and language arts scored from one to four until third grade.

A student teacher asks a second grade girl to put away her journal for quiet reading time, and notices the girl has hidden the journal inside her book. She has written, “I want to die.” Working with a paraprofessional because the cooperating teacher is absent that day, they discover the girl is a victim of ongoing harsh bullying. In talking with the girl, they confront the bullies, work on conflict resolution, and enable the girl to spend time with the school counselor to determine the types of support she needs in her moment of crisis.

No exam, no matter how cleverly designed, can assess whether a teacher would behave as the first year teacher did, or as the student teacher did. Yet clearly we want teachers in our schools who have sufficient knowledge, experience, and personal qualities that would treat all students with kindness and compassion, and would recognize the strengths and abilities of each and every student they are charged with teaching. The stark contrast between the type of technical writing one sees on the licensure exams and the deeply personal reflective writing that is typical of teacher education coursework is indicative of the comparison between the two teachers in my stories.

            What we are witnessing in these unprecedented times in education is an erosion of trust. We know that trust is the glue that holds our schools and communities together, especially in tough times. We need a diverse teaching force because we have diverse groups of students in our schools who need teachers they can trust. We may not be able to easily fix funding inequities, and variation in institutional supports and resources, but we can certainly fight the obstacles and barriers that prevent the hopes and aspirations of future teachers from becoming realized.

References:

Goodman, P. (Nov. 24, 2014). Are the new teacher preparationexams (edTPA) racially discriminatory? And why has the state failed to listento experienced educators? 

Labaree, D. (2010). Someone has to fail: The zero-sum game of public schooling. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Statement by Sami-Beth Cohen

M.S.Ed '15, Mercy College

A few days ago, for the first time, I felt truly discouraged about the possibility of teaching. I am not discouraged by the seemingly insurmountable odds of educating children of all socioeconomic backgrounds, faiths, intellectual capacities, with various (occasionally horrific) personal histories and experiences that I will face. I am not discouraged by long hours, low pay or complex challenges. I am not discouraged by the extreme lack of resources with which public school teachers are forced to grapple. I am not intimidated or discouraged by any of these factors, because I am an intelligent, hard-working, dedicated and passionate person who will be working alongside other such individuals. Together, we can accomplish so much. This I know.

I am, however, discouraged by our governor. Our governor, who has spent next to no time in classrooms, sees it fit to make sweeping, inaccurate generalizations about teachers. Our governor, who is not an educator, but thinks he knows how we should do our jobs. I have a college education and an advanced degree in my field. I have taken many certification exams and passed them all. I am fully capable of doing the job I have trained for over the last four years of my continuing education. Yet Governor Cuomo still believes the deficit lies with me.

How is it that educators who have chosen to work in the most challenging, difficult environments end up being punished for that choice? How am I supposed to educate children who didn't sleep in a bed last night, didn't eat breakfast and don't have clean clothing? I recently spoke with a teacher who had moved from a large urban district to a suburban one. In her old, urban school, around 50% of her students passed the standardized tests, whereas at her new school, 96% of her students passed. Did she suddenly become 46% more effective, simply by changing districts? Of course not. The difference is that she began working with a population that had infinitely more resources and attention dedicated to it.

My first job in education was at a school with the highest percentage of children living in homeless shelters in the city of New York. Routinely, children would miss several school days a week. They would lose their placement in their current shelter and have to move to another, often in another borough. This causes an unimaginable amount of stress on both children and families. Not having a place to call home is especially traumatizing for a child.   This is only one example of what teachers must consider when they walk into work each morning. This is in addition to lesson plans, assessments, differentiating material, and addressing all types of learners. How is it not obvious that the deficit doesn't lie with the teachers, but with the deplorable reality in which improvised people exist? Closing such a school...firing teachers...this is so misguided I cannot even fathom it. For these kids, their teachers are some of the only constants in their lives. Take away a trusted teacher and they have no one. Closing their schools often means that in addition to all of the other hardships suffered, these children now spend upwards of 45 minutes commuting to and from their schools each day. Sounds awesome, if your goal is to make it impossible to succeed! 

Governor, if you cannot see how the logic of punishing teachers for working in difficult conditions is entirely flawed, perhaps the faulty cog in the machine has been identified once and for all: you.

PS- I voted for you four years ago and have come to really regret that choice. You look like Frankenstein. Just an FYI!