Was your Thanksgiving holiday everything you hoped for it?

I sure hope so. I can’t think of any group of Americans more deserving of everything good than public educators. I spent some of my holiday relishing and reflecting on the success of SEA’s November 17th event at which AEA President Andrew Morrill spoke on the state of public education in Arizona and the keen insights he shared, especially the image of the concentric circles he described that captured the reality we in public education face:

• At the center -- the safety of the children in our classrooms, the very same image held by brain-based research as central to the learning brain: safety.

• Outside that circle, policy -- directives, decisions, demands that always influence, and sometimes impose themselves onto our classrooms.

• Outside of that circle, yet another, rhetoric – the rhetoric of those who hold that public education is doing okay but should do what it does with less, less resources, less personnel, and of course, less money; and the rhetoric of others who counter that only by replenishing the coffers of public education in Arizona will we retain the best and the brightest teachers, students, and future.

For me, this image has offered an understanding of the unnamed stress we teachers have been battling ever since accountability on steroids reared its ugly head over a decade ago. Identifying external policy and rhetoric evoked images of powerful, not necessarily friendly forces banging at the door of our classrooms and threatening the safety therein. Forewarned is forearmed.

The landscape made me think of classrooms as surrounded, held hostage by external policies and rhetoric, which have little to do with what schools and districts would prefer to do within their communities had they still retained their autonomy. Andrew was correct: long gone are the days and years when districts made decisions based on community needs.

Apropos to policy, Andrew mentioned how more and more grants are being offered (e.g., Race to the Top, Gates Foundation) that have embedded in them, guidelines and explicit tactics and strategies that were once left to the decision-making bodies within districts. When he used words like chaos and confusion, I recalled a conversation I had recently with a board member. I had talked about the chaos that surrounds the curriculum and community we try passionately to preserve. Andrew Morrill heightened my understanding of the chaos threatening our classroom and school communities: Policies, be they federal or state, create an inordinate demand for administrative compliance simultaneous with rhetoric that demands doing more with less -- ignoring the need for administrators to oversee implementation of all the policies!

I maintain that only a strong community can help repair low morale and nurture a morale that will ensure the safety of the students in our classrooms who are surrounded by the turbulence of policy and rhetoric.

A strong school community has the potential to mitigate the debilitating effects of stress; it builds on a trust that allows administrators and teachers the honest freedom to share their frustrations, anger and worries without fear of reprisal and with the complete expectation that compassion, understanding, and maybe even counsel will follow. A strong community also, therefore, empowers its members to remain resolute against the externals threats to their students’ right to learn and love learning.

Andrew made it quite clear that community is what our professional organization is all about. Yes, there is that union part of our association, but it is the professional organization and the four principles at its core that describe what we stand for and what drives us in our mission and vision as a professional organization. In fact, Andrew began his talk with AEA’s guiding principles:

• Quality Public Education for All – every child is entitled to a free, quality, public education.

• Fairness, Equity, and Respect for All - every person is entitled to be treated fairly and with respect.

• Teaching as an Esteemed Profession - Because of the power of teaching and its value to the future, to our society and to our children, we work to enhance the esteem with which teaching is held by society.

• Learning as a Community Commitment - Schools are part of communities. They reflect communities and can change them for the better. Communities and schools must join hands to ensure that each continue to learn, grow, and progress. (Source: http://www.arizonaea.org)

I am so grateful that my Vice President Jerry Smith suggested we invite AEA President Andrew Morrill, a fierce public education proponent, to speak in Scottsdale. Andrew gave me and more than 100 other Scottsdale stakeholders so much to think about. The image of the safety of the students in my classroom being surrounded by not-necessarily-friendly influences has reaffirmed my resolve and conviction that we are all, charged with the noblest order: to protect our students in what I call a brain-based assault against standardized students.

His talk reaffirmed my belief in what language and learning scholar Frank Smith wrote more than fifteen years ago: Let’s declare public education a Titanic disaster, get as many of our kids into lifeboats as we can, and engage them in sensible and productive activities, the sole justification of education.*

In the final analysis, it seems clear we must work towards becoming communities -- not because we no longer call ourselves “complexes” in SUSD, but rather, we must work towards becoming communities to keep our students safe from the policies and rhetoric that will forever surround us. As communities by holding fast the learning opportunities that celebrate best practice versus test practice, opportunities that are authentic, meaningful, and joyous.

Research is clear: personal resilience helps prevent individuals from succumbing to the cognitively debilitating effects of burnout’s emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy. I believe building community can help each one of us groom the resilience that is so important and will likely become more so in the future.

*Smith, F. (1995, April). Let’s declare education a disaster and get on with our lives. Phi Delta Kappan, 76(8), 584-590.

Anne Hanson, SEA President

Educators united for the purpose of improving the professional lives of each member