Is Our Culture Really So Sick?

I was reading an article on Yahoo news the other day--yes, I do that, and fairly often, for some reason--and it asked the question, "What if we paid our teachers like professional athletes?" See it for yourself HERE. Yeah, what if?, indeed. And weirdly, some folks I actually respect offered their thoughts on the subject, like Dana Goldstein, whose book The Teacher Wars: A History of America's Most Embattled Profession is high on my list of reading related to education and reform for the coming fall.

In the article Goldstein is quoted saying, "Kids will want to grow up wanting to be teachers just like kids grow up wanting to be pro athletes and that would be a really positive thing." While I feel like there's some serious context missing, taking it at face value, I dislike and disagree with Goldstein's comment because it feeds into our greater cultural narrative that the only people who truly experience success in this country are those who have a lot of money -- and therefore are the only ones anyone could ever aspire to be like. It feeds into the reformers' narrative that the only reason we have students attending school in the first place is so that we might prepare them for their future careers.

One of the things you'll hear me talking about a lot on this blog with respect to my own personal pedagogical approach to the classroom is, what can we do to showcase to our students ways they might be better adjusted, healthy adults from an emotional standpoint? I know so many people who are so completely dysfunctional in their every relational endeavor, be it familial, romantic or any of the myriad other forms. It's hard enough out in the world thinking you're perhaps all alone, misunderstood, not cared for, that we'd then say school is merely prep for your life as a cog in the machine is so profoundly callous and opposed to the ideals I think any functional society should aspire to, so instead I say: let's care about the whole student. Let's be there to listen to their problems if they're having them. Let's not look at our kids as purely numbers and data and plan accordingly to "fix" their problems with learning while ignoring their problems as people (oftentimes the two are inextricably related).

In my classroom I'm there to listen to my students, show them that I'm a human being and help them to see there's nothing about being human they ought to be ashamed of. We all makes mistakes. We all hope to learn from them. Sometimes we don't for a while. Sometimes we never do. But maybe we find ways to be more conscious and considerate of those around us than we were before. I've never had a situation in which I had to teach a student (or any other person for that matter) how to be less selfless, that they were too giving, that it was becoming a detriment to them, despite how well meaning said hypothetical student intended to be. Such selflessness is extremely rare. And moreover, what I'm saying is, just become someone isn't the world's most selfless person doesn't mean there's anything wrong with that person.

You try to be a better person, maybe you misstep or fall back into old habits, and then you realize it, and you keep trying. Repeat. Be human.