Jose Vilson's Blog, page 4

On Professional Development and The Places We Don’t Have Yet

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to attend EduCon in Philadelphia, PA. Principal – and friend – Chris Lehmann asked me to participate in the opening panel. Traditionally, the first panel has a set of big picture thinkers around a specific theme. This year, it was human-centered education, appropriate given the ascent of artificial intelligence, social media, and deeper polarization.

Later that night, I started to think about the workshops I’d like to attend the next day. For anyone who has seen me do a presentation at a conference, you may know that I also participate in the conference as well. When I was a full-time classroom teacher, I took advantage of the opportunity to learn from and listen to others. Now that I’m no longer in the classroom, I still want to get a sense of how teachers think about learning and sharing their practices. Yes, my research interests center social science, but I’m also finding the nexus between teacher practice and research.

As it stands, researchers rarely attend the professional development sessions of the teachers they study except when they’re presenting. But that’s another discussion.

For EduCon specifically, I’ve attended the gatherings frequently. Only recently did I finally get why I kept coming back. After re-learning the history of EduCon, participants returned because, for them/us, it was a sort of pedagogical home. In too many of our schooling places, we have an abundance of compliance measures, tiers of bureaucracy, and petty arguments that don’t have real effects on student learning. What if, for a few days, we could create space, specifically a school, where we could develop that vision for a school or, at worst, make better problems? (That’s Chris Lehmann’s phrasing, by the way.)

Policy Considerations for Pedagogical Homes

From a policy standpoint, pundits have argued for decades about the best way to train teachers. We have everything between highly-routinized schools churning out pedagogues, residency programs that focus on cohort experiences, and so-called traditional schools of ed. I say “so-called” because everyone’s experiences vary widely even in that latter model.

Yet, the point I rarely see brought up (unless I do) is what happens once the teacher meets the school building. In this, policymakers put too much blame on schools of education and not enough on what happens when a new teacher has to negotiate what they’ve learned with the culture of the school and system. The teacher may have learned a plethora of pedagogical strategies, but ends up getting hired at a place that’s antagonistic to student inquiry and focuses more on rote pedagogy.

What’s the course of action here? The answer is more complicated than the narrative allows.

For those of us who’ve taught more than two years, we start to consider teaching our profession, not just an interim job. From there, we probably need a few places to refill our cups. There’s a difference between a “pedagogical home” versus a conference, for example. Larger conferences, for example, intend on breadth over depth. They serve as a larger umbrella under a given topic (math, social studies, the future, etc.) rather than an explicit set of shared values.

By pedagogical home, I mean the balance between depth and breadth.

To build a pedagogical home, it means to construct a place temporarily suspended from the normal rigors of schooling. We’re still in times where the numbers game insists that principals and superintendents compete with each other. That dynamic creates an isolation among schools where even teachers next door to each other don’t share best practices sustainably. This also means principals have less resources dedicated to sending teachers out to professional development, instead focusing on teachers only teaching themselves within a building.

But, respectfully, that gets tiresome, too. Fresh thinking requires fresh air, and usually, we go outside to accomplish that. To this day, I still have a small but important set of pedagogical homes, many of which I’ve written about on this platform. For some, it’s that once-a-month PD in the district with colleagues of similar discipline. For others, it’s that city or statewide convening focused on a particular concern. We also have examples of teachers building their professional sustenance in the form of Edcamps, unconferences, and meetups.

And for many of us, there’s always EduColor.

On my way back from EduCon on the Amtrak, I reviewed the dozens of interviews I’ve done with NYC public school teachers and thought about how often teachers ask to control more of their own development. Many of us could use a space to either reimagine their work or see examples of alternative approaches to education. Some veterans could even use a space to be in dialogue with other educators with similar interests in students and communities.

This way of thinking about continuous learning isn’t new, but it’s sorely missing. Centering the human work elevates us all.

Jose, who has 10 more interviews to go …

The post On Professional Development and The Places We Don’t Have Yet appeared first on The Jose Vilson.

Scenes from an Unopened Curriculum Binder [Pt. 1]

The following text is a combination of things that never happened, but may feel familiar. But if they feel familiar, it probably did happen, but I made it up so don’t tell anyone I actually said this. But if it did actually happen, that’s on the system and the actors who perpetuate the system, not on the folks who get mandated to enact wild policy that rarely if ever benefits kids. Please, and thanks.

Scene 1:

Mr. Vilson’s first official day is rarely the real first day because he spent about five days cleaning out his new room, the tenth time in 12 years he’d had to change classrooms. That’s why, when he walked into the auditorium, he plopped into a back row somewhere watching his colleagues laugh and hug it out. The usual veterans flipped from smiles to groans as they prepared for the school year. The new teachers either hung out in the first row (“Why would you do that?” Mr. Vilson groaned to himself.) After a few sips of his super-sweet cafecito, Mr. Vilson greets his favorite teachers and acknowledges the others, too.

A few moments later, Principal Binder walks in with a team of boys and men behind her, carrying unmarked boxes that they’d leave on the stage. The colleagues keep chatting until exactly 8:30am when the clock officially starts.

“OK, everyone, welcome back to school! I hope you had a restful and productive summer!” Binder says. She pauses to let the snickers and giggles pass. “I only said that out of courtesy, but,” she snickers loudly, “I have some good news for you. I checked our test scores and, as usual, we didn’t do as well. We do a great job of moving 1s to 2s, and some 2s to 3s, but we’re not moving any of those numbers, I mean students, to 4s. I know many of you spent a lot of time organizing your curriculum binders, but I have some new ones for you! If you know your grade, grab one from your box.”

“But how are we supposed to …” a teacher suggests.

“IT DOESN’T MATTER, UGH! Just … 5th grade to 8th grade from right to left, take one!”

The teachers scramble. Mr. Vilson picks the orange one. Mr. Randle laughs and says, “Of course you pick the odd one.” “I thought it would help … even me out.” Randle and anyone within earshot groan audibly. “HURRY UP!” Mrs. Binder is not impressed. “Now, open up and see what you find.” Teachers open the multicolor binders to see 190 lessons, each formatted with their names, objectives, goals, activities, and closing assessments to the minute. Mrs. Knowles asks, “What even is this?”

“So glad you asked!” Binder exclaims with a grin. “It’s your new, AI-generated lesson plans! The superintendent said your lessons suck across the board and I agree because I always agree with him, even when I don’t! Starting tomorrow, everything from your introductions to the last word you say this year is already spelled out for you here! You said you needed more time, and by my calculations, I’ve saved you at least three weekends of work, so you can spend more time building relationships with students, deeply assessing student knowledge, and all the other things I only skimmed through on my way here.”

Teachers let out an audible groan. “You’re welcome!” Binder always replies.

Scene 2:

Mr. Vilson hasn’t opened this binder in about five months because he just learned how to do the last curriculum to fidelity last year after three years of asking for real professional development for it. He has about 45 minutes before his next class, which is being observed by the assistant principal, Mr. Hart. But 45 minutes lapsed before he could get the binder open, and the kids are already banging on his door. He lets students in and prints out the lesson for the day, following it to the letter. Mr. Hart hasn’t arrived yet, but the students notice the shift.

“Mr. Vilson, this doesn’t feel anything you wrote,” Jessica, one of his students in the front row says. “You’re right! I wanted to switch it up!” Mr. Vilson says aloud for everyone to hear.About 10 minutes into the lesson, he hears the clanging of keys and the clipboard tapping. Mr. Hart gives Mr. Vilson a slight nod and sits next to Bryan, the short, witty kid in the back of the classroom. (Note: Mr. Vilson now has 31 people to keep an eye on at the same time, of course.)

The lesson says to write a thing on the board. Vilson does. The lesson says to put his hands up. Vilson does. The lesson says he’s doing it wrong and to put down the paper so he could do it right. Vilson does. The lesson tells him to call on Estephany. Vilson does. The lesson says that she’ll respond like so. Vilson, to his credit, disagrees. She does what the lesson said she would. Vilson makes a face. The lesson has a footnote: “I told you so.” Vilson crumbles the paper up and yells “Kobe!” The class yells “AIYYO!!!” Mr. Hart smiles, but then puts his regular face back on.

“Mr. Vilson, deadass, that lesson sucked!” Bryan says. Mr. Vilson stands there, wondering if his crumbled-up paper had any stats on LeBron to counter his throw.

Scene 3:

“OK, but Mr. Vilson, you can’t do that.”

Mr. Hart is not pleased.

“You know what it is? It’s that I asked for a new desk when mine fell apart. I didn’t get it for five months and never complained. I asked for air conditioning and the custodian changed the wiring so I couldn’t turn it on myself. In our team meetings, I openly wondered why we have 180 students a day and we’re asked to do so much more for so much less, and now y’all want me to follow a lesson plan that’s AI generated because some research that we never saw said it’d be a good idea? Nah, NAH!”

“I agree with you,” Mr. Hart acknowledges, “but I gotta follow Danielson and …”

“Mr. Vilson.” Binder heard about the lesson. “What was that about?”

Silence.

“You’re supposed to be a professional, and by professional, I mean I’m expecting you to do everything the superintendent, I mean I laid out in the handbook in the beginning of the year. I know all the loopholes in the union contract, so you can try that if you want, but the lessons matter!”

“But how are we professionals if the lessons dictate everything we’re supposed to do to the minute?” Mr. Vilson finally spoke up. “The schedule already tells us when we get to each, when we get to potty, when we get to talk to our peers. Is it gonna tell us when and how to wash ourselves, too?”

“I would hope at your big age you’d know how to do that, Mr. Vilson, but if you don’t, I have an AI-generated lesson for that, too …”

“What. The. F …” Mr. Vilson didn’t finish that sentence, either.

More soon …

Jose, because satire is important, too …

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Are You More Savvy Than a Third Grader?

A few weeks ago, I had no intention of doing anything outside of my regular family/work duties. No meetings. No calls. Nothing. But last week, LuzMaria informed me of a special request. An elementary school on the Lower East Side of Manhattan had some student journalists who wanted to interview me about my life and work. I hesitated for a bit because I wanted to barrage her with the usual questions about budget, time, and “Why are you doing that on my birthday WHEN YOU KNOW …”

I set that all aside and said, “OK, I’ll do it.” A few days later, I got a Zoom link. Magic.

For context, I also felt like the universe needed me to take a break. Before January 24th, I had done six interviews in six days, skipped Saturday, and then did four more on Sunday. Not only that, but I learned that Jossette Burgos – one of my Syracuse University mentors – had passed away due to health complications shortly after those Sunday interviews. The constant need to press forward even amidst mourning is partly a function of internalized capitalism, but also my Caribbean background, priding ourselves on having multiple – and unsustainable – jobs.

As I recalled Josie’s unwavering commitment to students like me, even in times when I knew her work had dried out her cup, she kept filling ours. I don’t remember her closing her corner office to me and so many others. I carry that example to this day.

By the time Wednesday came around, I got my computer ready. Spongebob Zoom background. Perfect lighting. A big cup of water. A heart full from conversations and birthday messages. When I logged in, I saw a beautiful mix of children sitting on the classroom floor, many of whom gasped and jumped when I saw my rectangle come on screen. I turned on my camera and thanked everyone for welcoming me and interviewing me.

Every student introduced themselves and asked me good, incisive questions. Some asked me why I do the work I do. Others asked me about where I’ve been. One of the students even asked me what it was like inside The White House. Of course, I shared my screen and showed them pictures of when my family visited last Spring. But the thing most students wanted to understand is why I became an activist and how they can become activists.

Contrary to the drivel I hear from pundits and trolls alike, students have an innate sense of fairness. This feeling goes further when the environment gives them the option of acting upon it.

It took me a few seconds to answer these questions for several reasons, primarily that I don’t believe students should have to become activists. Adults need to get it together. Secondly, if I can’t explain what I do to a third grader, then am I actually that good at what I do? But I did answer and I saw some of the kids writing furiously in their notepads. I also saw teachers nodding and smiling along the way, too. These students who grew up in the neighborhood I grew up in would get the knowledge I wish I had when I was their age, and that felt like a way to pay it forward.

Here’s a list of tips I proposed to the students:Study the problem: Whatever the “problem” is, they should know as much about it as possible (within the time you’re given, too). They can read about it, ask other people about it, or discuss it among themselves. Before you can address the problem, you have to get clear about that problem.Build a team: No one – and I mean no one – does this work alone. Even the biggest activists you’ve ever seen have always found a way to gather different people together towards a common cause. Students can rely on fellow students, and if there’s a teacher or parent who agrees with you and can help, recruit them.Stay consistent: This might be the hardest one. Advocacy takes time and persistence, but the more you keep advocating this way, the more likely you are to achieve your goal.

Somewhere in there, they also shouted “Happy birthday!” to me. Gratitude.

As I listened to them ask questions about their work, I wondered why more journalists and thinkers didn’t take cues from how students asked questions. They definitely flipped through my website and pulled information from there, and it made their inquiry better informed. They also asked it with genuine curiosity and without too many assumptions, which helped me answer more honestly as well.

Most importantly, the interview with the 30 or so third and fourth-graders reminded me how much more credit students deserve for their intellect. Too many of the anti-truth laws we see these days presuppose that students can’t navigate the world on their own. Yes, they often need guidance. No, they don’t come tabula rasa to our classrooms. They have ways of navigating their minds that we can also cultivate when we stand back and actively listen. Even before the anti-truth laws, some adults dared to look at children who looked different from them and immediately assumed their deficiency.

As I scrolled through the White House pictures, somewhere past the pictures of the portraits, I said, “… and when one of you makes the world better, you’ll either be the President or the person meeting with the President to help us all do better.” The teachers agreed. The students said, “Me! Me! Me!”

That’s a present I’ll receive 24/7.

Jose, who can’t believe how many circles have come back in full …

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Shine On, Diamond (Patience)

This past Saturday, I was doing some mindless scrolling through Instagram when I saw an announcement from one of my former students. Diamond – yes, a pseudonym – shared a post from her school highlighting that she was going to a great school for psychology. After a week of conducting six in-depth interviews nightly for six days with teachers from across the city, this felt redemptive. As I heard the hopes and travails of current classroom teachers, I too needed to reflect on my middle school teaching work.

When I saw the post, I flashed back to a little girl in the seventh grade whose reputation preceded her. Either joy or mischief would follow her smiles and laughs, and usually the latter. Her classmates and teachers knew she seemed most likely to find her way to the dean’s or assistant principal’s office for a range of offenses: shouting, chewing gum obnoxiously, scuffling with peers, and/or what we call “running her mouth.” Of course, some students also sought to goad reactions from her as is part of the usual middle school line-stepping, but the punishments came nevertheless. Everyone from the principal to the guidance counselor had direct contact with her guardian, and calling home had little effect on her behavior.

When she got to my classroom, none of that changed in the beginning. But unlike previous years, my cup of patience was next to nil.

In 2018, I went through a wave of doubt as to whether I could do this forever. Three years before I had Diamond in my class (2015), administrators felt that the math curriculum should be split into two curricula for two teachers. (Don’t ask me.) As much as I disagreed, I just plowed forward given the lack of resistance. In the first year of the Trump administration, I had seen a dark turn in the country and my professional life as well. Of course, in September of 2017, my seventh-grade counterpart left for professional and personal reasons, leaving me with half a curriculum for about 145 students. Now, the principal had expected me to teach my parts of the curriculum which were dependent on the other half and/or teach the whole curriculum in half the time.

Because I wasn’t able to magically duplicate myself, the system had labeled me “Developing,” thus assigning me a teacher improvement plan in the same year I achieved National Board certification.

While teaching Diamond’s class, I was also making an urgent case to everyone within earshot about this injustice, working with union lawyers, reading up on education law, and complying now under heavy surveillance from a principal overjoyed with the chance to “humble” me. But I pushed on. I taught my lessons most days with the energy I needed to bring, but I had more frequent occasions of teaching to weather the storm. My interactions with students took a hit. I spent multiple times at my corner desk wondering about my life’s decisions. At that point, my exit plans had failed, too.

But I also recall those moments at parent-teacher conferences when I’d meet my students’ guardians. For Diamond, it was usually her grandmother. Usually, it was about grades and keeping her mindful of our goal for her: doing well and graduating. But, on one occasion, she had stopped me in front of the school after I grabbed my tostada y café from the bodega. I braced myself for the usual “How’s she doing in your class, Mr. Vilson?” conversation.

Instead, after I told her “Fine” and tried to walk away, she held my hands and said (in Spanish), “Listen, I know you’re trying your best, but here’s the situation.” She was usually so soft-spoken, but this time, she firmed up her voice a bit, so I stayed. She outlined her aspirations for Diamond and how much it meant to her and her family that I actually wanted to teach her as I did. A few weeks before that conversation, I had a longer sit-down with Diamond and told her I’d dedicate about five minutes where possible to just sit with her. She not only obliged but said, “I’d like to sit at this desk, right next to your board, so I can do all my work.” We spent weeks, then months this way, and her work kept showing promise.

Diamond’s grandmother gave me one of those familiar hugs and then said, “Thank you.” I awkwardly returned the hug, but walked back to my room to reflect a bit.

Professionally, I know I was losing, but in the way of reaching my students like her, I finally found a win. I realized how much of my hardship came from the machinations in my mind. I was letting a foreign energy take up what I knew to be true about students’ humanity. By the time I lost the case against the city to reverse their “Developing” rating against me, I had “let go and let God,” as they say. I just needed to worry about the students in my classroom and whether I could collect a few more wins for the year.

One of those wins was forming the type of relationship with Diamond that helped me stay in the profession for a few more years. I’m no hero, either. I wish I reached every child the way I reached Diamond and so many others. I have no expectation that my teaching will somehow transform the lives of children nor where it’s supposed to lead, just that my teaching would hopefully influence them to choose great lives for themselves.

But, fast forward to now, and all I could let out was a smile. Joy followed, absolutely.

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You Couldn’t Sit With Us (An Observation about Teachers)

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a special professional development session on a snowy and icy day at PS 20 in the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York. (Yes, my home neighborhood.) Even though I’ve technically been out of the classroom for three and a half years now, I still have the opportunity to visit schools on a regular basis. For this occasion, I got to see one of the best educators I’ve ever met facilitate a full room session about multilingual learners to teachers from across District 1. (Disclaimer: The facilitator also happens to be LuzMaria, my wife.)

I’ve always had the perspective that teacher professional development sessions had so much potential to not just demonstrate our capabilities, but to transform narratives about our work. Yesterday, I listened to teachers who work with different types of students all gather ideas about how best to address students’ needs. This became even more urgent after an influx of asylum seekers and other multilingual learners changed the shape of schooling for the district. The comprehensiveness and depth in their dialogue was remarkable to witness.

This all stands in far contrast to the narrative about teachers in more venomous circles.

Over the last few decades, pundits and policymakers have derided the professionalism of teachers because “accountability” or whatever. What it means to be a professional varies among different people. (While some attend to “professionalism” as comportment or dress, I’m focused on the elements that characterize the actual work.) Beyond the summers off quip, contrarians would say teachers don’t deserve to be seen as professionals, usually due to experiences they had in their childhood. They usually fail to mention that these end up being the one or two out of the 60-plus teachers they’ve had in their K-12 schooling.

Every profession has a subset of people who, for multiple reasons, don’t meet the implicit or explicit expectations of the profession. Yet, society rarely has questions about the professionalism of doctors, lawyers, police officers, or financiers.

For instance, when a doctor gets a diagnosis wrong, they get to call it “practice,” and society still allows for the medical profession to define the parameters for punishment. Meanwhile, public opinion has hit a point of disparate dissonance: a majority of the American public trusts their local school with their children. Yet, not only does the American public trust the teaching profession less, the poll shows that less than 40% of America would like their children to become teachers, a low since the poll first started. Much of that may stem from the current anti-truth movement calling anyone they disagree with “groomers” and pedophiles.

But more of that speaks to how America and it’s 13,000-plus localities constructed this profession. No matter how many degrees and certificates get, how many years of experience they accumulate, or student commendations they collect, American society looks at teachers and says “Oh, that’s nice!” but also, “How do you do it? Couldn’t be me!” “You and your union make the job easy, right?” and my personal favorite, “I couldn’t stand me when I was a child. How does that work out with 30 of them?!” In other words, even though many people thinks only a special set of people can do the job, they also think anyone can do it and artificial intelligence will replace teachers.

They don’t call it “artificial” for nothing, though.

So I’m sitting there in this professional development session, mostly women, mostly elementary school educators. Educators flow through pedagogical frameworks and theories with ease, using the language that helps them sift through rubbish and noise. They coalesce around classroom needs and approaches. Teachers collect themselves in different groups, trusting each other with their understood level of commitment to the work, facilitated by someone who brings a wealth of experience from multiple school levels and contexts in her own right. They work in small groups, large groups, and then individually, imagining how they’d do better not for sillier things like test scores, but for authentic student learning experiences.

I think back to those contrarians and say, “You couldn’t sit with us.”

Of course, largely due to the vast amount of information readily available on the Internet, a person could feasibly pick up the language, read up on the theories, and approximate what a good teacher sounds like in this setting. Not only would doing this require some time, it also requires a sense of know-how that YouTube can’t translate well. We can argue this for the “best” teachers, but we can also argue this for even the average teacher. As accountability systems pushed teachers to gain more certifications, the depth of knowledge became that much more daunting for the average person.

Do bad teachers exist? Of course. Does “bad” mean different things individually and in different collectivities? Yes. But I rebuke any idea that dilutes the work of teachers as professionals, especially as it relates to elementary school teachers and/or teachers of color. Elementary school teachers aren’t less professional for working with our youngest children. (Yes, women teachers comprise the majority of elementary school teachers.)

Black teachers aren’t less professional for attempting to speak in modes that children understand. Latinx, Asian, Native American, and other racially marginalized teachers aren’t less professional for speaking in the language their students speak or connecting to the cultures underpinning our students’ lives. White teachers aren’t less professional for working with children of color.

Oh, and leaving schools with majority Black and/or Latinx students for schools with mostly White students doesn’t make one more professional, either. Usually, it just makes the school better resourced.

As I walked out, I remarked to the facilitator about the evidence on the walls, the dedication people had to her workshop on NYC’s first snow day in almost two years, and ostensible community built within the room. She remarked how her team expected nothing less than a full room.

It’s a hallmark of the profession that, even when the whole profession seems under the weather, they still find ways to sit together this way.

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What It Means To Stick With Love [About King and Us]

It felt like a typical night for a Black student activist at Syracuse University back in 2002. In addition to the keynote speaker that the university hosts at the Carrier Dome, the African American Studies department would host their own event to deepen the conversations in community. On this brisk night, students of similar mindset would gather in a medium-sized room to listen to a panel of Black scholars discussing the legacy of Dr. King. Due to the “in-community” aspect of this dialogue, I won’t reveal much about the energy in the room. Suffice it to say that people challenged each other passionately on potent ideas for how to move forward [said with a laugh].

In the latter part of the panel discussion, one of the participants took umbrage with someone’s characterizations of King’s flaws, including accusations of plagiarism (here we go again!), philandering, and centering himself in the Civil Rights Movement. Just then, another panelist replied, “But, see, I like that we see these flaws. In so many instances, we see him deified when he was a regular human being doing extraordinary things. That makes his work attainable for people like me.”

Back then, I had to sit with that quote for a few weeks. I spent my college years forming words for all the experiences I had collected prior to my arrival at Syracuse University. While getting my credentials in computer science, I was getting an education on myself and people who were in the same racial caste as me.

Simultaneously, I found myself molding my identity for how I wanted to lead life after I left campus, too. I not only had a chance to meet living and embodied histories (Angela Davis, Amiri Baraka, Elaine Brown, so many others), I took part in actions across the campus to protest racist acts on and off-campus. While meeting our heroes, my friends and I never considered ourselves capable of filling those shoes, much less continuing their legacies.

Coincidentally, this panel discussion took me back to one of King Jr.’s famous quotes: “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

What does it mean to love in this way? Without context, these are words worth grappling with alone or in community. In the context of his 1967 speech “Where Do We Go From Here?” it sends a powerful message of what love actually means despite and because of what’s happening in the world. A litany of dilemmas plagued the country and landed primarily on the backs of Black people. He clearly saw the interconnectedness of war, capital, and racism and sought to name and define peace and love as the ultimate goal of the work.

King witnessed firsthand white sympathy for Black people as ephemeral at best, nonexistent at worst. He noted that the government would use its tapestries to suppress uprisings from wherever they should come. He and his co-workers for justice moved in the spirit of love and justice because he refused to give into a mindset that wouldn’t help him eradicate the pernicious evils he sought to destroy from the hearts of people, whether they looked like him or not.

Whether they expressed it in the same way or not, love motivated so many of our beacons. We should take heart from that alone.

Fast-forward to 2024, and sticking with love in this moment feels harder when we get so many signals showing us either hate or indifference. In this country, our best efforts to push back against the rising tide of fascism has been met with brute force, diluted renditions of anti-racism, and regressive laws targeting Black and LGBTQ+ people.

We see instances of peace being confused with quiet, and the elevation of a few people of color with authentic justice and equity. We see the same politicians celebrating the Civil Rights Movement today who keep their jurisdictions’ children hungry and adults poor for their political preferences.

While King’s time had important differences from ours, the throughlines feel analogous, to put it mildly.

To move about the world as if love will win, we have to start by loving ourselves. In my education work, I’ve spent hours and days with colleagues of many racial and cultural backgrounds. The people who were most fearful or hateful of the children they served were those who, at some point, had to give up an integral part of their most loving selves to advance socially. They lost their dignity, their communities, their family, their orientation, and/or their courage after a cataclysmic event in their upbringing. In not dealing with that, they pushed that hurt onto the people they sought to serve.

That’s a human story, but that’s also not a story we can tell without attending to identities, structures, and our notions of a shared humanity.

Imagining loving ourselves so deeply that we have enough love to fill other people’s cup with it, even those who seek our people’s demise. Love as the spirit undergirding the work speaks volumes about their humanity. In the moment, people demand – either of themselves or others – that they be perfect in doing their work or else they’re not the second coming.

What our predecessors have shown us is that anyone can answer the call to serve. In fact, imperfection is critical to serving. If people can see how much love you have for yourself and your people in spite of your flaws, they can also pitch in with whatever love they can muster.

Love in this way is a holistic love, embracing of the whole person as we try to figure ourselves and each other out. We allow ourselves the opportunity to feel all the feels as needed. Rage. Depression. Fear. But to disrupt a system like this, love has answers. Surely.

Jose, who only uses the word “love” when he means it.

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Why I Changed My Mind About Teachers and Education Theory

“But you can’t divide a fraction by another fraction unless you find the reciprocal.” “Yes, you can and here’s how.”

It was a typical math department meeting in which I decided to, once again, bring in something controversial out of sheer boredom. Yes, I’m that guy. We spent the next 30 minutes arguing why this method works over a more consistently functional method like multiplying the reciprocal. Of course, I made the argument that teaching kids to divide fractions by actual division instills the actual concept of division better than the workaround.

Did we all come to agreement? No. Did more people start seeing the value? I hope so. But all of this presumes that we all had the same theory about how children learn.

Over the years on this blog, I’ve wrestled with the challenges of bringing education research into the classroom, but also when research has actually been successful at getting me to think differently about our work. Now that I’m squarely in the research work, I’ve been reflective on moments like the math department meeting. Everyone in the room had years of experience with teaching students math and plenty of pedagogical knowledge about the work. But each of us also had some conceptual framework about how students learn best before we got there.

Without knowing it, every teacher comes into their work with at least one theory that they mobilize as they’re writing lesson plans and instructing their students. Even those of us who rebuke(d) educational theory have a philosophy somewhere in there. These beliefs then become foundational to the “best practices” that either align or conflict with their classroom work. Over the course of a few months, if not years, teachers start developing a theory or two about what works and what doesn’t based on some evidence.

A list of random ideas that contribute to theories:

Students learn best when the room is quiet.Students don’t need to know all the math before getting to a concept.Repeated practice helps with foundational skills.Teachers should assign students “jobs” in the classroom.What worked for me as a student can work well for the students I teach.

Unfortunately, teachers have been given short shrift when it comes to the “best practices” conversations for several reasons. The obvious one is that, unlike K-12 teaching, colleges and universities ostensibly give their practitioners the respect to move forward with their research with degrees of autonomy. Policymakers have abided given the important function of academics as examiners for the effectiveness of programs and laws. The second obvious one is that, yes, the teaching profession consists mainly of women. Even within the profession, society views high school teachers as more professional than elementary school teachers because high school teaching staffs have higher percentages of men, particularly in STEM content.

The third, and less obvious, reason is that teachers can quickly implement a practice and can scale it for the set of students they have, but can’t determine if the practice will work for different sets of students, teachers, or schools. Researchers have the opportunity to do this. Not to say that teachers can’t do what researchers do, but to say that teachers aren’t doing what researchers do. Or vice versa.

This dynamic complicates the work for school leaders, who also have their theories about how children learn best. Our society is still too caught up in test scores as the primary measure for whether students have learned content, thus applying pressure to school leaders across the country. It’s hard to both implore teachers to raise test scores and grant full autonomy to teachers to do what they do best with systemic accountability hovering over everyone on the ground. By the same token, buying a popular curriculum wholesale without attending to the theories that mobilize that curriculum often ends up with conflict between administrators, teachers, and students in various ways.

Recently, Governor Kathy Hochul introduced a statewide initiative to implore more people to focus on the “science of reading.” It feels like proponents of balanced literacy are catching hell right now. Of course, I’ve detailed how focusing on reading and not literacy hurts everyone involved. But, while a subset of parents, policymakers, researchers, and educators have sought to wave the victory flag over these new initiatives, a national survey suggests – as I have – that most reading teachers sample from multiple curricula to best address students’ needs.

Ultimately, that’s the problem: we rarely ask teachers (and almost never current students!) whether the broad narratives about education actually mean anything when enacted in the classroom. Pundits blame schools of education for not prepping teachers, but, based on my observations, the best programs help teachers sort through nonsensical practices before they even arrive in front of students. We blame teachers, particularly veteran teachers, for their stubbornness, but rarely ask why someone would have skepticism about another theory sold to them as a magic bullet.

We criticize the popularity of “critical” theories, but rarely ask why a teacher from a marginalized background would come back to a school system that didn’t serve them well in the first place. Some of these critical theories have kept teachers working on behalf of their communities in ways that more dominant theories could not. In fact, some of these dominant theories still saw children across the board as unworthy of the full breadth of knowledge this Earth has to offer.

But now, teachers ought to name what theories mobilize their work into practice, because more of the world needs to hear what goes into teaching. Treating teachers as automatons easily replaced by artificial intelligence belies the heart of the work. The best teachers I know may not have the words right now to explain why they do what they do, but they most certainly have more clarity about their actions and how they move about the classroom.

They bring that clarity even to their meetings among peers. And if that’s not theory in action, then I don’t know what is.

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Who and What Will Colleges Defend? (On Claudine Gay and The Rest Of Us)

Claudine Gay was the first Black president in Harvard University’s history, and, as such, stewarded the work of the world’s most prestigious university over a six-month tenure. I’ve read dozens of opinions and no one has any illusions about the nature of working for a university like Harvard. Creating a space where intellect and fierce debate flourish while keeping funders, academics, and policymakers happy is no small feat, even less so when the leader embraces her Black heritage.

High-level jobs of this nature already look difficult without layering international conflicts, fascism, and growing social stratification across the board, but here we are.

So when Rep. Elise Stefanik interrogated three college presidents about the role of antisemitism on college campuses, it couldn’t have come at a worse time. In speaking to current Harvard students and reading posts from current Harvard students, many of them didn’t feel like Gay did enough to protect students who support Palestinian rights from doxxing, harassment, and other forms of ostracization for exercising the right to protest a mass genocide. Other students didn’t feel like she could have done more to quell the protests and the anti-Jewish provocations that spiked post-October 7th. Then, Congress compelled Claudine Gay and two other college presidents to testify about a stormy situation on campus that no one’s gotten pitch perfect.

Rep. Stefanik asked, “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate your university’s rules or code of conduct?” University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill, MIT President Sally Kornbluth, and Gay each gave responses based on their code of conduct. Knowing how they would respond, Stefanik jumped on the moment to charge each of the presidents and their institutions with antisemitism. To critics, this moment required an answer that placated the general public, not the lawyers. It didn’t matter that Stefanik’s use of “intifada” was imprecise or that she currently supports a presidential candidate with openly anti-Jewish sentiment. It also didn’t matter that a consortium of Black Harvard alumni rejected initial calls for her ouster.

A small set of well-organized and well-funded malcontents could galvanize their coalition to oust university leadership and chip away at the credibility of higher education.

Of course, none of this helps college students, just the folks who openly plot against legitimizing a democratic plurality under the guise of plagiarism. A few months later, the day after Haitian Independence Day, Gay resigned. As a Dominican-Haitian American, I saw what she did there. People who empathized with Gay understood that her mental health and personal well-being mattered way more than this esteemed position. Yet, Black women and other women of color saw how the nonsense solidified the glass ceiling on their prospects again. Legions of conservatives and their devotees celebrated the move, but, as I scanned through those who celebrated, I didn’t see anyone who would directly benefit from her stepping down.

Well, besides a few cheerleaders whose plan had come to successful fruition. Then it hit me: too many people look for any reason to tell Black people – and so many “others” – that they’re inferior as opposed to figuring out why they don’t love themselves enough.

For instance, people have charged Gay with plagiarism, but her doctoral advisor shot the accusation down, as have most scholars who followed 1990’s editions of APA citation styling. With the advent of ChatGPT and the plethora of college essay writers and black-market test-prep companies, charging plagiarism at a moment’s notice only makes college entry harder for everyone. Amid hundreds of formulaic essays detailing prospective students’ accomplishments and sob stories, admissions offices may be more inclined to lean toward essays that don’t sound like the writer checked off the typical checkboxes.

If admissions become even more opaque for prospective students, that serves no one. But dissenters don’t care that their own people do it, just that Claudine Gay can be charged with it and enough people believe it. Billionaires worry not about the hypocrisy games, just about whether they can restrict the referees. Mainstream media shares the blame here, too.

They’ll say Black people have the lowest GPAs when matriculating in colleges and universities but rarely account for how prospective Black and Latinx students generally have higher GPAs than the average GPA just to get in. They proclaim that DEI and other identity-based initiatives have deteriorated academic expectations, but students of various backgrounds provide evidence that we’re not even close to achieving equality, much less equity, on campuses large and small. They shout how inclusivity programs including affirmative action have subverted notions of merit, but merit has always been a subjective measure and affirmative action programs were an effective corrective measure.

They’ll say professors fear cancel culture, but the only “canceling” we’re seeing is the work of people that a select few have deemed as “the other.” Because the same folks who took advantage of diversifying neighborhoods have retrofitted this narrative to college campuses they deem too inclusive.

After Gay’s resignation, Gay still sought to uphold Harvard’s values. Time and again in American history, the people least likely to get the largesse of what America has to offer continue to hold this country accountable to its purported values. Ivy Leagues shouldn’t have so much power over how we discuss college, but they do. In this light, universities of all statuses should take a real stance about the movement to delegitimize the pluralism so many people have fought to attain. The motives for using academic tools against someone matter just as much as the purported offense.

I also know exclusivity and prestige are part of the game, but hear me out. Rather than placate white supremacists who wish to narrow curricula, college and university presidents should look for more ways to advance a truly shared humanity where we can better redefine and characterize education. With all the intellectual and societal resources that these institutions have, colleges can also build coalitions that set better expectations for everyone’s prospects. Taking a page from K-12 teachers and communities, we need to open up more of the works happening in the ivory towers and commission more professors to do public-facing work.

Placating fascists only makes that movement grow.

Oh, and institutions of higher education should prepare to defend themselves and each other. Because dictatorships usually come for the intellects of their most marginalized, then everyone else. We’re seeing it now.

Jose, who cites as many sources as possible, though not APA style for his blog

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American Dreams, Wraiths, and Asylum Seekers

About a decade ago, my former school’s parent coordinator introduced me to a new student. This wouldn’t be a remarkable event because my school opened its doors to newcomers often. Our student population was 90% Latinx/Hispanic, many of whom emigrated from the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and other Latin American countries. This time, however, the student was fluent in neither English nor Spanish. He spoke Arabic and none of us were fluent in his home language. For the first few months, I relied on Google Translate and a student who was fluent in Arabic and English to carry us through, though I found this practice inequitable, too.

It took me too long to look up the news on Yemen and why so many folks preferred life here over there. We rarely asked about the reasons why our students matriculate at our schools. We should ask why, even with everything we see around us, families would leave home to make one here.

Today, NYC Mayor Eric Adams again berated asylum seekers:

“Too many people have come through various pathways and cavities in our border, and we have to be extremely careful because not everyone that’s come in is pursuing the American dream,” Adams says after [FOX5 News anchor Rosanna] Scotto talks about “migrant-related” crimes in NYC.

Chris Sommerfeldt

Of course, we have good research suggesting that immigrants don’t raise the crime rate. Before interrogating this further, however, it’s important to name the assumptions about this concept of the “American Dream.” While notions of American prosperity have elements baked into the US Constitution, the idea of an American Dream took a stronghold in the early 1900s. At the time, historian James Truslow Adams had popularized the phrase to denote a vision for this country that would spread a national vision where life would be “better and richer and fuller” for everyone. This was also in the midst of the Great Depression, Jim Crow laws, and growing tensions when millions of immigrants came to this country from several parts of Europe.

Of course, by the time President Franklin Delano Roosevelt brought social programs to America that would remediate some of its woes, American exceptionalism would put a societal cap on aspirations that everyone would receive the largesse of these benefits. Thus, Black people, Native American/indigenous people, and other immigrated groups didn’t make real gains the way their white counterparts did in that time period.

For years, the United States has promoted itself as a land of opportunity for every immigrant. New York City serves as the Elysian gateway to this country’s abundance so long as the immigrant worked hard and aligned itself with America’s Protestant ideals. Over time, however, the American Dream proved to be an American Fantasy at best, a Wraith at worst, particularly for those at the bottom of America’s racial and social caste. Internationally, American policy would help disrupt the economy of several nations that had their own resources for self-determination, thus creating turmoil in places already dealing with the scurge of colonialism, slavery, civil unrest in the form of continual bombing, and the decimation of its indigenous people.

Thus, when migrants come en masse from their respective countries through arduousness and violence, and bring their children with them on that journey, there must be something about the United States that must afford a level of hope that the rest of us don’t see.

Only 36% of Americans believe that the American Dream is true, yet too many pundits still wonder why our children doesn’t seem much faith in their future prospects. Older adults blame TikTok and a lack of work ethic when we should be pointing the finger at growing income inequality and governmental incompetence, intentional or otherwise. Political candidates on various sides of the spectrum use fear of “the other” to win their campaigns (“Crime is everyone!” “NYC is dying!”), but the public seems to rarely examine what happens once they get elected because the problems don’t change.

Our students see this and feel this, even those who can’t read the paper in this country’s dominant language. In listening to stories from classrooms and schools across the country, I’ve noted a pattern of deliberate callousness to students, but particularly those who society has deemed unworthy of educating. Why do so many educators’ professionalism begin where their sense of humanity ends? We collectively need an understanding that, for many of our students, just getting to our doors is gritty enough. We’re not lowering expectations by making that the baseline either. We’re saying that we need to make the conditions in which our students learn easier to learn so their genius can blossom accordingly.

What would systemic empathy, care, and justice look like for our asylum seekers? How might that help us teach enough other about everyone else’s children, too?

What is an American Dream to those who don’t have a bed to sleep in at night? To those who only sleep to stave off hunger? To those who sleep erratically as they work odd jobs with their parents and guardians? What does it mean when people whose ancestors experienced these societal maladies decides to kick down those who’ve come after him and pick the ladder up and away from safety?

If everyone who’s coming here isn’t coming to pursue the American Dream, then what does that say about those that are already here?

Our public schools have a plethora of flaws, but from a policy standpoint, they’re the most receptive public institution we have. Given how many people have left major cities, it behooves policymakers to cater to newly immigrated students who by their attendance have buoyed school budgets. Also, USA has the resources to support all of our public institutions to serve everyone better. Over the 15 years I taught, I had students who jumped shelter to shelter, had several issues with food insecurity, and/or took months to get some form of familial stability in this country. Yet, the students persisted, as we should. This idea of an American Dream isn’t far-fetched, but it usually starts from the people most likely blamed for America’s problems. If they’re seeking asylum, that usually means they wish to build a better home, not a worse one.

It’s time for us to wake up and get to work.

Jose

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What I Get To See In Us [2023 Year-In-Review]

There were about six minutes of silence in my house while I stared at my computer screen. This time, my advisors were on the other side of the Zoom call, discussing whether my presentation was sufficient for me to start my doctoral research.

Prior to August 24th, I spent hours poring over every sentence of my 130-page proposal, getting my social theories in order, deepening my literature review, and making sure my methods aligned with my purpose for even trying to get my doctorate in sociology of education in the first place. The explicit goal is to examine the characteristics of teacher professionalism as it relates to race and social context in the nation’s largest public school system. The implicit goal – and my raison d’être – is to create a new portal from which I could change worlds. But, for six minutes, I had to believe that all the work I put up to that point would carry me past this goalpost because it was out of my hands.

My first advisor pulled me back from the Zoom breakout room with a grin and said, “Congratulations, Future Dr. Vilson, you’re a doctoral candidate!” I felt seen.

The born-and-raised New Yorker in me wouldn’t let my advisors see much of my emotion. When I got off the call, however, I let out a few screams and a few leaps, too. Then, I sat there for a few minutes, wondering what this all meant for the work I wanted to do and the person I wanted to be. Before then, I had spent hours in classrooms across the city, visiting teachers who were friends from different parts of my life and one who was a former student. My family and I went to The White House and DC’s Blackseum in March, but I brought them with me in spirit to places where I couldn’t tell whether they actually liked teachers or not.

Ancestors saw me, and I saw them, too.

I traveled across the country again hoping to have critical conversations with people I considered colleagues about math and the world around us. Hopefully, I inspired a few thousand young people to think about teaching in the future with racial justice in mind. Maybe, I inspired some student-teachers to think about teaching for the long term. I co-planned another successful EduColor Summit with a community of mutual cares, and even won an award for building community. I made amends with my high school alma mater (more soon), and recalled so many memories as I strolled through my undergraduate university. My own summer education and public policy class had four guests, including a previous US Secretary of Education, a former National Teacher of the Year, and two other educators who developed lenses for my students, too.

By the time Beyoncé released Renaissance, I felt like I was having one of my own. I saw myself and my work clearly. But to what end?

The answer came shortly after I defended my proposal. After all those school visits and large educator gatherings, there’s one thing that kept bothering me about everything I was seeing. On paper, the job of teaching is exactly the same as it was before the pandemic. Teachers would cycle through instruction, pedagogy, and assessment with a curriculum in hand perhaps. Some would argue that teachers didn’t have to do anything outside of their contract. We could sprinkle in a few other tasks: homeroom/advisory duties, extracurricular activities, and a few more responsibilities for teacher leaders, and teachers with special education/multilingual licenses.

But, akin to filling up a water balloon in a cardboard box, the social parts of doing this job applied much more pressure to the dimensions of teaching. Policymakers are trying to get their spheres of influence back to a normal that was still so demanding on the soul. People use the term “student behavior” as a negative, but students were merely mirrors of the conditions they’ve been pushed to learn in, and none of us fully escaped the trauma, either. A significant part of our world has given up on social norms of empathy, love, and authentic peace in favor of profit, xenophobia, and unfathomable inhumanity. Even in NYC, the capital of “we welcome everyone,” where crime numbers had reportedly come down across the board, its leaders sought to place blame on asylum seekers, the people experiencing homelessness, and the folks most in need of societal help.

On “the other.” As institutions that are fully open to all of society’s aspirations and ills, our schools deserve not just the financial resources to meet the needs, but also the moral and humane resources of hope and belief to meet the moment. We need the world to see us.

As we started another school year and my son entered middle school for the first time, the needs felt that much more urgent. In October and November, in the midst of all *this* (-waves hands frantically-), I helped lead a procession of National Board certified teachers at the federal level to advocate for the teaching profession on the national level. This felt a win we pulled out of a growing sense of loss. But the hope that has carried me for those six minutes of silence also carried me through these larger fights on the local and federal level.

It’s the same hope that carries me now.

Hope isn’t just useful for when things are going well. If anything, hope is even more useful when we’re all out of it. The educator knows that it might be the only thing that keeps us going when the conditions around us get darker. We allow ourselves a moment to think of what should happen if we fail, if our common cause cracks at our foundations. What should happen if everything we had dreamed up together suddenly get stolen from under us? Wisdom tells us to act like we’ve been there before. Hope is both the idea that we would dream together, but that the work we do will create enough aligned ripples with others to help us think anew.

I mean that about the teaching profession. I mean that about the world after this one. The one my son will grow into, the one my nephew who was born in March will inherit, too, the one that all the children in my sphere of influence deserve. Even the ones I don’t know yet, but are interconnected with us.

For six minutes, I questioned whether I was too optimistic, too sure, or too informed about everything I read. Was it relevant to even discuss professionalism at a time when people are leaving? How does humanity inform a cold concept that’s a function of capitalism? Why do I care about a title people have been using about me even before I started this program?

Because we got work to do. I don’t need this title to prove anyone wrong. I need this for the people who want to see us win. With this, I’ll get to see us, and teach others how to see us better, too.

Thank you, 2023. 2024, I’ll see you soon.

Jose

p.s. – Thanks to everyone who has supported me over the last few weeks. I know I’ve been on a writing tear. If you’d like to support the work, please consider subscribing for as little as $5 a month. It helps.

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