Jose Vilson's Blog, page 43
June 1, 2014
Teaching and Leading While Black (On My Visit To The White House)
Arne Duncan
Nancy Flanagan’s recent post on teacher leadership finally gave me the push to dive into my experience in Washington, D.C., where Dr. Jill Biden and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan hosted us.
The function was part of the White House’s new initiative, White House Social, a series of events for people who engage with the White House on social media. Of course, my social media presence helped a bit in their decision, despite my obviously socialist points of view (are they obvious?) and outwardly passionate demeanor. Anyone who’s read my work knows what I’m about, so I was curious when I got the invite, and accepted immediately.
Even though I slept about three hours between my book release after-party on Tuesday and hoping on the 5:30am train the next morning, I felt I had to be there. Admittedly, I understood that I wouldn’t just be representing myself, but the 2-3% of the male teachers of color in the nation, and I took that responsibility super-seriously. Representing the hundreds of us isn’t a burden / opportunity that I needed to take on, but, as with most things, I knew better than to listen and not engage in substantive policy talk.
After a quick tour of the White House (and an even briefer appearance by the President as he jumped on a helicopter to Arkansas to observe the tornado relief efforts), we were asked to meet in VP Joe Biden’s office. The rustic feel of the office felt super-comfortable. A few of us sat in his seat. When it was my turn, I engaged the other reasons from his seat.
It was all fun and games until I noticed everyone stand up. I didn’t know what was going on. Then I heard, “It’s cool. Stay right there.” It was Arne Duncan. We shook hands, and I said, “Well, we have a person of color at the president’s seat. It looks like we could use one at the VP desk, too.” He smiled and nodded to it.
After he sat, one of our hosts read off stats about the current state of US education. Rising graduation rates, Common Core, and the elevation of early childhood education were the key points of success. In my mind, I also started to go over the list of failures on the part of his administration: the inflation in class size, the thousands of school closures and teacher layoffs, the over-emphasis on testing and the capitulation of the department’s agenda to wealthy education reformers. But I preferred to hear him out, because I’m a classy guy.
Rather than ask him about things I knew (and that he’d duck), I asked him about the RESPECT initiative and the lack of diversity amongst educators, and how we can improve that. His answers:
The department still goes through its daily proceedings with the RESPECT initiative in mind. Because of politics, they can’t get around to raising teachers’ pay across the nation, but they’re also trying to find ways to raise the prestige of the profession, too. He noted that, in other countries, they don’t pay significantly higher than in the US, but in high performing countries, only 1 in 10 teaching candidates get chosen for the classroom.
This was a frustrating issue for him. There are some initiatives like TEACH.org and others he highlighted that are trying to attract teachers of color, but it’s just a start. Also, he noted that there have been plenty of complaints about different programs and routes for recruiting teachers from different cultural backgrounds (assuming he’s talking about TFA), but there hasn’t been any one program that stands out more than any other.
He seemed a little more candid than usual, and responded to dissent by nodding and moving on. As I expected. After his Q&A and photo op with us (I quipped on Twitter how it was his honor to meet us), he made a quick comment to me about the need for more of me. I replied, “If you’re down, so am I.”
After a photo op and lunch with Dr. Jill Biden, I had a quick thought about the teachers I saw around. Despite their politics and vehement disagreements, they’re still teachers. As is always my stance, I would never judge a teacher for not using my tactics, not having my level of followers, or any of those other arbitrary measures to determine whether they’re “real.” I prefer to see them in the classroom, or at least have a conversation around pedagogy in their specific contexts.
I much prefer a great teacher who may not engage in political debates than a weak-and-not-trying-to-get-better teacher who voices a political opinion I agree with. The best politics in education is making sure our kids are learning. All this other stuff we do is secondary.
The other power in that room was knowing that there were teachers ready to lead the charge on this effort, not in the form of certificates, badges, and medals, but substantive decision-making and designing. If Duncan, etc. were truly invested in listening to our suggestions (and not simply through pre-determined venues) remains to be seen.
Even though he has about five inches on me, it felt good to meet Secretary Duncan eye-to-eye, not in deference, but as equal in importance. That’s the type of respect we ought to fight for.
Jose
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Hope Makes Teaching More Than A Job
I Love Lucy
Goodness, that last EduShyster’s interview was epic. There’s a whole piece that we didn’t even get to share with you because, well, it would hurt some people’s favorite bloggers / heroes / activists’ feelings. Really, the biggest difference between Audrey Watters’ awesome Twitter interview pre-This Is Not A Test and EduShyster’s recent, also awesome interview was the relationship each has to me. I consider Audrey a friend and, dare I say, ally in some of the work we’re doing in bringing up issues of race and class to the fore while I barely knew Jennifer Berkshire outside of her blog and Twitter.
Yet, after a close read of my book (and a few minutes to talk at the Network for Public Education conference in Austin, TX), you see how, for an interview, that’s can be a good thing, too. Check this:
ES: This Is Not a Test is full of surprises—not just about your personal story—but the way the narrative unfolds. You manage to make even a grim systemic analysis feel uplifting.
JV: That’s pretty much how I roll. The way I look at it, there’s really no choice. Educators need, NEED to have some kind of hope because otherwise we’re powerless. Once we start to feel less hopeful, that fire we start out with gets extinguished. I do have pessimism and skepticism as drivers but I always have optimism right next to me because I’m always hoping things will get better. Our kids are our driving force. If you don’t have the kids you teach in mind, then why be hopeful? If you’re teaching as a career, than optimism is the way to go.
I’m arguing for the idea that hope makes teaching more than a job. If those of us who are in the classroom (or in schools as educators) don’t come into school with a modicum of hope to hold us over through the hard days / weeks / months, then we can’t keep the fire burning.
I get that some of us need angry and hurt to sustain ourselves while pieces of our public schools keep getting chipped away by private interest and government disinterest, to support each other in a struggle to re-affirm our belief in the possibility of all children (and not just some). Yet, my classroom persona isn’t built like that. Even after some of the more mind-numbing sessions I’m having these days as the end of the year wraps up, I’m hoping that all the consternation with my students is just an end-of-the-year phase and, once they go to high school, they’ll settle down and do far better than now.
In the interim, we need to keep hope in our back pocket always because our students do rely on us to keep our energies high. Because otherwise, everything we’re working for is of little consequence, and that would suck, too.
Jose
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How The Book Is Going So Far
People often ask me how I do everything I do, especially surrounding my book.
I can’t reveal it all, but even my typical Saturdays aren’t that typical.
Yesterday, I took a three-hour National Board exam, unprepared due to circumstances beyond my control. Then again, everyone told me this test should be no sweat because it’s everything that I’ve been doing since I first started teaching. Except that it wasn’t. I can’t say more because Pearson would have me redact this whole paragraph I signed a non-disclosure agreement, so there is that. However, I spent the better part of three hours looking at a timer and scribbling down as much as I could without my hand falling off.
I’ve been favoring my left hand since.
Shortly after staring at a computer for three hours, I started to explore some of the bookstores in Lower Manhattan because I’m a glutton for punishment. Barnes and Noble on 44th and 5th? No books. McNally Jackson in SoHo? No books either. I should have taken a hint from the weather because, while everyone else took shelter under umbrellas and coffee shops, I was running around looking to see if a few bookstores had my books. Even though I already had a thousand plus, I couldn’t be satisfied with only a thousand sold.
Clearly, if everyone couldn’t see my genius, what was wrong with them? Ugh!
These are the moments that keep me humble. It’s super-easy to doubt myself and see the shelves without my book as a sign of failure of my writing and not the huge machine behind other books. Then it hit me. Concurrent with this weekend was Left Forum, a huge conference for progressive organizers, laborers, and like-minded thinkers from all across North America. To that end, my publisher, Haymarket Books would be there, and even took a tall stack of books with my names on them.
I needed to go where my people would go.
I planned on staying an hour or two, but ended up staying three, having conversations about our current state of education, hanging with friends from different circles, and signing my books for onlookers and fans alike. That plus the daily tags on Facebook of someone’s copy of my book, and getting listed with the likes of Rebecca Walker and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at The Root, all is right with the world again. It’s as if my people are telling me this unconventional path I’ve taken towards getting published will continue to be so.
Maybe Barnes and Noble won’t carry the books in their stores. But the people will in their hands. Right where my book belongs.
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