Rafting the Acronym Cascade: Notes from a Year of Teacher Training

To begin with: 

I can appreciate how hard it was for everyone to transfer to online instruction in the midst of a pandemic. That aspect of the whole experience, frankly, was a godsend, saved us all a ton of time. 

Same goes for the elimination of the final project, the edTPA. From what I understand, that was out of a concern for equity as much as due to COVID. Like everything ed-, edTPA is property of Pearson, and it costs districts and individuals money, which might also have played into the decision to pass on it. But that's a different kettle of fish for frying another day.  

The instructors and staff were doing their best at EWU, just as teachers and administrators were doing at all levels of public schooling. The SPS mentor teacher I was eventually placed with, Mr Anderson, was a brick. All my professors seemed to genuinely care about those of us in the T2T program and to believe their work, training up a new cohort of teachers, mattered.  

My mentor teacher happened to have the same name as the astronaut honored with a statue downtown, Michael Anderson

So I don't think there was anything uniquely bad about my experience last year. If anything, I had it about as streamlined as possible. Some of that was by design, taking advantage of the Transition to Teaching route at the local university rather than MAT or BA options, and a lot of it was mercifully good luck.  

And I did get a job at the end of it. A better one than I could have hoped for. The stars aligned; the alternative high school down the street needed a math teacher, and with my mentorship in the math class and the rest of my certification squared away, I finally qualified for it. Aside from the application and interview, all I had to do was pass a multiple choice NES math test. It was five hours long, covering everything from algebra through calc and statistics. I spent a few weeks studying and sat for the exam one Saturday morning, clicking my way through on a computer in a dreary office building in the Valley, having paid Pearson $95 for the privilege, but I passed on the first try, thank goodness. 

There. With all that for preface--underlining again that it was ultimately well worth it, after four years of substitute teaching, to finally, by hook or by crook, do what the state bid to earn the crummy cert--the teaching program was even more dismal than I dreaded. 

Dark times in the T2T

Just how bad it was going to be, I sort of knew all along, or at least had some sense. Why else put it off so long? Some of that was intuitive: my atavistic distrust of bureaucratic processes of education. Animating my decision to finally go into the program was that same mixture of love of learning and dislike of school that drives this long-running project of imagining a better way to teach and learn, these Notes for a New School. Alongside my more biased premonitions against teacher training in general, though, were some that were more well-founded and specific. Subbing long-term in a co-taught fourth grade class a few springs back, I worked alongside a student-teacher who was completing her coursework and practicum in the same T2T program. She was practically losing her mind. 

Hating, despising the thought of "becoming a teacher" before, and now fearing the toll it would take on me, I sent in all my paperwork and fees and showed up for the first meeting. I kept my camera off so no one, including me, would have to see my face, my self-hate, my complicity, my bad-faith first-day-of-school excitement. 

More than ever I understood why the fundamental task of public school is not to educate so much as to provide for people's yearning for community, security, and hope, because it was that yearning which washed over me in those early days. To care for and serve the social and emotional needs of others, SEL as it's now called, is certainly nothing that we can learn to do in a class meeting, online or in-person, but consists in the realization of shared vulnerability. And throughout our meetings, I missed most of all the time together in which to share that sense of personhood. We talked about it, but we never actually lived it. At no point was there time to get to know anyone. 

This despite the quantity of time we had slated for us to be there, meted and measured out by the program requirements. And because that was all any of it was, so many requirements on our time, one of the first things they told us to do was to keep a record of what we did each day. Eventually we'd begin filling out time sheets with daily reflections, once we were placed in a mentor classroom, so we should get in the habit. 

Here, lightly edited, is mine. From what I understand, programs like this are required to undergo a review periodically to maintain their certification--that is, their ability to "recommend" candidates for teaching certification. Whether the student's real experience gets taken into consideration, or just the nominal supposition of what that experience must be as an aggregate of all the boxes ticked, I have no idea, but perhaps this evidence would be of interest to box-tickers somewhere. For the prospective student with a high tolerance for boredom, or for anyone that wants to see how the teaching cert sausage gets made, read on.  

Blog log

Mon 6/22 all day first class session

"No one wants to sit here for 6 hours," says one of the staff

(actually it was 8)

Why assessment is the first course, because all teachers need it

The irony of this assessment spiral, or better infinite regress, seemed lost on all concerned

Office hours, no textbook

Skunk smell at your place?

Thanks for sharing

Iterative disposition "this is different in the real class"

I can't remember now what that means, or if it meant anything

Canvas, panopto

Which proved to be terrible, clunky, no doubt very expensive platforms

We signed up for presentation topics. Here's mine. 

ED308

13

5

Tips for keeping calm when student behavior escalates

1

1Wesley Schantz

Just like we'd do with our students in a social studies class, we made our own little...

Bill of rights

We all have the right to: 

■ to learn from others who care about and respect each individual in our classroom.

■ be safe.

■ ask specific and relevant questions. 

■ have some measure of choice with regard to at least some of the topics we will study and the assignments we will complete.

■ feel hurt or insecure but not the right to hurt others.

■ discuss feelings, actions and concerns in a nurturing environment and to be called in or call others in when required for personal growth.

■ feel uncomfortable and uncertain as both are necessary to confront cultural privilege and grow as a culturally competent person. etc

Not that we'd yet taught them what that was, or the Constitution it's appended to. The opportunity to talk about rights and responsibilities, at least, would be there

The irony of teaching where you were taught?

I guess at least one of the instructors was an EWU grad. Another one of those spirals...

Something positive today? Is that a question:)

The coordinator's affect--she of the skunk--was always just so off. I literally couldn't tell if she was asking for one positive thing out of a plethora, or if she was wondering if there were any positive takeaways at all. 

A good way to do online discussion? Group turned to individual. No sped presentation

So they were still figuring it out. Most group work went away. 

Rural superintendent grant? 

Daily reflection for edtpa? 

No synchronous classes at all, aside front the introductory session with all teachers…

Alas, this proved to be false.

Getting started links?

Communication, like everything, was slow, but eventually got done

6/23

Long discussion board intros

Like the community college courses I took online back in high school, our main interaction was over discussion boards. We had to make a post and reply to a couple of others for most assignments. 

6/24

Paying tuition and fees for tech, buildings, gyms? Doing the assessment lessons, blog, but not the long-term project yet. Banking used without reference to Freire?

Disappointing as it may be to culture warriors out there, we never talked about postmodernism or democracy, much less Critical Race Theory. 

6/25

Readings for classroom management and paper tigers documentary, reading class, paper on literacy identity

The Paper Tigers movie was one of the more interesting things we discussed, by far, dealing with an alternative high school and those socio-economic contexts which have become all important in explaining students' emotional well-being. 

6/26

ELL class

6/27

Replies to discussion boards, long-term assignments, peer reviews

6/28

Db cont, lesson plans, housekeeping

Those lesson plans. What a nightmare of micromanagement!

6/29

Day off

6/30

Reading class

7/1

Peer review blogs

Right, they had us make our own blogs. I wonder if anyone kept theirs going after the class ended?

7/2

Management class, remaining lectures, starting assignments

7/3

Assignments…

7/4

Holiday

7/5

Db responses

7/6 

Db cont. Checking grades 

7/7

Para ed due jul 17, assessment

7/8

Blog reviews, reading for management

7/9

Db posts

7/10

Assignments, research paper

7/11

Db 

7/12

Management drafts

7/13

Assessment

7/14

Lesson plan, data for para

7/15

Blog reviews, db, disposition, para 

Oh, the disposition form we had to complete quarterly. The Constitution, in checklist form, to our Bill of Rights. Out of an abundance of caution, that's what has kept me from making any of this public until now. The language in it is so broad as to allow the administration to send candidates packing for just about any reason. But I let them know about my concerns and critiques of the program early and often by email, so none of this should come as a surprise, if it ever does come to their attention.

7/16

Db, choice project, 

7/17

Journals, book talk

7/18-23

Finishing up classes’ final projects, re-submit lesson plan, a couple days off

7/24

Start sped, db

7/25

Dbs 

7/26

Portfolio draft, paper draft, etc. 

7/27

Sped essay (late)

7/28

Reflection on calm lesson (forgot about), start letter

• Professionalism, yet profane bleeped out quotes about how no one has time for bingo?

This was just one of those things. Even the most straight-laced of education professors gets to a point where they're writing out "bleep" in their messages to students, I guess

7/29

Peer comments, letter

7/30

Portfolio

7/31 day off

8/1

Sped … working on assignments two or three days per week

8/16

Final presentation, discussions

8/17

Meeting about fall, more info coming out after 8/24? Follow up with Spokane HR about mentor placement? Another in Sept on competencies? Documentation of proficiency (allowing resubmissions) so long-form lesson plan a point of growth mindset, then eventually allowing the short form? Email about pre-residency and fingerprint OSPI? Tests / SAT or ACT scores? Timesheets due each week? Experience in Montana on TV courses with two or three classmates… 

So, a meeting to go over the next round of boxes to check off, and to hear about another meeting we'd have soon. With a brief recollection of good old days. These competencies, we would learn, were the ultimate in checking off boxes

9/21

Meeting about fall semester, all it was for the first 45 min was having people tell how their experience was so far, asking about placements, and a blanket statement about difficulties. Another hour in, just a slide on the classes. Email teacher of early course. Seeking a math tutor to homeschool grandkids. Email if no message about software within a week. [The assistant coordinator, name redacted] left? Prefer email, times for call. Mentor teacher training?  Fwd SAT scores? Adding endorsements?  540 clinical hours incl student teaching - emergency provisions through Jun 2021 - what counts as clinical?

Never did find out what happened to make the assistant quit, but there was someone new in the job before too long, fielding everyone's emails and doing whatever else they do.

9/24

First class [of the fall semester]--email at 5:30 for 6PM start. Flip grid audio not working. Internet went out 15 min in

9/25

Safe schools training for SPS - logged as hours. Emailing instructors in canvas, [coordinator] helping. 

This email system within the online platform was fun, nesting people within courses, rather than just letting you type their name. 

9/27

Discussion boards for Social Studies, video from thurs. Past experience for clinical hours? Sept 8 trainings?

No, alas, past experience would not count towards the hours I had to accrue. I asked about this in every way I possibly could, of everyone I could think to ask, to no avail. 

9/28-29

Db. Contact with the coordinator for alternative placement. Signing up for pearson tests Jan 11

9/30

ELA assignments

10/1

Missing disposition form? class 6-8, 8:15 alt placement for mentors meeting?

10/5 

Group zoom mtg for inquiry project

10/7

Did my part

10/8

Alt placement mtg CommonCore app? Likely EdTpa could be changed by governor action? Show care, but that every little thing is not the end of the world.  Ela mtg poetry make own charts writing process

As you may be able to glean, there was a while here where I was in limbo as to whether I would get placed with a mentor teacher so as to be able to complete the required 540 hours under their supervision. I must have felt adequately prepared to fill out my timesheets when and if such a placement should occur, so I quit keeping a record in the interim. They had those of us in this boat--and there were 7 or 8, I want to say--had to do hilariously badly macgyvered replacements for mentorship, like watching recordings and writing about them, or "teaching" virtual students on a paid-for program called mursion. 

2/9

First day with placement, set up over the past weekend. 8:30-11:50

From what I understand, the only reason I finally did get a mentor was because another student in the cohort had reached out to her children's teachers around the district since she needed a placement, too. She wanted to teach Kindergarten, though, and finally got placed accordingly, so the middle school math teacher who responded to her call, thankfully, fell to me.

2/10

First day with 6th grades, staff mtg, 8:30-1:30

2/11

8:30-10

2/12

8:30-1 including lesson planning mtg

2/15

President’s day

I wonder: is the problem of burn out best addressed by flashing a W-2, as the art teacher did? The professionalism paradox, stymied by the person. The legality of the disposition form: feedback and attitude. 

For the duration of the program, I bit my tongue so as not to be called out for any fault in my "disposition," and kept noticing the ways large and small that this world of teacher training treats us as anything but "professionals"

2/16

Teaching des farm, prep, again with more student time, Mtg w Michael [and coordinators]; dist training indigenous bias, drop in hours. Make videos?

The desmos platform, and a number of other resources my mentor teacher showed me, were great, especially while the students were all attending online. I can't overstate it: the one good thing about this program was finding my way to a good mentor placement. That made all the difference. 

2/17

Observation. Full day. 

Fortunately, I had a very understanding supervisor who helped me catch up on the required observations of classroom teaching, both virtually and in-person once we were back

2/18

Teaching SCC. Contacting ELA and Science teachers

2/19

Normal classes. Tutoring hours after. 

2/22

Final week online. Building tours in classes. Brainstorming favorite activities. Planning student teaching

2/23

Writing lesson for Fri, teaching plan, dates for observations, extracurriculars

2/24

Games to close out online learning, meeting with ELA/Social Studies teacher, tour group.

Final math class, in which the instructor spent time answering her emails while we were reading

Which was totally understandable. She was also the district math coordinator at the time

2/25

SCC - canceling classes for spring semester to allow student teaching

That is, the community college extension Spanish class I had been offering for the duration of the pandemic, like my day job substitute teaching, finally had to fall by the wayside, too, as I'd have to spend all day, every day in middle school making up for the hours I'd missed the rest of the year

2/26

Teaching observed advisory lesson. Naming schools. Visiting p2 ELA to prep for lesson next week. Meetings with extracurricular and staff, lesson planning during prep and Saturday school?

3/1

In-person. Meeting with science teacher, writing science lesson, observing and working with small groups. Quiet mostly 

3/2

Teaching same lesson, leading discussion of factors activity, book group meeting. Slightly more outgoing groups. Filler words, asking permission, answering questions vs letting students struggle. Book group on race 

That book discussion was through the community college, where I taught non-credit Spanish courses for a while, though from what I understand optional professional development had been offered through the district, likewise, reading books on racism

3/3

Observation lesson for ELA on revising stories, palindrome number activity

3/4 

Observing, SCC

3/5

In-service day, math team collab, planning time

3/8

Spartan Center intro, positive and negative numbers desmos. Adjusting to new schedule (again), debriefing homework participation. Overview of the week in planners

3/9

Repeat with group B. They see what students the previous day responded. 

So as to keep numbers of students in the building down, the district opted to have them attend only every other day, alternating Fridays. So classes were half as big, halls were quiet, and we taught the same thing two days in a row. As I say, doing my training could hardly have been any easier

3/10

Observation lesson in science on volcanoes, reading and discussion of textbook ch w KWL. Next lessons with adding with negative numbers, using real world examples

3/11

[Penultimate] SCC classes

3/12

Scale drawing lesson

3/15

Zoom to help at home, new student, discussion of how social distancing might evolve, subtracting w negatives, Mars rover

3/16

Same material as before with group B in person. Fire drill, book group

3/17

Using phet, a physics modeling tool, to review positive and negative numbers and absolute value. Special socks day for down syndrome awareness, Holocaust speaker over zoom

3/18

Final classes for SCC. not on zoom for the morning since the teacher had a sub. 

3/19

Students set goals for the remainder of the semester. Phet lesson with morning classes who worked on their at-home material with the sub, art lesson with the afternoon who had the phet material yesterday. 

3/22

Opposite numbers and absolute value, positives and negatives on number line; 7th grade multiplying with negatives. Submitting remaining competencies, revised teaching plan

3/23

Same with group B - solo teaching. strategies for engagement working on computers in person

3/24

Social media discussion. Picture day. Updating computers on at-home days. Revising lessons taught verification with new dates. Inequalities on number line, multiplication with negative numbers

3/25

Same with group B, solo teaching. Planning out April and into May. 

3/26

3 act math lesson fast claps. Planning ELA, social studies, science lessons that remain. Planning edTPA four lesson unit

3/29

Checking progress on academic goals before end of quarter. 6th grade inequalities continued. 7th grade dividing with negative numbers. Observing ELA to prep for next week and science in order to teach it tomorrow. Writing lesson plans for edTPA

3/30

Same as before with group B, solo teaching. Teaching and writing lesson plans for science. 

3/31

Hand out intro letter and video permission form. Point collector activity with positive and negative inequality statements in 6th grade. Review of rules for operations with negatives, practice games and short assessment in 7th grade. Observing ELA and science classes. 

4/1

Repeat with group B. 

4/2

3 Act Math lesson on the fast clapper, estimating and calculating unit rate. Science games with weathering/ erosion. 

Spring break

Writing edtpa

As should be obvious, none of us knew up until the last minute whether the edTPA would be required or not. I ended up writing most of it, aside from the video analysis, and actually had my lessons recorded and ready to go for the rest, before the reprieve came through

4/12

6th plotting points on the coordinate plane, four quadrants, at-home work on paper; 7th solving two-step equations with one variable. Social Studies teaching intro lesson on ancient China. Sad news about a student in B-cohort. Collecting video permission slips. Writing lesson plan for Wed math observation. 

4/13

Same with group B. Dentist appt in morning so only in school 11-3:30. Principal observation unannounced. SCC book club afternoon. Planning ELA for next week’s observation. 

Updated on total hours so far: looks doable before the end of the year. From the evening hiring session, [elementary principal 1] lie to yourself; [elementary principal 2] you have to make the kids love you; [elementary principal 3] relationships most important, social justice focus; [first year elementary teacher] I cry a lot… 

4/14

6th plotting points to move marble slides. Teaching p 1, observation in p 3. 7th solving one-step equations using problem string and phet application. Teaching ELA paragraph writing. The irony of sitting through ed classes where they tell us to involve students and all they do is talk at us. For 2 hours. 

4/15 

Same with group B. Coordinating with supervisor and ELA teacher to reschedule next week around her appointments. 

4/16

3-Act math lesson on the airplane seats. Dealing with technical difficulties. Adjusting by using teams to share images with students. 

4/19

Earth day door decoration in advisory. Plan for the week, new quarter starting. Distance on coordinate plane in 6th, one and two step equations in 7th

4/20

The same with group B. Teaching with whiteboards for students to practice. Put in request for rec letter from principals. 

4/21

Assembling door decorations. Zombie apocalypse activity in 6th, with review of distance on the coordinate plane. Working through 2-step equations in 7th on whiteboards and online phet application. Teaching ELA for observation on A Wrinkle in Time, sending request for rec letter from supervisor. 

4/22

Same with group B, only no observation today. 

4/23

Earth Day door decoration judging. Airplane problem with B group. Discussing grading, assessment, and special education. 

4/26

Coordinate grid battleship with 6th grade. Algebra bingo for 7th. Completing midterm form in preparation for Wed meeting. Coordinating with special education teachers. 

4/27

Same with group B. SCC book group. Pizza from teacher discount. The options for students to do on their days off, the games students are and are not familiar with. 

4/28

Continuing battleship games in 6th, Bingo in 7th, and gimkit games for both groups if time allowed. 6th grade coordinate grid assessment. Midterm meeting went great. No word on edtpa. 

4/29

Same with group B. Making back-up copies for next two weeks. 

4/30

Kahoot in advisory, four 4’s challenge to make 20, kahoot review of coordinates in 6th and two-step equations in 7th. Setting up teams assignments for next two weeks. 

For the next two weeks, I'd take over full-time, where before we'd alternated days.

5/3

Student teaching. Intro to exponents in 6th, distributive property with variables in 7th. The story of the genie seemed engaging for them. Though not all had seen exponents before they could notice how they worked differently from ordinary multiplication. The desmos activity for grade 7 was less exciting but gave a clear overview of distribution and the two approaches to solving when dealing with it. 

5/4

Same with group B. Filming in first period. Showing the visuals and board along with the students who signed the video release to help with writing about the lesson thereafter. 

5/5

Observation by administrator that was scheduled got delayed; she was dealing with another issue. The final supervisor observation went well, though. Students worked in groups on exponent expressions in 6th. They worked with multiple ways of writing algebraic expressions in 7th. Helping after school with cross country meet. At last the governor signed into law the removal of the edTPA as a requirement. The director of ed school called it valuable, then [admitted? dismissed?] some of the prep on the program [to be] busy work. 

This was during one of those last-minute meetings made possible, if not all that convenient, by the online format. I will treasure these little glimpses behind the curtain--the frumpiness, the crankiness, that comes out when we all let our guard down--people on their phones while driving, or sitting up in bed and hollering to whoever they live with, neglecting to mute or un-mute. Perhaps much of this info could simply have been communicated via email, really? Perhaps online learning could still accommodate actual discussion if we had some content worth discussing and an amenable format for that conversation? And granted that the program was padded out with busy work, o great and powerful frumps, perhaps we could make it better by streamlining further it for everyone, and not just the T2T in pandemic times?

5/6 

Same with group B. Struggling with period 2 to show work. Observation by admin p 6. Moving students conversation they did much better. The second day of cross country. 

5/7

Four 4’s activity challenging students to make 20 using all operations. Reluctant groups and individuals. Debrief p 5 for letter of rec rescheduled for admin to handle another issue, and tpep conversation. Final day of teacher appreciation week, challenges. 

5/10

Student teaching group A. Debrief with admin. 

5/11

Same with group B. First time having to send a student out for behavior all year. 

5/12

Student teaching lesson four of the sequence, exponents in squares and cubes for 6th grade, multiple ways of expressing equations in 7th. Practice with finding volume and distributing. 

5/13

Same with group B. Many students absent.

5/14

Final day of student teaching. Make 31 game with group A. Again, quite a few absent. 

5/17-19

Special Ed. placement. Teaching math, reading and responding in English, drums, adaptive PE, paras, talking about ed programs. CAP tutoring, advising, PBIS, communication, organization, check in with SEL.

5/20-21, 24-25

Home with family. Videos 5/25 1 hr

5/26

Back in classes. 6th on one and more step equations in desmos, 7th angles and equations with them on polygraph guess who game and quiz

5/27

Same with group B

5/28

Three act Bucky the Badger pushups question, addition but also exponential growth

6/1

Back from long weekend, but every weekend is a long weekend for this group. 6th grade went into dividing with fractions, 7th reflecting on approaches to at-home practice. The polypad manipulatives aided presenting the division by fractions as a process of finding how many parts in a whole, and students had fun exploring all the different tools and activities on there. 7th were supervised on mathia and shared pros and cons of the program

6/2

Same with group A. Track meets cancelled due to heat. Notified of missing fingerprint info, calling SPS and OSPI to schedule updates to the clearance from 2019

In a final Kafkaesque turn, I found out that the fingerprints I'd had on file for subbing needed updating. Pretty sure the coordinator was if possible more stressed than I was about this, threatening to throw out all the hours I'd done unless I had the paperwork sorted out. But then her entire life, from all I could tell, was so much paperwork

6/3

Subbing. Last day group B. Final day solo teaching. Moving into the shortcut for dividing fractions with keep change flip song and fraction bars on polypad. Noting some algorithms that students either missed learning last year or need practice after the long interval: multiplying by fractions, converting to mixed numbers, simplifying fractions, long division. 7th reflect on paper practice and online games, which they seem to prefer overall to the guided approach of mathia

6/4

Final day group A. Final day student teaching. Same with group A. I will be back in to sub before the end of the year and may see students in the future depending on where we all end up. Much obliged to Salk and to Mr Anderson especially for accepting my placement so late in the game. Update fingerprints at district office; they should be visible on OSPI within a couple business days

A little scratch work

Total time required 540 hrs

Through q1-2 19

And since placement 285 more 

Leaves 255 

Working 8 hr every remaining 49 days yields 392 available hrs

Plus extra curricular, Sat?

But the long and short of it was, it all got done. Every i dotted and t crossed. And if I take the time now to relive it, however superficially, putting my paltry records and reflections out there like this, it's to recommit myself to the work I've envisioned: improving the enjoyment of learning. That can't be done, as public school goes, without refashioning in a drastic way the higher ed pipelines for teachers, along with our ongoing performance reviews, and what is called, with a harrowing lack of irony, professional development. 

Like so much of the weakness inherent in systems governed abstractly by bureaucrats, rather than organically by colleagues in practice together, in some way it all comes down to the difficulty of doing what we say. A difficulty exacerbated by all the time and words we expend in the saying, in the documenting for the pleasure of the box-checkers, in the powerful temptation to treat what was originally meant to be helpful as so many hoops to jump through. But it's a difficulty rooted in the fact that we are all human. Through the haze of words and accretions of well-meaning standards, we have to deal with each other as people. Systems so large and burdensome as to obscure this, in effect dehumanizing us, must come under our scrutiny from time to time, tedious as that is, so we can dismantle and radically change them. 

In the case of EWU and the T2T, the program promised individualized planning and discussions of actual requirements, as opposed to boilerplate verbal ones, and the rationale behind them--none of which ever happened. The mentor placement and observations only belatedly did, and barely in time. Messaging for everything from course organization to the purpose of meetings was inadequate, to the point that the head of the department called much of what was left by Spring quarter “busy work” in a more-than-usually-unprepared call to explain the dropping of the final project, the dreaded edTPA, by WA state government. 

We read no books, but only bits and pieces of articles and chapters, aside from one textbook on special education. 

"Reflection" was the catch-all used to justify much of the writing we did, but I would want to see a teaching program where that reflection is balanced by quality instruction, rather than, as it is when the threshold for entry is practically nonexistent, the blind leading the blind. 

For many of us, completing the elementary course of study was an end-around, not what we intended to teach, namely middle school or high school. Again, all that is needed to do so is passing a test, once the basic certification is granted by the state board. Thus, offering separate courses of study dedicated specifically to teachers going into early grades, art, music, PE, etc. as well as middle school or high school subject areas, to say nothing of more innovative schools where the subjects are integrated and project-based, would make much more sense than the baggy blend of material we got. The most valuable aspect of the program, potentially, the wisdom of experience, is possible only in practice, not in lecture. At best, the knowledge of elders is imperfectly conveyed by media and technology-- particularly when most of us don't know how to use it effectively.

For students of any age to do well, for them to like you, means being yourself--which parts of yourself, though? Is stubbornness and rebelliousness, thinking you know how a class should be taught because you know what good teaching looks like and what it feels like to learn, and if neither is evident here, you think you had better say so--is that part of yourself a pro or con, once you've bought into the pretension to be a teacher? And that thesis-level claim above, that we should be taking care of teachers the way we do students, starting from the relationship, the social and emotion as well as socio-economic aspects that unions usually deal with: is that infantilizing and counterproductive for the profession in its way? 

If, as seems plain, it all comes down to the actual vibe of a school or classroom and how we create that, how nearly what we do resonates with what we say, the same goes for the larger narrative: political, economic, and so on. It's all dismal right about now; it's mean to carp and complain about this tiny fragment of the whole. And yet, if we can't get teaching to go better than this, we're that much further from telling the larger narrative aright. The problem of ed reform is the old problem: how to talk about that which transcends speech. A word like Marzano's "withitness" is about the best we in the profession have to work with, until the profession takes notice of better, older, wiser guides. The same goes for the prospects of union representation, and the perception thereof by the parents and public, after this year especially, within the larger field of workers’ movements. To paraphrase: who teaches the teachers? We teachers are all responsible--all complicit, if you like--and all in need of learning together.

As of now, that's about all I can say. After a lost year, I hope to begin recovering time for those who would go down the same path. Pushing back, because otherwise, the broken-down program lumbers along. In spite or because of accreditation reviews by the box-checkers' box-checkers--who can I talk to about that? I worry the EWU T2T will look fine on paper, but the actual experience for those in the program will go unnoticed. How poorly requirements are communicated. How limited their feedback and follow-through. The widespread sense of busy work. Inordinate requirements, the distance between what’s written and what we actually need. Working that out in real time, making it up as they go. Did someone mention that they revamped once already, a couple years ago? How? And if it were re-revamped, would that be according to some state penalty/mandate? Because of complaints or failures? To try to compete with the likes of Whitworth and Gonzaga? And if they could rework it properly, what would that look like? Personnel changes? Simply doing more of what they claim to be doing? A total overhaul of their methods? By any measure they need improvement. 

And yet they, we, lumber along. Why change if there’s no consequences, no accountability? The logical endpoint of public schools underserving students all the way along comes full circle, when those students set themselves to become teachers in the ed program of the public university. Of course, if that were the full story, we'd be forever incapable of raising our students to the ever-falling standard. Thankfully there is something in us forever free of the dismal cycle. 

We reflect our own education and cobble something together from our own slipshod experiences. A bummer of a chicken and egg. Breaking out of it would mean giving more students the individualized attention they need, modifying the traditional classroom thereby to make it more worthwhile for all--this is exactly what EWU says they’re doing in the program and doesn’t actually do, so far as I can see, but only pushes students through, modifying the requirements as needed until they pass. Something much closer to that vision is what we do get to do thanks to the size and structure of The Community School where I work now. 

Still, people come to teaching wanting to change lives and the world. This activism inevitably means politics is already present in schools as in every other sphere. Polarization has come to the school boards as well as to every other office on the ballot. Is it the end of democracy, or is it the point of inflection at which some reversal is possible, the evidence of some ground already regained, as people start to care? How are we working to make it be the latter? As it is, the rhetoric of neutrality and objectivity is unconvincing, just as radicalism is far more rhetoric than reality. Schools and the military, the last bastions of our democratic institutions. What does that say about us?

So I've been writing and reading again. It may be unimaginative, but I propose let's learn from ancient Athens, Renaissance Italy, and Tocqueville's America, besides Frederick Douglass, WEB Du Bois, and The Dawn of Everything closer to the present. Starting with Meno and its chronological follow-ups and then a dialogue of choice? How better to rethink the work of schools from the ground up? Reading with parents, students, subs and staff, and then working up a dialogue of our own. Cultivating genius, as Gholdy Muhammad says. 

And a new downtown campus for TCS wouldn't hurt! 

The Frog Prince, or Iron Henry

The Frog Prince, or Iron Henry

In the garden was the princess, playing with a yellow ball. It was meant for juggling but she had only the one, so she played by throwing the ball up in the air and catching it, wondering whether it is more tranquil to make things up as you go along or to have the story laid out for you and merely tell it...as her thoughts wandered along such paths, the ball fell into the well with a splash. 

For a time, she was ready to cry. There was no way she could reach the water at the bottom of the well, and the ball was heavy. What if it had sunk? The old well had a bucket, but the rope was frayed and the bucket cracked. Still, she did not despair. She’d try what she could to get the ball back. 

The princess threw the bucket down the well, holding the rope, not trusting the old crank and winch. She hauled it back up after a moment and found nothing, just a few droplets of water running through. She tried again, and there was only a bit of moss, a tuft of green like a sponge. Down went the bucket once more.

All this time, as the girl fished for her ball, the birds in the trees were singing, and a frog was croaking somewhere nearby. Presently, she realized the croaking was echoing from the well, and it was getting louder. As the girl drew the bucket up this time, she found not only the frog, but her ball. 

The beloved heirloom was shiny and wet, but no worse for its fall into the well. The frog, too, shone damply and looked rather smug. With a croak he accepted the girl’s thanks, and she tucked the ball into a pocket, turning to go, only to find the frog’s eyes watching her expectantly.

She had already thanked the frog. What more could he want? And it wasn’t as though he’d actually helped rescue the ball, was it? She could imagine him pushing the ball up with his great green snout and plopping it into the bucket for her, then settling in beside it as the bucket rose from the dark depths, the light and birdsong getting clearer and brighter, and seeing her own face beaming with happy surprise...Surely that was absurd. But if she were the frog, the princess imagined she would have been in love at first sight just the same.

It must be said, the girl thought herself very beautiful, and so she was, in that moment. Her hair was shining, her face flushed, her eyes wide with relief and wonder. 

Rather than taking the frog back home with her, she promised to come back later and spruce up the old well where he lived. Much as the frog would rather go along with her, this was something, knowing should be back to visit. She never intended to return in person, though. She would send one of her handmaids to the carpenter or the mason, and they could do the repairs in the frog’s little home.

Even this, though, was soon forgotten, for the girl heard that a circus wagon had arrived in town. All thought of her promise was driven at once from her mind. And to be fair, not much thought had been given to it in the first place. The girl would remember only much later, when she felt the ball in her pocket, slightly damp, and then it was only with a twinge of regret. 

By then they were already on their way to town to see the circus: the girl and her father, with their servants in attendance. All of them were excited to see the show, but none of them as much as Iron Henry. In middle age now, he had served the little girl’s father since they were boys, and since the birth of the princes, he had looked after the daughter, taking her on walks in the woods and teaching her games. It was Iron Henry’s yellow juggling ball she was playing with that morning when she found the frog and made her thoughtless promise. 

In fact, little did she know, but for many years her father and Iron Henry had been training and planning to run away to join the circus. They swung on trapezes across the river, they rode on horses and bulls through the pasture. They tossed axes and knives into apples and pineapples above one another’s head, and naturally they became expert jugglers. Yet for all their hard work, Iron Henry and his master never had gone to join the circus. So it was with great delight, but with a secret sorrow, too, that they found front row seats whenever the circus came to town. 

As for Iron Henry’s name, the girl’s curiosity was never satisfied. Why was he called that? Many times she asked him, and he always told her a different story, but never anything that convinced her. “It’s for the gray hairs you’ve given me,” he’d say, or, “Because of the iron toes in my boots,” or even, “there’s iron bands around my heart, to keep it from breaking--but that was before you were born, don’t you worry about that.” 

Now, as their wagon creaked along through the town gate, the girl and Iron Henry tossed the yellow ball back and forth, and she asked him again about his name. “Why, Henry’s a name fit for a king!” he was saying with a smile, “and there’s more than one King Henry to prove it. Why shouldn’t it be good enough for me, even if it is Iron and not gold on the likes of me?” 

The girl pouted and threw the ball harder than she meant to, but somehow Iron Henry always caught it, no matter how fast or unexpected her toss. 

She looked around at all the splendid decorations as they arrived in the main square. All the townspeople had hung out flags and pennants, and there were fresh flowers in the windows of all the shops. The fountain at the center of the plaza had been covered in flower petals, and behind it they’d raised the jolly circus tent, strewn with glittering beads and patterned in red and white diamonds. The way in was open, a patch of black like the mouth of a whale, and lights winked inside as people took their places around the ring, which was still pitch black. 

Suddenly, whether it was the water of the fountain or the echoey sound of the crowd or that black mouth of the tent, or her own feeling of responsibility at last, something reminded the girl of her meeting with the frog who saved her ball from the well, and how she had promised to do something about his ramshackle house all neglected there in the clearing of the woods that edged the garden. 

The princess turned to tell Iron Henry, but he was gone. 

All alone and at a loss for what to do, she felt the reassuring weight of the ball in her pocket. The princess took it out and looked at it. A moment before the dark had been impenetrable, the same as looking into the bottom of the well, but holding the yellow ball, a dull gold in the gloom, she now began to be able to make out the shapes of things around her.

The burghers of the town were settling themselves like happy hens and contented house cats on their more comfortable seats near the ringside, while the common rabble jostled and stood as tall as they could in order to peer over the heads of their neighbors on the benches raised precariously all around the ring. Near where the princess stood, lost and gathering herself by the entryway, people queued haphazardly at the counter of the bar-and-grill erected on the spot by a few of the crafty circus people. Smells of melting cheese and foaming ale wafted out amid the clatter of frying pans and shouted orders. 

Cutting through this purposeful clamor and the aimless hubbub of the crowd came a ragged fanfare. It made up in sheer volume for its wrong notes and off-kilter tempo, and after a moment the princess made out the glint of trumpets and tubas across the dark expanse of the ring: the source of the dubious music, the town band, had begun to oompa and shrill its way in earnest through a traditional polka. By and by a few candles were brought out for the musicians to see the bandleader better, but if their playing improved, it was not very noticeable.

Still, the audience cheered for their giving them something to focus on, a place for their attention to occupy. A few people even began to dance.

Somewhere, the princess knew, the king her father and dear Iron Henry must be looking for her. They must be so worried! And for some reason, she thought again of the poor frog, all alone in his well: as alone without her as she was without them. 

She held the ball up, hoping that its color might make her more visible in the crowd. But even standing on tiptoe and reaching as high as she could, the princess hardly could have been seen any more than she could see past the townsfolk pressing around her. More and more of them were hurrying to take their places, or to haggle over food and drink, or to pick a careless pocket, or to whirl about their dance partner without another thought. 

The idea came to her to throw the ball up into the air. Surely it would catch Iron Henry’s eye then, wherever he was. And if he didn’t come to her side in the blink of an eye and catch the ball before it hit the ground, she’d be very shocked indeed. With a little shiver, though, she held back from her toss at the last moment. She was thinking of the frog who had saved the ball just that morning from being lost forever at the bottom of the cold dark well, and here she was about to cast it away. How could she be so reckless? She must tell Iron Henry at once, go back at once and repair the well as she’d promised. But how could she find him?

All this time, the princess had ben jostled and squished gradually farther and farther from the chaos by the entrance, where at least there had been the glare of the barbeques and little intermittent gleams of daylight from the curtained way in, and as the wild dancers weaved around her, she found herself moving towards the circus ring.

In a flash like lightning, only it was in her head, she caught a cuff on the ear from a particularly freewheeling girl not much older than herself, herself propelled by the overzealous dance partner of her heart or of the hour. So that her outflung hand slapped the princess across the face, and the princess’ own hand, outstretched before her, lost hold of the ball. 

When she recovered a little, she saw it: high above, pirouetting through the air. Pinging off of high dives and bounding along trapeze bars, the ball, it seemed, might never come down, until in a long graceful arc it swooped to the ground, rolling to a stop right in the center of the ring. 

She hurled herself forward, swimming through the press and dodging dancers, but as soon as it stopped moving, the ball was all but impossible to see in the center where no light reached. She kept her eye on the place it must be, though, and pushed towards it with all her might.

Here and there in the crowd some people must have caught a glimpse of a bright something tracing its path overhead as they happened to be looking around the tent, tapping their feet to the music. The band members saw it fall, and the waltz they had been playing came to a discombobulated halt. People were pointing and shushing their neighbors, bidding them look at what no one could quite see. A hush fell over the tent where before had been all kinds of sounds. Dancers bumped into one another and held their partners still, holding their breath, as everyone thought it was the circus show starting at last after their makeshift entertainment. 

In the stillness it was suddenly much easier for the princess to grope her way forward, and she realized with a start that she’d slipped past not just the farthest-forward partakers in the dance but beyond the front row seats. She ducked under the rope ringing the empty space for the act.

In the silence, just one sound could be heard clearly, though it had been there all along--the burble of the fountain outside, a sound like sunlight in the darkness.

In the open space the girl stumbled forward, the vision of water trickling down in daylight all she could see, though it was only in her mind, of course. She pictured a neatly repaired awning over the well, with a neatly wound rope about a neatly oiled winch. Somehow the fallen stones of the coping were cleared of moss and remounted in their places, though she had hardly been able to lift them just that morning. And a brightly varnished bucket, brimming with water that trickled over the sides, was hanging neatly over the well where the water ran splashing cheerfully in the depths. And peering over the edge, green as soft moss and with a lily flower tucked under one side of his chin like a fiddle for her, she saw her frog.

So reaching for the juggling ball the princess’ hand met another hand reaching out in the darkness, too. Astonished, she felt something cold and slimy in her palm, even as that warm and rough and familiar palm closed over hers. In her hand, whether summoned by the promise she’d envisioned so fully kept or swimming there through hidden watercourses underground that linked well and fountain, (or brought by some resolve of  his own, secretly stowed about her own person), she saw she held the frog. And there before her knelt the loyal servant, Iron Henry, releasing her hand and picking up the yellow ball. A spotlight shone on them, which her father had persuaded the circus master to turn on after they’d split up to look for her. All this happened in a moment.

And in that same moment or a split second after, a tiny fragment of time, all the princess’ old revulsion washed over her again, and she flung the frog away from her, only to see her guardian react as quick as ever, catching the poor creature as gently as he could, as if by instinct. To do so, he’d had to let go of the yellow ball, which neither of them noticed. 

For in that same instant, as it rolled underfoot forgotten, the princess leapt forward to keep Iron Henry from falling, bowled over as he was by the sudden transformation that took place as soon as the princess-flung frog struck him. It was a frog no more that he held, but a handsome prince. 

And whether it was the princess who caused it, or Iron Henry himself--for fairies and their magics can’t stand anything that’s iron--the spell that had been laid on the young man was broken at last. He and the princess fell in love at once, and Iron Henry’s heavy heart nearly burst with joy. He’d found his lost child and become the star of the circus, just as he’d always dreamed. 

As for the king, he gave his consent twice over: both his daughter to be married, and his oldest friend to take a well-deserved vacation. At his leisure, Iron Henry would go performing with the circus at all the towns where it stopped that holiday season in the land celebrating the royal wedding. And the princess and her prince with their own hands repaired the well, from which you can draw water to this day, and lived happily ever after. 

- A retelling after the Grimms, after Pullman, and before looking into Barfield's