do hard things.

I've been involved with our local teacher's union for the past two years. This year, I've stepped into the new role of Social Media Chair, so I'm excited to stay connected. Additionally, this year, our co-presidents asked me to give the welcome address to our membership. I said yes, because I knew it would push me. 

They asked me just a few days ago. On the drive home that day, I was thinking about how I could go back and decline, and I could sit in the audience and just be passive and not have to stress. But in my heart and my gut, I knew I wanted to give the speech. So I said to myself, "Okay, just wait and see how you feel in a few hours."

Well, I still felt the same, but I knew I had already said yes, and I've been working on doing what I say I'm going to do, to show integrity through my words and actions and not go back on something. So I just stuck with it. But I was nervous. Up until about noon on the day of (my speech was to be around 2:30) I was fine, I could set the nerves aside and just go about my buisiness. But then from around noon -2:30 (including when I did a practice read with a good friend) I was so nervous. Sweaty palms and racing heart nervous.

But then I got up there and did my thing. When you do the hard things, it's exhilarating. And it's rewarding.

I wanted to share my speech with you and also some of the tweets and texts I got, not because I am trying to brag, but because I want to encourage all of you to do the hard thing. Do them! If it's hard, it's making you grow, and when you do those hard things, you are rewarded in ways you can't imagine.

So, here is the speech, and after, the notes from friends.

Hi there! Welcome back to the 2016-2017 school year! My name is Michelle Brezek; I’m a teacher and Literacy Coach here at Heritage and the Social Media chair for the South Berwyn Education Association. On behalf of the SBEA, it’s such an honor to welcome both returning and new teachers and staff to our amazing school district!

As I was thinking about what I was going to say to you today, I got to thinking about who were are, that is, the teachers in D100. We are passionate and dedicated educators, innovators on a global stage, and sometimes school supply junkies. We are multicultural, bilingual and inclusive of all. We are writers and shoe-tiers, mentors, and coteachers. We are athletes and coaches. We are sometimes or always obsessed with our craft. We are nurses with cough drops and social workers listening ears. We are researchers and problem solvers. We are jokesters, too, we want to have fun! We believe that in teaching and learning, anything is possible, especially when you look at it a different way, perhaps with a different mindset. This year, we will create possibilities and a future that no one has yet to dream, and we’ll be able to do that because of the talent, excitement, and knowledge that returns to our district each year.

Which brings me to you, new teachers. It’s only the opening institute day, and so many of us have yet to meet one another, but I’m sure I can speak for all when I say we are so happy to have you here. We can’t wait to uncover the gifts you will bring to the lives of our students and everyone here in D100.

Helen Keller once said, “Alone we can do so little, but together we can do so much.” I couldn’t agree more. As the year unfolds and our relationships grow, we will have so much to offer - to our students, to one another, to ourselves. It’s when we are united and working together that our efforts really flourish, with huge returns in student achievement and teacher engagement in the work we love so much.

In the spirit of collaboration and unity, I hope you’ll take me up on this proposal: Open your classroom doors this year. Invite your team over to watch you teach. Get into other classrooms in your building and around the district. I know that it’s easier to not do this, you know, because sub plans are just another thing to do, but I can promise you, you’ll come back to your classroom refreshed with new ideas, new perspectives, and new energy.

In addition to collaboration, dream those big dreams, but don’t stop there. Don’t save a hope or a dream in your head or your heart for one day, some day. Tell your friends about them! Write them down! Tweet it out to the world! It’s when we enroll others in our hopes and dreams that they become so powerful we’re able to manifest them into our lives and the lives of our students.

Let’s make this the year we are all open to something new. Let’s look at things in a new light and consider different perspectives. Let’s dream new possibilities, declare them to be true, and then take action to achieve them. Together we can make this our best year yet!

It's so not easy to do the hard thing. Colleen, thank you for capturing the moment for me and always being one of my biggest cheerleaders!

These friends are always in my corner, it's a big part of the reason I can say yes to the scary, hard things:

   

And two texts from two of the other Literacy Coaches in the district. Has anyone told you recently that they are proud of you? I mean, perhaps your parents have, and while that is amazing and rewarding, the feeling you get when a colleague or friend or even a significant other tells you that will blow your mind! And a request for your speech to be published? I am so thankful for such a supportive community here in my district!

It's a new school year. I'm in a new building - I'm back at the middle school! I'm teaching a 7th-8th grade ELA class and an 8th grade section of Challenge Based Learning. I'm also a homeroom teacher to some awesome 6th graders and have I have some coaching periods too.

I'm once again out of my comfort zone, working with new people and actually team leader, too, which I haven't done before, and I don't even realize the things I'm missing. But I'm doing the hard things, so I know I'm growing.

What are the hard things you're setting yourself up for this year?

Leave a comment and let's keep the conversation going!

One last thank you, to our keynote yesterday, Dave Stuart for an awesome speech, about writing, about teaching, and about keeping life in balance. "Do hard things" was all him, applied easily to my life, and I'm sure, all my reader's lives, too!

year 12 reflections

Crazy, I've been teaching for 12 years. TWELVE! This year, I finished my second as a Literacy Coach. Sometimes I feel like I'm really doing a great job, other times I feel like the school would be just fine without me. Either way, I'm going back for a third year next year. But before I get to that, here are some year 12 reflections so I can remember this journey I've been on!

Best Memories

Well, first, my principal encouraged Christine and I to present with her at the Illinois Reading Council Conference this year and we did! Although I was really nervous, I did enjoy sharing and I'm already signed up to present again this October! Anyone going to the IRC? I'm presenting with Colleen about using Social Media to personalize your PD. It'll be great fun, please join us!

The next one was getting to mentor two great teachers:

As a coach, it seems pretty natural that mentoring is one of my favorite things to do! While there were definitely many hard days, sharing the sense of accomplishment they felt when the finished their year was awesome. They are such great girls, and I'm so happy to call them my friends now!

I'm also super excited that I started a Blogging Club.

The kids who joined me and completed the year really do such a fantastic job! I know next year will be even better - there's already a few kids who I know will join us, and with some kids returning, they will make great mentors to the new kids. Additionally, I'd love to give the kids some detailed mini-lessons to make their blogs even better!

Family Writing Project

I got a slow start to this and didn't begin until after Spring Break, but once we got going, this was an awesome experience! Parents joined their kiddos after school for a Writing Workshop. We ended the six-week project with an Author's Chair. Parents and students read their writing and we shared great food to celebrate. I'm really looking forward to expanding this opportunity next year and have a few more teachers join me in giving the experience!

Missed Opportunities

Our fourth grade team has done a PHENOMENAL job on this year's summer reading project. Dennis set up a new gmail just for this project to communicate with families - last I heard they had over 200 parent email addresses there. Parents are already emailing in pictures of their kids reading - reading right when they wake up, on a plane to a family trip, and at the public library - and this is only our first Monday of break!

I put this in my missed opportunities because as Literacy Coach, I'm not sure why I wasn't driving this initiative, but honestly, I don't think I would have done it as well as Dennis, Michelle, and Alexa had. So thank you all, for doing such an amazing job on this. Our students are so, so lucky to have such dedication on our Emerson staff!

Game Changers
Twitter - definite game changer. This year I really got into sharing on Twitter and in doing so, I've connected with some great people. I've done a few Twitter Chats, too. It's so awesome to collaborate with teachers, literacy coaches, and reading specialists near and far!

Union Rep - I was the union rep for the first time this last year. Sometimes it was really, really hard. I always want to do my best to negotiate with our admins about the teacher's thoughts and feedback, but sometimes I take things too personally and...well, I'll just tell you. Cry. So I'm so excited to have a partner in crime next year, someone who will help balance me out! But, being union rep gave me a whole new lens to look at things through. Definite game changer.

Focus

I had a huge focus on Guided Reading this year. I wanted to learn more about it, and then, Christine and I presented what we were learning with the staff. This also helped me create a checklist for observing classrooms, and I was able to see this work being executed across the building. I know our work will continue to grow next year, too.... I'm really looking forward to our kinder teachers using Jan Richardson's Pre-A lesson plan to give our youngest kiddos just what they need to become successful readers!

This year we also focused a lot on creating rubrics to guide and evaluate student learning. We are moving towards Standards Based Grading, so reading On Your Mark (Guskey) really helped me understand why I spent many common plans with teachers talking about student work should look like. In some cases, classroom teachers used the rubrics and then revised them to make them even better for next year. I'm looking forward to expanding this work next year!

Forgot

Maybe not forgot, but didn't do enough.... Our school has a Sunshine club, it's for teachers - not sure if it's a club or what to call it? Either way, it's made of teachers and we plan socials for the staff. It got off to a late start, we didn't ask for a big enough donation from each of the staff, and we didn't do much with it. Next year, I hope to get a good group of teachers together to plan monthly outings so we can have some time away from all the work of teaching and just enjoy one another's company!

Reflections

Speaking of socials, one thing I've learned about myself is that a positive school culture is so, so important to me. Yes, salary is an important piece of why teachers work where they do, but I believe people will keep working where they do - no matter what the pay - if they are happy to be where they are. So, I'm hoping to be part of a great Sunshine group that keeps the positivity going all year long!

Something else I've realized: I'm not super qualified to mentor kinder teachers. I don't know enough about that grade level to be helpful. Of course, there are definitely many ways I can support, but I found myself outsourcing for many questions Gissel had. So, in the future, I'll stick to the intermediate grades!

How was your year? Please share your reflections by writing a post about your year and then linking it up with me here!

An InLinkz Link-up

agree to disagree

I met Katie when I was a very young buck. (Is that a saying?) During our first year, I taught sixth grade and she taught eighth.

I don't remember becoming super close with her until a few months into the school year. One of her students, Jasmine, was upset that her brother, Petie, had her shoes. Or maybe the other way around, but Petie was in my class and Jasmine was in Katie's. And so the kids had to talk and then Katie and I really started talking too. And then the rest is history! You can imagine how we easily bonded over our grueling first year of teaching - the being nervous of our first evaluations, the tears over classroom management gone wrong, and the joys of coaching kids in sports and holding after school clubs.

Oh - some pics of Petie....

When he was a sixth grader and we were at Jasmine's Quince...

And then I think this was sometime after he finished eighth grade, though it's kinda hard to tell. Anyways, we are still facebook friends, and I just love that kid!

But I digress. Back to the point about me and my best friend. Sorry, feeling a little nostalgic there!

So Katie still works in Phoenix and I'm over here in Chicago. We have been the best of friends all along the way. We talk on the phone at least three times a week, I ask her for advice, she vents to me and vice versa. We share all our joys and frustrations as coaches - she's an Instructional Coach and I, of course, am a Literacy Coach.

But then there's this other part of education that we don't talk about. We have kinda agreed to disagree about some topics, like standardized testing and unions.

Michelle believes: Kids shouldn't take so many standardized tests!
Katie believes: Test the kids till they cry! (She said that, jokingly of course, but she believes in standardized tests way more than I do!)

The other day I posted this excellent article. I happened to talk to Katie a few days later and tests came up. I said, "Oh, did you read that article? Wasn't the blueberry metaphor just perfect?"

She tells me, "I already know what all the articles you post are going to say, so I just don't read them!"

Michelle believes: Unions allow teachers to have a voice in policy
Katie believes: Unions protect ineffective teachers

Katie just posted this article on her facebook page - about how AZ is underfunding it's schools and their teachers are the lowest paid. I wanted to comment right away and tell her, "You need to work in a unionized state where teachers have a voice!" But I didn't. I bit my tongue. Well, until today, when I posted a much nicer version of it.

See... I have this amazing best friend. She's such a fabulous educator, she's so stinkin' smart and can talk me down when I so mad I'm boiling on the inside. She inspires me and makes me laugh and I'm so proud that we share our teaching roots together. But, we also disagree very passionately about some topics, so we just don't talk about them.

I know you may be thinking, "But why? Doesn't it hurt your feelings that you can't talk about that stuff? Those are your passions, your beliefs!"

You see, we've tried to talk about this stuff. One day, I happened to be talking about it at Hektor's, and he was listening in on the conversation. We ended up having to agree to disagree and get off the phone - we were both getting so upset! As soon as I hung up he said, "That's what you two talk about?" He thinks we're such nerds, but really, we're both just so passionate but on opposite sides of the spectrum.

You might think it's weird of us, but it works. I seriously love this girl so much, and am so thankful every day that's she's been a part of this journey we call life. So, I'm willing to leave one little topic off the table to continue to be besties with this girl, the girl who just commented on a facebook thread to me, "You're dumb but you're cute!" Hey, I'll take it!

What about you and your teaching bestie? Anything off the table?

on your mark book study, session 3

Hi again, and welcome to the last post for the book study!

So I'm kinda really embarrassed. Because I did a lot of the bad stuff mentioned in regards to grading from Chapter 8. The stuff that created compliance with kids? Yep, totally did that when I taught middle school. I'm going to tell you all about it, but it's because I read this book about being vulnerable (I'm actually holding a book study for it in July if you want to read!) and I realized that it's okay to make mistakes as long as:

So here I am to tell you how I screwed up and share new ways of doing things, based on Guskey's book, On Your Mark.

Guskey keeps reminding us to ask ourselves, "What is the purpose of grading?" The answer is that it is to reflect student learning.

Say it with me: The purpose of grading is to reflect student learning.

So, if you have a kid turn work in late and so you give him or her half credit (because it's late) then does the grade really reflect learning? No.

That's my story.

It started because during my 7th year of teaching, I had this student. We'll call him Steve. Steve came to my Language Arts class for a whole quarter. He turned in no work....until the last week of the quarter. Then, he ended up with a B in my class and it really got me so so mad. At the time, I was thinking, "Other kids worked so hard all quarter; they were here on time, they participated, they did every assignment on time, and they got B's. Why does Steve deserve a B?"

Well, he did get a B, but then I changed my policy. All late work - if it was one day late or three months late - could earn only half credit. With the new information I know now, I realize I did this so kids would comply with my policies. This policy definitely did not create a reflection of student learning when I passed out report cards at the end of the next quarter.

Remember, I tell you this bad, bad story because I'm not perfect and I'm learning. So go easy and #dontjudgeme :-) Or judge me in a good way because I'm telling you the truth and not pretending I am this perfect teacher, right?

There are other ways that teachers use grading to get kids to comply:

1. Turn in your syllabus, signed, for 10 points tomorrow.
2. Bring ____ (supplies) for extra credit.
3. Be on time/attend all classes for full attendance credit.
4. Bring a toy/canned food item/___ for extra credit.
5. Turn in your extra hall passes at the end of the quarter for extra credit.

Now, I didn't do all of those, but I'm guilty of a few more.

Guskey's solution? Mark the assignment as incomplete and then require the child to attend some extra class (lunchtime, after school, on Saturday) to make up the work. This sends the messages that:

1. The work we assign you is important.
2. You can't just get off the hook so easy by not doing it.

Guskey notes that in order to staff these lunchtime / after school / Saturday work sessions requires extra support and funding. In the short term, it will take some time to teach the kids that you mean business, but in the long term, the benefits are so much better and kids are more inclined to get their work done on time.

Here's the thing though: schools are underfunded everywhere (that's a rant for another day) so many administrators tell their staff, "Sure, you can hold those after school hours for kids to make up work." (Implying that teachers will work extra hours outside of contract time for no additional compensation.) Then, some teachers do it and others don't. Which is fine, but it makes the teachers who don't staff those homework rooms look like they care less, when that's not the case at all. Teachers should be compensated for their time outside of contract hours. Like Guskey says, 

"Such a policy typically requires additional funding for the necessary support mechanisms, of course. It requires facilities and staffing, and may even mean additional student transportation if sessions are held after school. But in the long run, the investment can save money. Because this regular and ongoing support helps students remedy their learning difficulties before they become major problems, schools tend to spend less time and fewer resources in major remediation efforts later on." (p. 99)

So this is my big take-away from this book. Overall, thought it was a great read, and I'm really glad our district is moving towards this kind of grading. I think reporting student learning separate from learner traits (responsibility, punctuality, etc) is a really important piece.

What do you think?

An InLinkz Link-up

sunday letters

Join us every other Sunday and share your letters! Write to people or inanimate objects - anything you wish...just don't forget to link them up below!

Dear Mike Ditka,
Thanks for showing up today for the race! We had such a fun time and are already excited for next year's race!
Cheers,
A fair weather runner

Dear Self,
Next time you want to run a 5K - train a little? Luckily you had the bf to pace you, but that was rough. Also, the fastest 5K you've have in ages!
Sincerely,
Couch Potato

Dear Holly and Siblings,
Glad you could all come and stay with me before the run! I had tons of fun, but as usual, there's never enough time. So, perhaps our paths will cross again in the near future, but until then, I have these pics to hold onto the memories
Love,
bff

Dear NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia,
Thank you for not backing down to the Morning Joe guy this week on MSNBC! It's so great to have a leader of our union that gets it!
Sincerely,
A Proud Union Rep

 
Dear Jan Richardson,
I'm so excited to tackle some of the lesson plans in your book, The Next Step in Guided Reading. I'm learning so much about helping my second grade readers improve their skills and I owe it all to you!
Gracias!
A Grateful Teacher

 
Dear Grad School Students,
I'm sorry (last time!) for not explaining what a thematic unit was! and that I didn't realize this until 9pm the day before the assignment was due! Just goes to show that when it's your first time teaching, things don't go as planned. Anyways, I'm glad the chocolate chip cookies helped a little last Thursday!
See you in two weeks!
Teach

#mybad

Dear Illinois Reading Council (IRC) Conference,
I can't wait to get there next week! What's awesome this year is that it's going to be my first time presenting (Our session is called More than the Common Core: Empowering Students with Authentic Literacy) but also we will have a whole pack of Literacy Specialists there again this year. Super excited to see my favorite reading researchers and learn lots of new stuff!
See ya soon!
An excited Literacy Coach

Excited to read your letters!

 

An InLinkz Link-up

sunday letters

It's time for the Letters Linky! Have you linked up yet? It's super easy - just write some letters to your family, friends, colleagues, or any inanimate object. Then, link your Letters blog with mine! It's a great way to wrap up the weekend and also start thinking about the week to come!

Dear Negotiations Team,
Thank for all your hard work in negotiating a new contract for us. I know it's so many hours but I really appreciate it. Especially the clause about Academic Freedom that has been written in. I'm hearing from teachers who are working in schools where every moment of their day is scripted. That's not teaching!
Best,
A proud union rep

Dear Graduate Students,
Thank you for being open to learning and trying new things. I bring Best Practices to you and encourage you to try them out in your classrooms!
Love,
Teach


Dear Boyfriend,
It's our third year two-and-a-half year anniversary this weekend - the third weekend of college football! Thank you for reminding me last night! I love everything about us and look forward to what the future brings!
Love, Dud


Dear JennieB,
Well, I did have a nice letter about how I'm not a blog bully, but then I saw this on your blog:

So it makes me happy! I'm so glad we work right across the hall from one another! You #thebest !

Hugs,
Your neighbor

not a bully! :-)

Dear Blog,
I miss you. I never have time for you anymore (well, once a week, but I think about you far more than that!) Hopefully towards the end of October I'll be less busy and we can spend more quality time together. Looking forward to it!
xo,
a barely-there blogger


Dear Chicago Weather,
It's cold and I have my heat on! I was ready for cooler temps but I was thinking I'd sleep with the windows open for a few weeks first. I did not have this in mind!
Looking forward to a warm-up!
A Confused Chicagoan

#trudat

Dear Bruce Rauner,
I know you want to pull a Scott Walker on the state of Illinois, but I'm not buying what you have to say! The dismantling of tenure and pouring more money into charter schools are not what is best for education. If I have any say in it, you will not be moving into the Illinois Executive Mansion!
Grrrr, <-- What other angry closings can I use?
Michelle

Dear Teachers,
You have to get out and vote! Please be informed and vote for what's best for teachers and students! (Out of these two, it's Quinn!) Get to the poles in November! You're registered, right?
Do it!
A very concerned teach

Dear Christina,
You were the super nice high school girl at UIC College Prep who helped me on Thursday and I just wanted to tell you that talking to you has made me think even more about teaching at the high school level! Since leaving middle school, this has been on my mind, but having a super nice conversation with you today as you helped me get my classroom unlocked was inspiring. Thanks for being so helpful and for showing me I just might love to teach older kids, too!
Excited!
A future high school teacher


Dear Buzzfeed,
I am a white girl and even though I do all of these things you mentioned, I don't consider myself 'basic,' so take it easy! I was laughing so hard reading this, and today I bought a pumpkin candle and am already planning my trip to the pumpkin patch! Don't judge me!
Sincerely,
*sophisticated* white girl

That's all for me today! Enjoy the rest of your weekend and link your letters here!

An InLinkz Link-up

ignorance is (was) bliss

Today is day 3 of the Big Time Blogging Challenge. Glad you're here to participate along with us! Remember to link your post at the end of this one and don't forget the rule of 3 - comment on the two posts before yours and the one after!

Also, Kerry over at Learning out LOUD, created a hashtag for us. Use #BTBC14 if you post your blogs on any social media platforms and all our posts will be collected together! Happy Blogging!

I can't get this image out of my head:

I found it through Larry Ferlazzo's twitter feed - he writes a great blog and then has his "best of" posts that go way back, and this image was in one of them.

When I got on Twitter, I followed Diane Ravitch right away, which led me to the Badass Teachers Association (BATs). The BATs just turned one year old and already have close to 50,000 members! The Badass Teachers Association is "for every teacher who refuses to be blamed for the failure of our society to erase poverty and inequality, and refuses to accept assessments, tests, and evaluations imposed by those who have contempt for real teaching and learning."

And so reading all the articles and news I get from the BATs and Diane Ravitch, I feel like that little guy in the image up top that originally prompted this post - because now that I know what I know about the attack on public education - I can't get it out of my mind. Everywhere I look is colored by what I've learned!

I sat with a group of Chicagoland bloggers on Monday at lunch, and teachers were asking, "Why are there so many tests?" PARCC twice (or more) each year, plus the district benchmarks as a formative on our progress, plus the others we do because they give us good information about kids - like the Fountas and Pinnell Benchmarking for reading levels.

Don't misunderstand me: I'm all for accountability. But the feds who impose these tests and the labeling and dangle RTTT money at us (when we're facing budget crises) for rapid implementation of CCSS and all that goes with them act like, we, as professional teachers don't care about the progress of our students. We are professional educators! Of course we are going to use assessment to inform our instruction! Of course we want our students to achieve at high levels!

And all the attacks on our due process rights and the unions? It's really just too much. Read this great article about why we need to have due process - in education it protects our professional decisions to educate our students in the ways we believe are best. And another article here that will remind you about how the unions work for better working conditions for it's teachers, which in turn leads to higher student achievement.

So readers, if you want to stay in the blissful state of unawareness with with the attack on public education and the push to privatize, do not read Diane Ravitch and do not follow the BATs. But, if you have any interest in learning more, check them out. Even though we don't have as much money as the 1% using their large bank accounts to lobby for education reform that is opposite of what is best for kids, we can speak truth to power in our numbers, in our 99%!

Now it's time for the challenge!

Don't forget to use our hashtag: #BTBC14!

An InLinkz Link-up

this is why

I've been mulling posting this for a whole day now. Other bloggers out there: do you sometimes feel like you're pushing buttons when you post controversial topics? Do you just do it anyways? Does the blog sit in draft in your Blogger dashboard? The thing is, I can't not be myself or not share my opinions. So I guess it's time to click the publish button...

I taught in Arizona for six years. We had a "union" there. I paid my dues, but it didn't really stand for much. The spring of 2009 was my last year there, and that same year, the board of education in the district I worked for extended the school day (without increasing pay to teachers) on it's own behalf. There were no negotiations, there was no asking input from teachers. Just done and done.

At the time, and even over the course of the last five years, I've often thought that tenure didn't matter. Believe me, the last thing I want to do is come off as arrogant (and that is not my intention here), but I am an effective teacher who *loves* her job. I am reflective in my practice and always strive for my best. Because of that, I never really thought tenure was any big deal. To me, if you did your job well, tenure would naturally follow. But then I began to read more about all the corporate reformers and about how some people want to do education cheaper, which might mean letting go of experienced master teachers and their hefty salaries (I can't believe I'd call my salary hefty!) so newbie teachers could be hired in their place at a much better rate.

These thoughts come on the heels of the Vergara v. California  where judge Treu ruled that teacher tenure is unconstitutional because it causes students to have a poor quality of education (especially students who are low income and of minority status). 

Then this happened yesterday in USA Today:

Yes, that's a child in the trash can.

The advertisement says: "Sue. Unions are protecting incompetent teachers by keeping them in the classroom. This week, a California court ruled that protection of incompetent teachers is unconstitutional. Can't change the laws to protect kids? Then sue. It worked in California."

Let's get a few things straight about tenure:

First, tenure doesn't give teachers a job for life. It gives us due process so we can't be fired for some random reason and be fired without even so much as a conversation about why. Take for example, a teacher I heard about from a colleague: works at a charter school and was let go because, "the school is going in a different direction."

Because this teacher works for a charter school whose teachers do not belong to a union, the school doesn't even owe her explanation. I doubt that they offered professional development or coaching to help her improve her practice. They didn't even have to explicitly state why they were firing her. They could just let her go and be on to the next.

In a school that is backed by a union, that would never happen. Due process would mandate that a teacher who was ineffective receive coaching to assist in improvement of practice. Time would be allotted for development of essential skills with coaching and feedback. And only at the end of all of that would the teacher be let go - if that teacher had not made adequate growth, then s/he would not return the following school year.

But being a part of a union is much, much more than that. I feel that I have my freedom of speech protected because of the union I am a part of.

When I taught middle school, I loved teaching a social justice unit with my students (this was built off of Freire's work). Essentially, we were studying groups who had power and how to change systems when other groups were marginalized. With union protections, I don't have to worry about whether or not my lessons went against what someone in admin thought. Have you every heard about the Mexican-American Studies ban in Tucson, Arizona a few years back? (Seems like it may be reinstated just this past school year...) Teachers wanted to teach relevant material to their students that was culturally responsive. But, the admin didn't think those studies were aligned with the "American way of life." Those teachers (who didn't have union protections) were fired and a law was passed so that those studies couldn't be taught further. How can we deny students knowledge of their culture because it isn't in line with someone's belief of what constitutes the American way of life?

Another: The fact that I sit writing this blog with the intention of publishing it to my network...the only reason I feel comfortable doing so is because of my union. My tenure allows for my free speech without repercussions. I can write and not worry that I may lose my job for respectfully voicing my opinions. Teachers in other states where there is little or no union support may not feel safe in a similar position. I can't imagine not being able to talk freely about my beliefs!

And the what's most important: our students. I can advocate for the best interest of kids that I see each day in my building. Running a school isn't cheap and state and federal governments are constantly slashing our budgets. As a teacher with union protection, I don't ever have to worry about asking for money for materials to best meet the needs of the students at my school. I don't have to worry about disagreeing best practice on a topic/philosophy/ curriculum choice with a colleague for fear that my job might be on the line. (See a great source here about difference in opinion and tenure.) A teacher's freedom of speech is protected by their union, which also means, if a special education teacher has a child with special needs on their case load, they don't have to feel uncomfortable asking for whatever accommodations that child needs (regardless of how inconvenient or expensive it may be for the district). I can't imagine trying to work without those kinds of protections. I can't see how teachers would feel safe to speak authentically on behalf of their students if they were not backed by a union.

A union gives the teachers a voice to the administration of the school district. Currently, our school district is negotiating our new contract with the teacher's union. The administration can't just have the teachers be at their will with any decision they make - there has to be compromise among both sides.

I just don't understand why people think tenure makes teachers bad or lazy. Are there ineffective teachers out there? Yes! Is that a causation of tenure? I think not! Pretty ironic how the highest performing state on the NAEP (Massachusetts) has a strong union while the lowest performing state (Mississippi) has no union support (source). The ruling in Vergara v. California would suggest the opposite to be true....

It's because of all of this (and lots more reasons) that I am taking on a new title next year - I'll be Emerson's Union Representative, and I couldn't be happier or more proud to do so. I believe in public education and I believe that teacher's unions want to protect high-quality instruction, not ineffective teachers. The fact that I have tenure allows me to be a great teacher and an advocate for kids...

Kids just like these third graders:

and these kinders:

and these soon-to-be middle schoolers:

and some amazing cheerleaders:

 and volleyball players:

and a homeroom that I still love to pieces:

Teacher tenure allows me to be at my best on behalf of my most important clients: my students.

If you want to stay more in the know of all that is going down with the corporate reformsters, check out the Badass Teacher's Association on Facebook and Twitter. Diane Ravitch also shares lots of info daily on her blog. 

That is all.