As we’re almost through with 2013, I wanted to thank all the readers that have made BCE a success this year. We’ve had over 4,800 page views since we started in July with over 1,400 in each of the past two months! We’ve been retweeted by policy makers across Tennessee and had our work featured on a number of publications, both online and in print. This type of support has really solidified our belief that we are truly fulfilling a need here in Shelby County.
As the year closes, I want to leave our readers with two quotes that I think best sum up the work we do here at Bluff City Education and the work we hope that teachers everywhere will pursue:
“If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, write something worth reading and do something worth writing about.” Ben Franklin
Whether you are a current or former teacher, administrator, parent or student, you have already fulfilled both these criteria. Your experience with the great american education system deserves not only to be remembered in the future but heard in the present. Consider every successful social justice movement in the history of our country and the personal stories that drove them. It’s only when we tell these stories that things truly changes. Your story and your work, wherever you happen to be, deserves to be written about and deserves to be remembered.
“I learned that courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” Nelson Mandela
As teachers, we so often fear what will happen when we chose to share our story. What will our colleagues think? Will we be ridiculed? Dismissed out of hand? Ignored completely? What I’ve learned is that this fear never goes away. They key is to push past it and have the courage to speak out on behalf of our schools and our kids even when we are afraid. We are the ones with the knowledge of how the policies our leaders adopt truly impact our kids. With that in mind, we can’t afford NOT to share our stories!
So to teachers everywhere, your stories deserve to be told and you must have the courage to tell them. Thanks for a great 2013, looking forward to what 2014 will bring!
By Jon Alfuth
Follow Bluff City Education on Twitter @bluffcityed and look for the hashtag #iteachiam and #TNedu to find more of our stories. Please also like our page on facebook.
The fear is actually reprisal by the Tennessee Department of Education when we criticize policies put in in place by its leaders. The fact that policy makers are retweeting your blog posts is actually what makes me less likely to share anything publicly here. The policy makers are not going to have their minds changed (their beliefs have been firmly put in place by campaign contributions from corporate interests). We need to get those policymakers out of office and get better ones in.
I’m all for a massive uprising of teachers, but it doesn’t seem to be happening in Tennessee (except in Knoxville!), and a teacher standing up here or there is easily picked off. It’s well and good to say you do not fear speaking out, but what if that means you can’t teach anymore? Teachers need to pick their battles. We need parents to stand up and decry the constant testing and test prep of their children, because it has truly grown to abusive levels.
Parents: OPT OUT of the state tests (AND the “benchmark testing”)! Don’t believe them when they tell you you “can’t” do that. DEMAND it.
Sorry you feel that way. Personally I believe we need to ensure a strong teacher voice is present regardless of who is in elected office. If we don’t have this it won’t matter who we elect, we still won’t be present at the table.
And I firmly believe that we need the voices of teachers on both sides of the issue if we are to have a productive conversation about how to improve education in America as long as those voices aren’t just speaking out in opposition but are actually offering alternative solutions. The offer to share your opinion is a standing one, just let me know if you ever want to take advantage of it.
Certainly we need a strong teacher voice, but it is a lot easier to be vocal about your opinions if your job isn’t in jeopardy as a result of your sharing them. Which is another reason it is a shame tenure for teachers no longer truly exists in our state.
I’d really rather do a post on the excessive testing in our schools and what it is doing to children than on the topic you suggested. If you wouldn’t mind.