Rouge Forum

March 2007

Elizabeth Jaeger

 

I am one of five teachers from E.M. Downer Elementary – dubbed the Downer 5 -- who were removed from our classrooms because of our public opposition to scripted reading programs, invalid testing, and other unjust educational policies.  Seven years ago, I joined the staff of Downer School in the West Contra Costa Unified School District, a large urban district north and east of San Francisco.  Downer’s students are predominantly poor, non-native-English-speaking Latino children.  I was the upper grade literacy coordinator, working with both teachers and students.  We accomplished a lot in a short period of time – we developed a list of English Language Arts standards we hoped all 6th graders would meet; an accompanying curriculum to promote these standards; a Reading Block program in which we grouped students by reading level two hours per week and read short novels and related articles; and short-term Literacy Academy classes for struggling readers.  These programs were based on several principles – that print knowledge and understanding of text develop in tandem, that teachers can adjust instruction to provide more support for less proficient readers, and that literacy is constructed in social settings rather than in teacher-imposed isolation.

Then, in spring of 2001, our district adopted the Open Court reading series, a scripted program that tells teachers what to say and do at every moment.  The following fall, the district began a rigid implementation of this program, insisting that teachers cover every detail of the curriculum.  Required by the district to spend between two and three hours per day on Open Court instruction, teachers felt unable to include the literacy curriculum we had previously developed – curriculum that more fully addressed the needs and interests of our students.  Full of energy and by-and-large eager to learn, these students became victims of a system that refused to teach them in the way they learn best – actively, holistically, and cooperatively.

It is important to note here that not all teachers in our district fell victim to the heavy-handed implementation of Open Court.  Teachers in other schools told me that they were allowed great flexibility in use of the materials and that policing by outside consultants was minimal.  How did these schools differ from Downer?  They were located in more middle class neighborhoods with a greater percentage of white students.  The district shackled teachers of poor children with generally lower achievement to a curriculum that did not let them modify their teaching.  Teachers in more affluent schools could enrich the curriculum to emphasize higher level thinking and aesthetics.  These students had the opportunity to obtain an education which prepared them to assume demanding leadership roles.  Poor kids received an education that prepared them for McDonalds, McMilitary, and McPrison.

From the beginning I was vocal in my opposition to this adoption, but for several years I attempted to work within the system to make changes.  Eventually, I was assigned to a 6th grade classroom, apparently because the administration felt I would be less influential there.  I had not been a classroom teacher for twenty years and was completely unprepared for how much I’d grow to love it.  But although a different, less scripted curriculum was used at my grade level, I remained very concerned about the impact of Open Court on students and teachers.

In fall of 2005, several of my colleagues and I went to hear Jonathan Kozol speak.  We left knowing that we needed to become more radical in our approach – that we had to take a strong stand, whatever the consequences might be.  We selected three curriculum issues which we believed to be particularly egregious – extensive phonics instruction in 4th grade, ineffective and inefficient ELD testing, and useless professional development sessions – and we wrote a letter to our colleagues stating that, for the good of our students, we would no longer participate in these practices.

My colleagues and I thought long and hard about what our response to an oppressive curriculum would be.  We agonized over the letter we wrote to our other colleagues – whether to write it at all and then what to say and how to say it.  We prepared ourselves as best we could for whatever repercussions might come.

Within six weeks, we all received letters of reprimand and two of us, Lina Prairie and I, were removed from our classrooms and transferred to other sites.  Educators from around the country called and sent faxes; teachers, parents, and students protested our treatment, but to this day, the district has refused to comment, insisting that this is a personnel rather than a pedagogical matter.

The last day I was able to spend with my students was the day before Thanksgiving.  We ended the day with an Encouragement Circle during which time classmates had the opportunity to tell the student who had been selected for that week ways in which he was strong or improving.  When the circle was over, another student asked if they could have an Encouragement Circle for me.  One by one they talked about ways that I’d taught them and helped them.  I cried and they cried and then it was time for the day to end.

When we began our activism, I had no idea what the response of our colleagues would be.  Of course I hoped that many would join with us, forming a movement which might bring about significant change in district policy.  However, we were reluctant to actively recruit other teachers to sign our letter because we knew it was a risky act and equally reluctant to speak with parents for fear of being accused of inciting them to action.  As we might well have predicted, once the repercussions began, several teachers spoke up on our behalf, others supported us privately but said nothing publicly, some remained completely silent, and a few denounced us.  Parents were in an uproar over the transfer of their children’s teachers but, because the district waged a campaign to discredit us and we had not educated the parents effectively about the reasons for our actions, their protests diminished within weeks.

Over the past year or so, I’ve heard many speakers (generally, NOT those who actually work in K-12 public education) exhort teachers to take a stand in opposition to unjust educational practices.  But the questions that are never asked on these occasions are those which most concern me:

 

  • Why is it that teachers are reluctant to speak out against these practices?

–and-

  • What can be done to encourage teachers to be more active in their opposition?

 

I’d like to offer some possible answers to the former question and hope we can spend some time together talking about the latter.  The two sources to which I’ll refer are Jungian temperament typing and the work of Paulo Freire.

The instrument most widely-used to conduct Jungian temperament analysis is the Myers-Briggs profile.  The Myers-Briggs asks questions which determine where a person falls on four continua:

  • extroversion vs. introversion (whether a person’s source of energy is primarily from the outside world or from within)
  • sensing vs. intuition (whether a person relies most on information from the senses or from the instincts)
  • thinking vs. feeling (whether a person depends more on logic or emotions)
  • judging vs. perceiving (whether a person prefers to get to closure or to allow things to evolve as they will)

Someone who takes the Myers-Briggs inventory comes out with one of 16, 4-letter profiles.  However, most research which applies to the educational setting has focused on the four basic temperament types:  Sensing/Judging, Sensing/Perceiving, Intuitive/Thinking, and Intuitive/Feeling.  What this research shows is that more than half – about 56% -- of teachers fit the Sensing/Judging profile, about a third – 36% -- are classified as Intuitive/Feelers, and only 8% fall into the other two categories combined.

So, given their predominance in the teacher corps, what are the attributes of SJs and how might these characteristics contribute to a reluctance to oppose unjust and ineffective educational practices?  As one researcher notes, SJs “exist primarily to be useful to the social sectors to which they belong.”  They desire to conserve and to stabilize and avoid revolutionary change at all costs. SJs feel compelled to be bound and obligated and are incapable of refusing extra responsibilities.  For this reason, they are often taken advantage of.  Yet, despite the fact that they may be bitter over the lack of appreciation they receive, they are unable to express this feeling freely and are inclined toward depression.  SJs have a belief in and a desire for hierarchy; as might be expected, there are even more SJs in large school districts with centralized management. They tend to oppose anyone who transgresses against institutions. SJs tend to see their role as parental in nature and the care of the young (and the very old) is a central concern for them.

Is it any wonder that teachers of this type did not openly support us as we questioned district policy, even if they essentially agreed with us?  We insisted on major change.  In an environment in which these teachers were expected to do more and more with less and less, they became overwhelmed, yet felt an obligation to do all that was expected them.  This literally took up so much of their time and energy that they had little left over to question or oppose.  A number of them were probably depressed by their inability to be effective teachers in a culture of unrealistic expectations.  These teachers felt a loyalty to their immediate and distant superiors and, probably believed that, in questioning the orders of these superiors, we had transgressed against administrators and the system as a whole.  Finally, we regularly heard teachers comment that, in “going political” we were being distracted from our true obligation – the education of the children within our own classrooms.  Add to this the risk of losing their jobs – thereby abdicating their responsibility to their families – and I was left wondering why we received as much public support as we did.

Briefly, there are characteristics associated with Intuitive/Feeling types which might explain their reluctance to stand with us as well.  Hamlet was probably an NF – at cross-purposes, torn between conflicting beliefs and obligations.  NFs focus on individual relationships rather than abstractions; NF teachers, therefore, are inclined to connect with individual students rather than looking at the bigger picture – the needs of all children.  They are not inclined to stay involved in a cause unless there are clear and lasting positive outcomes.  It is likely that the NF teachers at Downer had divided loyalties and they probably felt it difficult to look outside the relatively narrow world of their classroom, especially as it appeared less and less likely that our actions would prove successful.

In case you might think I’m implying that, until we have more Sensing/Perceiving and Intuitive/Thinking type teachers, no significant opposition to current educational policies can possibly occur, consider the results of the temperament profiles I’ve received from 3 of the Downer 5.  Of the three of us, each had a different profile:  one Sensing/Judging, one Intuitive/Feeling, and one Intuitive/Thinking.  Clearly teachers who demonstrate SJ and NF tendencies are fully capable of opposing unjust practices.  The question is, what is it within these teachers which allows them to overcome internal obstacles to activism?  And, consequently, how can we help teachers who exhibit these attributes to join in the fight for equitable education?  I look forward to talking with activists and non-activists of all temperaments in order to better understand their motivations.  But it does seem likely that if SJs can come to view CURRENT educational practices as radical (and, therefore, more holistic practices as conservative), freely express their frustration with ever-increasing demands, and see children as being at the top of our educational hierarchy, they might be more likely to join in.  Similarly, if NFs can learn to extend their concern for individual children to include groups of students unknown to them personally and to see the virtue of staying the course even when success may be limited, they may come on board as well.

The other major influence on my thinking about this topic comes from Paulo Freire.  It is my belief that at least at this point in time, teachers are an oppressed group.  In his book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire describes the obstacles faced by oppressed groups as they struggle to better themselves.  He notes that the oppressed, having internalized the view of their oppressors, become convinced of their own unfitness to do anything but follow orders and have an ambivalent view of their role in society.  In fact, they actually fear the freedom they might otherwise achieve.  In order for them to shake off their oppression, they need to clearly perceive that they are oppressed, see examples of their oppressors’ vulnerability, and view themselves as transformational agents in reform.  In short, they must come to view themselves as powerful.

And here we come full circle, back to the Downer story.  The imposition of scripted curriculum and other restrictive practices in that school district was all about power.  My colleagues and I lost the first battle in our fight against that district, not because we didn’t have the research to back us up, not because the test data didn’t demonstrate our effectiveness as teachers, not because we were without sympathetic colleagues, but because we had less power than they did.  We were isolated and our voices were marginalized.

Only when teachers stand together and position ourselves as a force to be reckoned with can we expect to compete in any credible way with reactionary political forces and their agenda of racism, classicism, and economic injustice. And only when we fully understand teachers’ innate reluctance to oppose these forces can we enlist the support of every teacher who knows better.