Abstract:

As her school comes to terms with its "failing" status, Ellen Berg asks, "What
makes one school's culture productive and another's toxic?
One classroom positive and another negative?"

Berg, E. My values are out of alignment with my district's values. Teacher Leaders Network diaries. Retrieved from the Teacher Leaders Network 10 Apr 2008. Link: http://www.teacherleaders.org/old_site/diaries04_05/EB12_04_05.html

Full Text:

My Values Are Out of Alignment with My District's Values

There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.

– Henry David Thoreau1817-1862, American poet and philosopher

I have been struggling with this entry for more than a week now. Try as I might, I cannot move beyond my school situation and its subsequent effects on me and my students. Our school district is in crisis mode and faculties in "failing" schools have been pinned squarely in the middle of the dartboard. (See Diary #9.)

I wonder to myself if I sound like a whiny child or one of those friends we've all had who goes on and on about how horrible the breakup with their significant other is until you want to tell them there is light at the end of the tunnel if only they'd stop complaining long enough to look. But the truth is, it is impossible to move past the pain until, well, we move past it.

In my struggle to write, I asked my editor and friend John Norton to help me through this writing block to get to the universal lesson to be learned in all of this. His response:

"What might be interesting to explore is the question: What are the conditions under which we soar or crash to the ground? What message was communicated to you that caused you to lose your confidence, and — making the leap to reflections applicable to more than just Ellen — how is what has happened in your school/work/life recently indicative of the continuing failure of school leaders to act in ways that maximize the performance of their core workers — teachers?"

Thank goodness for sane voices like John's. His questions have been tugging at my brain, nudging me a millimeter at a time out of the microscopic world view I've had for the past couple of weeks to see beyond my sad situation.

What is it that has changed so drastically for me this year? In a word, value. For the first time, I do not feel valued by my principal or district. From the "elevate the trainees' [teachers] level of competence" comment on the district MAP Attack web site at the opening of the school year to the principal's hour-long, "You're failing" address during the Christmas Party-slash-faculty meeting yesterday, the message is that I am not good enough, smart enough, and doggone it, people don't even like me.

Okay, so that is a little melodramatic, but it is how I feel. When I asked my principal about the criticism from the faculty meeting, she said, "I wasn't directing it at you, Mrs. Berg." When I tried to tell her that's how I felt, she told me I was wrong for feeling that way and, had she been in the audience, she'd just assume the speaker wasn't talking about her. Berated for not measuring up or berated when I wanted to be sure I was measuring up — I am not sure what is worse.

What makes one school's culture productive and another's toxic? One classroom positive and another negative? While there are certainly many contributing factors, I think the resulting climate begins with what the leader values.

Steven Covey, self-help guru, states the following:

Personal leadership is the process of keeping your vision and values before you and aligning your life to be congruent with them.

What do I value in my classroom? Meeting the academic needs of my students where they are right now. I want all of my students to be successful and demonstrate growth during the school year. Because I hold this value, all of my decisions about how to act and what to do in my classroom sprout from the idea that all kids in my classroom should learn.

I do not allow Demetri to continue to spend all of his writing energy on pornographic notes promising houses and money to little girls he likes and, instead, sit down with him and help him organize his thoughts for how to solve the no-doors-on-the-stalls problem in his problem-solution essay. Instead of patting Sandy on the head and telling her a D is okay since I know learning is difficult for her, I work with her and her resource teacher on finding ways to learn that click for her. Am I always successful? No, but I am a lot more successful than if I thought some kids would never learn.

Now, what does my district value? Quick results on test scores and making AYP. Making AYP is not necessarily a bad goal, but when the how of the journey cuts corners and completely ignores the quality of the journey, you run into problems. During a professional development day a presenter from the district actually told me that in order to make AYP, schools were going to have to focus on those kids who were really close to testing "proficient." Those other kids? In reality, he explained, it's just too late for them.

I understand the pressure that schools are under to make AYP, I really do. I also understand that no district is impervious to that pressure. However, I honestly believe — or honestly NEED to believe — that there are districts working with the types of kids I work with who value the educational process and its unmeasured merits at least as much as test scores and AYP.

In the end my struggle is all about values: mine, my district's, a potential employer's. Right now I am all out of alignment, working hard to drive a straight path down a pothole-filled road. Will I make it? I think so. Somehow it's easier knowing there's a reputable mechanic just down the digital highway....

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