Like many other people in the over forty states that participate in the Mega Millions lottery, I bought a ticket recently in the hope that I would score the big jackpot. And like all but a handful of those people, I ended up with a losing ticket that came in handy when I needed a piece of scrap paper for an impromptu shopping list.
Even while purchasing the ticket, I knew that the odds of its being a winner were staggering. But that didn’t prevent me from dreaming a little bit. The practicalities came first: new homes and financial security for me and my family. College funds for all the important kids in my life. Generous donations to charity. Then, I started thinking about the fun stuff: Travel. Vacation properties. A petting zoo. (Well, not really, but with that much money, there’s plenty of room for whimsy.)
For an individual, $640 million is a staggering amount of money. How might things be if Wisconsin’s schools won a lottery with winnings proportional to those of the Mega Millions jackpot? And the dream began again: imagine a generously funded school system with reasonable class sizes and a broad curriculum that would allow every student to take every class that he desired in state-of-the-art facilities using an abundance of cutting-edge equipment.
Sure, it’d be nice …and yet, no matter how well-funded these dream schools would be, the fact remains that no amount of money could purchase students’ true understanding. Only with skilled teaching and a receptive audience can that be accomplished.
I have similar feelings about the public perception of Wisconsin teachers. My hope is simple: I just want people to really, truly understand the issues before spouting off on them, particularly on internet message boards. Since February 2011, the anonymity of the internet has allowed for near-constant vilification of educators and the organizations to which they belong. It’s just a little too easy for armchair authorities to hide behind screen names spewing vitriol about what needs to change in education and telling me and my colleagues what we’re doing wrong.
Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, of course, but there’s a certain level of arrogance in someone telling me exactly how to do my job without ever having met me, nor having spent a day – or even an hour – in my classroom.
A commenter on another message board (we’ll call him “Joe”) extolled the virtues of the parochial schools that he, his children and grandchildren attended, saying that the students coming out of those schools were far more successful than MPS students could ever hope to be. The self-righteous, superior tone of his comments was more than a little disconcerting.
I’m guessing that neither Joe nor his family had any type of special needs. A quick check of the websites of five parochial schools in my neighborhood indicated that none of them had a special education teacher on staff. It’s easy for a school to boast a high graduation rate when you can essentially cherry-pick your students, excluding those with cognitive disabilities, autism, emotional disturbances or any other issue on the enormous spectrum that defines special education.
Now, for those of you who may dismiss my opinions as anti-religion or anti-parochial school, you might be surprised to know that I’m a practicing Catholic. I taught at a parochial school when I was in college and I loved it. There’s no question that parochial schools do great work and make essential contributions to our community. My point is simply that many people don’t seem to understand that these schools’ positive academic results are often skewed.
No matter what I write here or elsewhere, I’m certain that a slew of anonymous commenters will continue hurling epithets and vilifying teachers, simply because they can. To them, I can only say this:
I love what I do. I will never apologize for choosing education as a profession, nor being passionate about the students I serve. My goal for each of them is that they gain a deeper level of understanding, be it of the German language or their role as a member of a society that values cooperation, creativity and positive action for the greater good.
And maybe that’s a good goal for my anonymous internet friends too.
