Dear friends,
Many of you have come to know me this year through a series of writings that illuminated what I’ve considered to be a growing problem of pressures aimed at the public highlighting perceived missteps by our department. You know that I am diametrically opposed to anyone attempting to paint our profession and our years of service as being barren. This being put forth by businesspeople who would be best served by creating afterschool programs to reinforce those concepts taught to our students and to put “real world” experiences within reach. I have yet to hear Tom Davis of the New Bedford Industrial Foundation step up to the plate and offer sound advice and business acumen to our children who would quickly desire the opportunity to work for two dollars rather than wait at a mailbox for one. I have waited daily for Bob Unger, Jack Spillane and Steve Urbon, our local editors, writers and creative thinkers to offer evening writing sessions that could further influence our children to write their thoughts rather than act on them. I have longed for those members of our elected school committee to behave like public servants rather than public denouncers. I have waited… and waited… and waited.
During these long days, I have worked with and beside you. I have stood in awe of your many talents, your unceasing energies, and your dedication to this, our noblest of professions. And I have only one thing left to say to you, on this, the last evening of school…
Together, on even your best days, you have the capability to move this problem by only one degree. If every one of you worked as hard as you could, you can only create enough energy, enough power, enough “push” to defer this enormous danger by the slimmest of margins.
You should then, perhaps, stop…
Unless you understand the concept of one degree in the vast expanse that is the Cosmos of education.
The simple difference in unilateral destruction and salvation of all mankind has always been the difference of one degree…
Hurtling this moment toward our fragile blue planet is a stone the size of Mt. Everest. It has mass. It has velocity. It has your children’s children’s children’s fate emblazoned across its surface. It spells complete and utter decimation of all you hold dear. Of all you and countless generations have worked to create. It is, in simple words, the end of times. It cares little for your possessions. It cares less for you. Its path was created long before we, collective mankind, drew our first breaths. Before we illustrated our story on cave walls. Before we created cuneiform. Before we assembled languages and civilizations and uncivilized behavior. It lives not. It breathes not. It is a rock. And you are in its path…
All is lost.
Unless you understand the most basic concept of time and space. Yes, physics. Along with music, art, language, philosophy and a host of other elemental studies, it holds the one singularity for salvation. The understanding of the importance of one degree…
Move the stone one degree. One out of a possible three hundred sixty. Move it one degree and life triumphs. Seasons survive. Children are born, grow and flourish. One degree and we continue…
This year you have been assailed in every form through every outlet. You have been accused, tried, convicted and sentenced. And yet, you continued to perform.
Why?
Because you create in a world of “one degrees”. You nudge, you steer, and you shift the course of stones daily. You carry the ability to move the mountain by one, small degree. You are, and have always been, the one force capable of shifting the world by a degree.
You are teachers. And you move mountains.
By one degree…
14 comments:
Terrific letter Bill.
To everyone, have a wonderful, safe, and restful summer as you deserve it.
Teachers may move mountains, but we had better get off our rear ends and fight back in New Bedford. The NBEA is more than Lou and the officers. It is all of us!
Jon Mitchell apparently doesn't care about education and New Bedford's children. If he did, the Normandin and Roosevelt principals would be out. Instead, the destructive duo will be wreaking havoc for another year. Thanks for nothing, Mr. Mayor.
Well written, but I agree with the Watchdog. I can't believe Bonneau will be back. What a disgrace! And a political black mark for you, Mr. Mayor.
The Watchdog said it best -- why is it that PRAB and the mayor can't see that poor management is to blame for a lot of the ills in the NBPS district. The teachers aren't running the show, it's the principals...and boy, PRAB really fell for it when they hired the Roosevelt principal! She can shovel more "you know what" than Mike Mulligan could! She puts on a great show in front of those she wants to impress, but she is a manipulating, threatening, and extremely difficult-to-work-with bully who loves to render chaos throughout the building. She has fractured the wonderful team relationships that had been worked on and developed for years by top-notch teachers who carry out all of her initiatives, only to find that she grabs nearly all the credit in the media. Meanwhile, these poor teachers practically live their entire lives working on projects for her at Roosevelt, surrendering their social lives and families, and for what? Also, a lot of these so-called wonderful community programs receive a lot of hoopla when they are first enacted, but they quickly fade out and fade away once the principal has gotten her kudos from whomever she is currently seeking favor (probably to save her own job!) We have lost several good teachers to other districts because of her abuse. How much more can we take? Probably not much, and until the mayor, the school committee and the new superintendent start to seek REAL information on what's really going on inside our schools, nothing will change....ever.
Bill, your words have the power to inspire. I hope people are listening.
Thank you Bill for your kind words.
I don't work for the principal at Roosevelt but I have friends that do and are very happy there. I also know that Roosevelt has all the Sheltered English Immersion students and the other two Middle schools don't. I wonder why is that.
I have been reading a lot of articles on school reform and I am shock to see how our country is using public education to make companies rich. Meanwhile, other industralized countries are educating all of their citizens regarless of their race, social-economic status, etcs and we are falling behind. We teachers really need to start looking deeper into the problem and be more proactive. I wish you all a happy and healthy summer.
There are some people that are happy at Roosevelt: Darcy, her friends (she uses the school as her personal employment agency), and the bum kissers that will suck up to anyone that occupies the principal's chair.
I really agree with deep throat and the last anonymous...I have not seen ANY happy people at rms in recent years. Stress runs high in that building, complaints are heard everyday, even from those who were hired because they knew the principal! I had faith in the process, for example, FAC, grievances etc.,but nothing seems to grab the attention of those who have the power to remove administrators who are menaces. From the custodians to the cafetera workers, to the paras and teachers, and the asst. principals, there is NO ONE who hasn't complained about this particular principal. I fear that I will need to leave the New Bedford district in order to get away from it all.
Bill, you are a master of inspirational writing. Thank you for making me feel like shoving with all my might, and only moving those mountains a single degree, isn't failure but triumph.
Regarding RMS and the SEI population, it is a VERY good question to wonder why Roosevelt has every identified SEI middle school student. It certainly isn't to benefit the children, whose schedules are so chaotic and random that it must boggle them even more than the language gap. It certainly isn't to benefit the staff, who scramble to teach kids that get little to no real support in learning their new language. Hate to say it, but parking a kid in front of "Rosetta Stone" for an hour or two isn't really QUALITY language education. Ask anyone "in the know" and they'll say the arrangement is a wink and a handshake agreement. RMS takes all the SEI kids in exchange for smaller class size, or some such. Depending who you talk to, it may be explained as a "well, this was an agreement arrived upon back in the day, and it just never changed."
RMS doesn't have any special services for SEI kids. We have no more and no less qualified staff than at any other middle school. Anyone who believes we have either of the above has swallowed the company line.
Regarding the leadership in our middle schools, it seems like there are two ways of thinking. One: love the kids into being good, while tossing your teachers into the meat grinder for any and every complaint or problem (and then, ostensibly, gather 'round a theoretical campfire to sing Kum Bah Yah in four part harmony).
This is what I've seen at NMS--listen to Dr. Bonneau's commencement speeches at 8th grade graduation and hear how she exhorts kids to love one another, while her teachers tally up 5, 6, 7 or more fights per day in hallways and cafeteria. How blind can a leader be?
The other approach is just as clueless.
Step 1: Jump onto every and any ed. reform bandwagon that lumbers by, insisting that your staff fully embrace each new set of strategies/philosophies/dogmas that you shovel onto their already overloaded plates. Insist that EVERYONE be trained, but then mismanage the scheduling process so that not everyone is trained.
Step 2: Focus more on what teachers do or do not have written on their agenda boards than you do on the actual quality of the learning taking place in the classroom, until teachers spend more time planning their boards than they do their lessons!
Step 3: Pepper the "good kids" with questions every time you come in to their classrooms to observe, to the point that they start complaining to teachers that they don't want to answer any more when you come in with that clipboard.
Step 4: Conversely, target kids who speak little to no English, and then chastise the teacher when the child seems unable to express what the "worthy objective" is for the day.
Step 5: Bring the newspaper in to capture your strutting and crowing over everything that's being done in your building, "ultimately, at the end of the day".
Step 6: Emerge as a latter-day Joan of Arc, with the slight twist that it's the teachers who are burned at the stake in public forums.
Step 7: Grab a violin and make like Nero, to fiddle merrily while building morale and test scores burn.
Step 8: Dance around the fact that you were in serious danger of losing your job this year, which you managed to avoid, thanks to the chaos that was ushered in by the departure of Dr. Francis. Nobody notices an inept, corrupt principal when they're busy scrambling to find a new captain for the Titanic.
Step 9: Lather, rinse, repeat, for as long as you can get away with it.
And yet, we will return to the halls of RMS and NMS to try to move the mountains Bill so eloquently mentioned. It's a shame that our leadership won't assist; instead they choose to ignore us or worse--actively get in our way.
Time for PRAB to wake up, before another generation of New Bedford kids is lost.
To the last Anonymous entry, I say wholeheartedly, "DITTO!" Just loved the summary of the RMS principal's way of doing business! You might want to add to that:
Step 10: Fudge data to make yourself appear to be competent.
Step 11: Bully people behind closed doors -- just because you can.
Step 12. Ignore and/or harass those who work hard and follow protocol, for these are the ones who may usurp your power one day.
I can't believe some of the things I'm reading. Can principals fudge data is that a fact or an accusation? Because if the person that wrote that can prove is a fact then why not do anything about it? I'm sure there are ways to voice this if indeed this happen. We can't be afraid of doing the right thing. Change is coming our way and I'm fine with it as long as it helps our students. The only thing I have an issue with is tha PRAB is not doing a good job explaining these chages to us. Instead all we hear is all these mandates that are coming down our pipes and all the quick changes we need to do. In order for positve change to happen we need to all work together and to respect each other. Try to build good relationships among teachers, principals and other administrators. If these things don't happen, then people get overwhelmed and burn out . Teachers will resent and resist change. I hope we can all one day(hopefully sooner than later) start working together to make this process of change easier on all.
To the person who asked about the "fudged" data, it is a fact, and it was reported to the DESE. Whether or not it was investigated properly, I'm not sure. Well, I guess not, because I don't think someone should keep their job after something like that is revealed. It mustn't matter to the DESE that these types of things are going on...
Did anybody get to read the turn around plan. It is very long and filled with so many things that teachers need to do. I hope we get good traning for some of these things that we are expected to do. I am more then willing to do what it takes but I hope we have good professional development coming our way. Many of our professional develoment days are useless,last year we had one on DIBELS and it was horrible. The lady that taught the workshop said that she only had 4 hours to train us even though it takes at least two days of training to learn it. Teachers that had to DIBEL through out the year were so upset because of all the problems that they ran into. New Bedford Public schools are really have to invest better in the way they train their staff.
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