According to a vituperative old woman— I'll not disclose who, sorry—, I'm a "disappointment to the profession and the professionals who work every day for students." Ouch. This despite acing the Praxis II I took when I started teaching and scoring in the 99th percentile on the Miller's Analogy Test I took to enter grad school. But wait, you say, those are silly little tests that don't prove anything. Well, actually that's my point. Yes, I got those scores. No, I'm not bragging. Because I recognize that those tests, like all the standardized exams we force down our students throats, mean absolutely nothing.
You see, in the end it doesn't matter if I get a 4.0 on my graduate coursework. It doesn't matter if my peers rate me highly effective. It doesn't matter if the Principal and administrators I've worked under before and during my internship give me their approval. All that matters is my students get a certain score on test designed in secret by an out-of-state company, graded by wage-slaves who have no familiarity with my students, turned into a 'value-added' score by a calculator-wielding lackey who thinks that being black (or a girl, age 12, the child of a dropout, etc.) has a set point value, signed by an administrator who has spent at most 4 hours in my classroom and applied to my salary by an anonymous HR rep in a tiny cubicle. What's not to like?
So I listen. I read. I write. I encourage people to contact their legislators and I contact my own. And for that I'm a disappointment. Because I want to by paid for doing all those 'immeasurable' things like teaching kids how to think instead of what to think, how to solve problems, be creative, work harder than they ever thought possible, dread the tiniest of failures and glory in their successes. I want to be paid for making them see what's really there and not just what's in their head. I want to be paid for convincing kids that it really is okay to be a nonconformist and that the greatest advances in human history didn't come from the people who were necessarily good at the adding up and counting down. Learning is up to the student; I want to be paid to teach.
That's why, in this right-to-work state, I still support the NEA and all the unions. That's why I find the idea that I should cave to the anti-union fervor here in NC so abhorrent. I don't want to compromise and have a pay-for-performance scheme that's only mildly odious. I want us to recognize, as a state and as a country, that even the worst teachers can work miracles, that even the best teachers can fail to reach a student and that we all— even the bitter and the thoughtless— are worthy of some respect. If working to better myself and secure my future and the futures of my fellows is nothing but throwing bombs from the sideline then so be it. Consider the bomb thrown. If wanting a voice in my chosen profession is disappointing then I am proud to be a disappointment.
So there.
*Lesson to all you NC teachers: support the NCAE and the NEA. Oh, and write to your legislators.