Being openly critical is necessary for our school communities to thrive

This.

Be a critical lover of your institution. Education/teaching is not going to crumble because we question policies and practices critically.

— Adam Holman (@AGHolman) July 29, 2015

I saw this tweet last night and the wheels immediately started turning. I hope if/when I ever say critical things about my school community (in the context of my school community. I'm not going to publicly air grievances on my blog or other social media spaces), others understand it's because I love it and want it to be better. Education is built on the idea that we teach our students to think deeply and critically. If we don't question policies and practices, then are we really educators at heart?

I think oftentimes teachers are scared into silence by administrators who feel threatened by those who speak up. Teachers often hear an iteration of this sentiment: "Well if you don't like it, you don't have to work here,"  in an attempt to keep order and shut the conversation down. But we can't let those attempts at intimidation scare us. We need to stand up and say, "But I don't want to work somewhere else. I want to work here. And it's because I love this community and am committed to making it better that I am choosing to speak up." We need to communicate to our school leadership that being vocally critical does not equate to being discontent. It means we are committed to making our school a better place to work and learn. If we as teachers aren't speaking up, then I don't know if we can call ourselves teachers. Our very presence is meant to challenge and provoke. If we just sit idly by, then we are not doing our job. Because as Kate Messner writes in her poem Revolution for the Tested,  "An educated person is so much harder to enslave." And as Pernille Ripp evangelized at nErDcampMI this year, "No child is helped when we protest in silence."


So speak up. Question. Use your outside voice. It's what we're meant to do. 

"I expect you to rise up as courageous people... and raise hell."

As I was perusing my Facebook feed this morning, I came across this blog post that Teri Lesesne shared:

A Time Comes When Silence is Betrayal by Michelle Newsum

What Newsum discusses in this blog post is how teachers have long been silent and absent in the political decision making. He quotes Jonathan Kozol from The Shame of the Nation at the end of his post:

“(This) is about the abolition of a national sin. So when people say, ‘What do you expect us to do?’ I say, ‘I expect you to rise up as courageous people have done before in America, and raise hell.’ I want to see our teachers develop a stronger political voice and find the courage to serve as witnesses to the injustices of which they are more keenly aware than anyone else... I do believe there will be another mass movement in this country, and I’d like to see it led by teachers.”

When I read a post like this I think about the fact that we're celebrating Banned Books Week this week and how teachers have long been encouraged to #SpeakLoudly against censorship (perhaps not within their own districts, but certainly nationally). That same attitude is not prevalent with education reform. Teachers are treated as a nuisance rather than an important part of the discussion, as recently evidenced by NBC's Education Nation panel that includes nary a teacher. Why are discussions about education always excluding the people who are doing the educating? Because the people leading the educational reform charge have corporate and financial interests to protect, certainly not the interests of the children. The people in the trenches, doing the hard work -- the TEACHERS -- have a message that just doesn't jive well with men in $1200 business suits looking to make a buck off our children's test scores.

But Newsum's blog post takes this idea a step further. She's telling teachers it's time to stop being silent. It's time to stand up for what you know is right. It's time to get in the game. It's time to use your outside voice.

"A time comes when silence is betrayal." - Martin Luther King, Jr.