This “Teacher’s Perspective” column was difficult to write today – not because I didn’t have enough to say, but from the sad content of what I did have to say. I’m distressed on a number of levels that are related to our school district and our community.
The passing of one of Morgan Hill’s former great teachers, Sandy Snively, gave me a time for reflection on education and what makes up a great teacher. Sometimes a truly extraordinary teacher touches a child’s life and truly makes a difference. Mrs. Snively was one of those rare teachers who believed that every child could succeed and learn by using a wide variety of innovative and interesting methods. She had an unending amount of confidence that her kids would be successful in school and life. She truly believed in teaching the child, not the curriculum or the textbook or for “the test.” Mrs. Snively will be sorely missed, but her legacy lives on in the many student’s whose lives she touched and the teachers she inspired. I am saddened by her passing, but sorrier for the fact that teachers are not allowed to be innovative, creative and teach from their heart.
Our teachers now are told what to say and how to say it. They are instructed to teach the curriculum and the textbook so their students will do well on “the test.”
It is heartbreaking that one of our own students, Sobrato High School’s Sierra LaMar, was abducted while walking to the school bus stop. The feeling that this cherished hometown community could be a place where a 15-year-old is not safe makes me horrified. The community has rallied around the family and shown tremendous support in the search efforts, but the sadness is still there until she is home safe.
And finally I am depressed to learn of Morgan Hill Unified School District’s broken promise to the “Equity Perspectives” project history teachers.
Three years ago, four school districts (Morgan Hill, Gilroy, Hollister and San Benito) were awarded a joint venture federally funded history grant of $1 million. The goal of the grant was to improve the teaching of United States history in grades 5, 8 and 11. This highly competitive grant contained a wide variety of opportunities for teachers from these four districts to work in collaboration with and learn from nationally recognized American History historians. The overarching theme of the project was to look at the founding of our nation through the eyes of different ethnic groups using primary source documents such as letters, diaries, pictures, artifacts etc. By making the history of our nation relevant to all cultures, the project hoped to help bridge the achievement gap. Project teachers took on the extra challenge of studying history with these professors in post graduate level sessions including reading and interpreting textbooks, writings from the time and looking at history through a different lens.
The cornerstone piece of the project was to have been a week-long post graduate level field studies trip to the East Coast to study at historically significant sites.
Top level experts were to guide the study using innovative and proven teaching strategies that make history relevant to today’s society. Unfortunately, new leadership in Morgan Hill greatly altered this trip even though this is for teachers from four different districts.
The elimination of most of the Advisory Committee’s plans for the trip were reduced and thus its intent. These project teachers from the four districts have been short changed by Morgan Hill’s lone decision to not spend the allocated federal funds set aside for this experience. The grant funds, by law, cannot be used for other programs or projects but was to be spent specifically as outlined in the grant proposal.
The history project has also been shelved and the teachers were not able to complete the final session due to scheduling difficulties.
This issue may sound trivial in light of the other two items I mentioned earlier, but it underlies a bigger issue in education.
That issue is “what other outstanding programs and projects are we sacrificing?” to just get by – to just start something new and not continue or nurture what works or what has been successful? When education sacrifices one program for another, who are we hurting in the end? The answer to that is easy – we are hurting our children, our future. And that is what saddens me the most.
