First Responses in the News!

It's good to have friends.

After my last post, about teaching as a vocation, a calling in the religious sense, lots of friends shared the link and it became my most-read piece ever. One friend shared it with David Waters, religion columnist at the Commercial Appeal and editor of FaithInMemphis.com, who then contacted me about writing a story about my sense of calling and vocation. (It's here, in case you can't wait.)

David is a tremendous talent and has won several awards. I read his column religiously religiously for years when I lived in Memphis previously and, upon moving back, I missed his voice. It turns out that he had taken a job with the Washington Post. I was glad to hear of his return this past year.

In short, I am a fan of David Waters. So I was excited to learn that he not only read my piece, but also liked it enough to devote an article on it.

Anyway, after getting everything cleared through the school district, David came out to our school and interviewed me. I enjoyed meeting him and he was a great guy to talk to. At that point, the understanding was that the article would be on how teaching, as well as other "secular" endeavors, could be a religious calling. Before he left, he let me know that he would be sending a photographer out at some point.

Then, the other day, we made arrangements for the photographer to come out. David said he really wanted the photos to come from one of my classes, so I scheduled a time that would allow me to prepare my class prior to his arrival. The class is from 7:30 until 8:25, so I told him to come at 8:00.

It was my understanding that only the photographer would be coming, so imagine my surprise when David shows up at about 7:15, when all but a few of my students were still eating breakfast. I didn't get a chance to prepare my kids, so I was hoping (and praying) that everything would go smoothly.

Fortunately, it did. In fact, the class went so well that I considered asking David to be a permanent fixture in my classroom. It was definitely one of the best classes I have had during my time in the classroom. It must have made an impression, too, because, when the article came out this morning, a large portion of it was devoted to the classroom experience.

And that is just fine with me. Teaching is not about drawing attention to yourself. If I wanted attention, I should have stayed in academia. No, teaching is about placing the focus on the kids, which is why I was glad to see that the photo used for the article included a student at the board with me.

Last night, my wife commented that it was like Christmas Eve, knowing that the article would be published today, but not quite knowing what it would contain.

My daughter woke up at 4:00 this morning and, after getting her back to sleep in our bed, I reached for my phone on the nightstand to read the article.

"It must be good. I can tell because you're smiling," commented my wife.

And it was. It is.

I didn't even realize that a smile had cracked. That's not my style.

But take a look here at the photo, see the face of that student, and try not to smile.

Calling, Vocation, and Public Education

I'm a teacher.

I am a teacher because I was called to be a teacher.

It's a job, technically, since I get paid.

Not much, mind you, but it's better than nothing. If you go into teaching for the money, you're in for a big letdown.

But teaching is more than a job to me. And it has to be if you want to be good at it. I was once told by a minister that, if you could be happy doing anything else, then you shouldn't be a minister. The same is true about teaching. If there is another "job" that you would be happy doing, then you shouldn't be teaching. Teaching has to be - HAS TO BE - a vocation.

Frederick Buechner defined vocation as the place where your greatest desire and the world's greatest need meet. He's spot on. If a task does not fulfill your desire, you will not do it well. You may at first, but the lack of satisfaction will wear on you and you just won't have the endurance to keep it up. On the other hand, if the world doesn't need it, if what you're doing isn't providing a positive contribution to society, then it's not worth doing and your work will feel empty. So you need both sides of the equation.

I knew for a long time that my desire was to work with young people. I wasn't exactly sure how or where, so I had all kind of different ideas. And they all involved teaching in some capacity. But none of them ever brought me peace. I considered church work, non-church religious work, private school teaching, teaching at a university, etc. I would have enjoyed myself doing any of these, but each would have been empty to some extent.

Then I had an epiphany of sorts. The greatest need in the world that crossed my greatest desire was and is the education of economically disadvantaged public school students.

There I was, Masters degree fresh in my hand, PhD applications started, private school teacher applications submitted...feeling all kind of uneasiness. But then an opportunity presented itself (an alternative teaching licensure program) and I felt a peace. I said that I'd give it a few years, that I could always go back and do PhD work, but you know right away if it's going to work.

And, yeah, it's a hard job. Actually, that's not true; it's more than that. It's hard as hell! I can't even begin to list all the factors weighing against "our babies," as we call our middle school students. The odds are stacked against them from before birth.

So, yeah, it's hard. But I would not be happy doing anything else. And, besides, if it were easy, it wouldn't be worth doing in my opinion.

To survive, to endure, to continue to bring the energy required each and every day, though, you have to have a calling, a vocation, a sense that you can't do anything else and still be satisfied. Teaching has to be something that grips you and won't let you go. It has to be something that you have to do, that you must do.

This has been left out of the current debate over the Memphis City Schools (MCS) charter surrender referendum.

Shelby County Schools (SCS) Board president David Pickler has been arguing that SCS doesn't believe in putting its best teachers in a few chosen schools. His reference is the MCS Optional Program. And his argument reveals his ignorance of how education really works.

You see, one of the best kept secrets in Memphis and Shelby County is that the best teachers are not necessarily at the schools with the highest test scores, the so-called "best" schools.

I am not saying that SCS doesn't have good teachers, nor am I saying that MCS Optional teachers aren't effective. Like any school or system, there are good and bad teachers in these settings.

What I am saying is that teachers in those settings do not have to be great for their students to achieve. Students in these schools generally enter Kindergarten already multiple years ahead and their parents make sure that they learn what is required even if their teachers are doing a poor job. Students in these schools know that much is expected of them, that they will graduate not only high school but college as well. Failure is not an option for these kids.

The same is not true, however, in the MCS neighborhood schools.

And that is why teachers in neighborhood schools must be great, must have a calling, must not be happy doing anything else. Teachers in our neighborhood schools must be the ones ready and willing and able to meet a challenge head-on. We have to convince our kids, we have to teach them that failure is not an option because they have been told, implicitly if not explicitly, that it is.

Our neighborhood schools have been an afterthought for far too long. MCS is doing great things to change this, giving struggling schools choice picks in the hiring process. Struggling schools are now given priority and are allowed to hire first. As a result, the best applicants are now being selected by the neighborhood schools.

Proponents of charter surrender need to be making this case. They need to say that Pickler is wrong, that SCS could actually learn something about staffing from MCS because our best teachers are now being funneled into the neighborhood schools where the need is greatest, not into the Optional Program as he claims.

The kids even notice this. I have had students who transfered from both SCS and the Optional Program tell me that our teachers are better. In those schools, you either get it or you don't, the kids say. And if you don't, too bad. These kids say that our teachers break problems down better and search for different ways to grasp a concept until one finally latches on. Our teachers do this on a daily basis because they have to. And that is why they are great.

It's the difference between one class of 8th graders reading on a 10th grade level and another reading on a 4th grade level. It's the latter that demand our best teachers. And that's why MCS has started trying to get our best teachers in those schools.

This same process needs to be implemented under a consolidated system if the referendum passes.

The new superintendent should throw down the gauntlet upfront and challenge all the best teachers in both the city and the county to seek employment at a neighborhood school, to turn around a failing school, to look for the greatest need.

Our leaders need to be out there making the case for teachers to really check themselves and their motives for teaching. They need to start trash talking, challenging SCS and Optional teachers to put their money where their mouths are, making the case that our best teachers work in our neighborhood schools, arguing that you will not be considered legendary unless you help turn around a struggling school.

Someone needs to be out there talking about calling and vocation. This would be great to hear from our faith leaders. They need to be making the case that God calls us to work with the least of these, which in education means the kids in Frayser and Binghampton, Hickory Hill and Hyde Park, down along 3rd Street. Teachers in the pews need to hear this and they need to be challenged to pray about where God really wants them to be.

Sure, there are some bad teachers out there. And, sure, some of them are in our under-performing schools. But I guarantee you that a great many of the teachers in our neighborhood schools are among the best at what they do. And I'm glad that I am able to learn on the job from so many of them.

We have 18 core classroom teachers at our school. And I can honestly say that I would want almost all of them teaching my own children. I would trust them with my own kids. Our teachers are that good.

The other few? Well, we need those spots filled.

And so, if you teach for SCS, if you teach in the Optional Program, if you teach in a private school, I'm calling you out.

Do you think that you are a good teacher? Prove it! Come, show us what you've got. If you really are a good teacher, then help end the achievement gap, help end the cycle of poverty, help us make a real difference in Memphis and Shelby County. Examine your purpose, your calling, your vocation. If you really are good, then we need you. We need you. Don't run away to less demanding jobs.

And while you're at it, tell Mr. Pickler and his Board that we've got a challenge for them too. We challenge you to prove that you have what it takes. Be leaders and accept the challenge of fixing the problems at these schools. If you really know how to run a top-notch school system, then what are you afraid of? Examine yourselves. Is education a calling for you? Is it your vocation? If so, then you just might want to consider what you are doing for the least of these, you just might want to consider where the greatest need is. If you know how to turn these schools around, then we need you. We need you. Don't run away from the challenge.

So, step up to the plate.

I dare you.

Where Is The Beloved Community?

I teach at a middle school whose student body is about 98% African-American and about 96% economically disadvantaged.

Let that sink in for a minute.

Out of a total of about 550 students, there are around 540 black kids, maybe 7 white kids, 2 Latino kids, and 1 kid from India.

And just about every single one of them gets free or reduced lunch.

Our school is not alone. It's the same all over town and it's the same all over the country.

In sum, what that means is the our schools have been re-segregated. (Or, disintegrated if you want to go with the Word of the Day from a recent episode of The Colbert Report.)

And we wonder why our nation seems so divided these days!

If there are black schools and white ones, black parts of town and white ones, what do you think our dialogue will look like? If there are rich schools and poor ones, rich neighborhoods and poor ones, what do you think dialogue will look like? Will we even have dialogue?

We are, quite literally, divided. And, until we can live in the same neighborhoods, go to the same schools, and sit down at the table with one another - until then we will continue to have the problems we have today.

I was thinking about this, especially the part on race, over the past week. Many people, black and white, fought hard to integrate our schools. Many suffered acts of violence and some even death. And here we are today, a decade into the 21st century, with our schools more segregated than they were at the time Martin Luther King, Jr., was killed. It's something I've thought about before, but Monday's holiday, celebrating the life of Dr. King, was the spark for this post.

Quite simply, we need to be exposed to those who are not like us in school, if nowhere else, because those experiences will shape how see the world as we grow up.

If I don't have any personal experience about a topic, there's a good chance that I'll believe - or at least be influenced by - whatever I hear from friends or through the media. When I watch the local news, I see a bunch of stories about crime and a good many of them involve African-American men. Now, that doesn't influence my perception of African-American men because I know plenty of African-American men who are not criminals. However, I know a lot of white folks who don't know any black folks personally. And, when they watch the news, they are convinced that all African-Americans are criminals. That's ridiculous, but a vacuum will be filled and that's what happens when we lack personal experience and interaction.

My family didn't have any black friends when I was growing up. But I was fortunate enough to attend diverse schools. One side of town was mostly white, while the other side of town was mostly black. The student bodies at those schools reflected this dynamic. We lived - and went to school - in the middle, so our schools were pretty diverse, even if our neighborhoods were not. As a result, I was exposed to the African-American community in a way I would not have been otherwise and I developed friendships with (and the occasional crush on) those who did not look like me. I am thankful for this experience today, for it has shaped the way I see the world.

This is what our city is lacking. This is what our nation is missing. This is what we need.
White kids need to grow up around black kids and black kids need to grow up around white kids.

It's as simple as that.

And it all starts in school.