He Says, She Says. Who Listens?

Here’s the latest headline about the Houston public schools: HISD superintendent Mike Miles mandates classroom doors stay open, raising safety concerns

Of course, everybody and his uncle has an opinion about whether a teacher’s door should be open or closed. Nobody seems to feel that “door policy” should be up to each teacher.

And nobody seemed to question Superintendent Miles’ reasoning for this edict:

Miles said open door policy creates a professional and collaborative environment that allows administrators to observe teachers and effectively coach them.
 
Try repeating that six times in a faculty room.
 
Admittedly, I received wonderful and effective coaching my first year of teaching. I got hired in mid-October to teach  English in what were euphemistically labeled  “non-college prep classes” in a high school larger than my hometown. Quickly recognizing my desperation, the department chairman visited my classroom once a week, usually for ten minutes or so. We met during my free period, and he offered a nugget of advice. Just a practical nugget that I could easily implement.  Later in the year, when I’d progressed a bit, he also invited me to sit in on the one class he taught each day.
 
There is no question that this administrator who kept his foot firmly in actual classrooms saved my bacon and encouraged to make teaching a career.
 
In the ensuing 20 years I came in contact with zillions of administrators, some deplorable, some quite ok. Not one of them coached me about anything.
 
Mostly I had a closed door.
*With a K-6  “open classroom” with lots of experiments being conducted around the room, I kept the door closed in an attempt to block some of the noise from bothering other classes.
 
*When my grade 7-8 remedial reading group contained a child officially labeled “certifiably crazy,” I kept the door closed to keep him out when he was supposed to be someplace else. And keeping him in when he was supposed to be with me.
 
*Because I started the day for my Grade 3 class with silent reading, I kept the door closed with a big sign on the outside: Do Not Enter: Critical Study Inside.
 
I needed that sign on a closed door to remind my principal not to come in and tell me about the previous night’s baseball game.  I felt lucky to work in  this principal’s building. For starters, he looked the other way when I refused to use the district-mandated basal reader.
 
But he did like to talk, and when I let it slip that I actually knew something about baseball, ohmygod, he wanted to share his passion for the game. It was very very difficult to convince him he could not do this when class was in session.
 
One year I found myself in the office of the  Assistant Superintendent in Charge of Curriculum on the first day of school instead of in a classroom because she had phoned me during the summer, saying she would soon be moving to our district to take up her new position. She’d heard about the fine work I’d done that led me to being a finalist for New York Teacher of the Year. She asked for my help in “spreading innovation.” She urged me to leave the classroom and join her team as a curriculum reform leader.
 
Yes, dear reader, I accepted.
 
I should have known immediately that working with her would be impossible. Sitting  in the office of the Assistant Superintendent in Charge of Curriculum with four lunch companions, also designated curriculum reform leaders, this leader picked up the phone and called in an order for five turkey breast sandwiches on white bread with mayonnaise.
 
She did not bother to ask us if we were white bread sort of people. I happened to know that the deli taking her order made a great liverwurst. With mustard on rye.
 
Her idea of curriculum reform began to school year with the requirement that every kid in the district take a standardized test. We reform leaders were told to keep the pencils sharpened. And then, under her direction, we went over every test to make sure kids hadn’t messed up filling the bubbles. While we did this, we listened to her running monologue on the stupidity of district teachers and administrators. I had never heard so many curse words per minute.
 
What teachers in our district needed, the assistant superintendent assured us, was her telling them what to do and us, her team assistants, checking to see that they did it.
 
I suffered this indignity for three weeks. Then I asked the Assistant Superintendent in Charge of Curriculum to come to a meeting I’d set up with the district superintendent. There, I announced, “I cannot work with this women. Her approach to education is too contrary to mine. Please give me another job in the district–I’ll accept any job–just so long as it is working with students.”
 
Neither of them asked me what the pedagogical points of disagreement might be. People in power don’t have to  care about pedagogy and they don’t have to listen to teachers.
 
The next day I was assigned the job of starting a school for 44 kids required by probation to be in school but who were refused admission to the regular high school because of their dreadful behavior. This quickly turned into a place I loved to be.
 
My one regret is that I didn’t immediately tell the Assistant Superintendent in Charge of Curriculum what she could do with her turkey sandwich. I eat neither white meat or white bread.