ABSTRACT
Toward Schools that Create New People for a New Way of Life
In February 2003, I was having dinner with several friends, all CPS teachers. As I looked around the table, I saw stress etched into everyone’s face. One friend, who teaches sixth grade, described going to the opera for the first time and being shocked at her own lack of analytical keenness. “And that’s something I’m really good at, literary analysis.” With all the constant monitoring and test preparation, she said, she just has no time to think. “I want to do those creative things in the classroom, but there’s just no space. What happened to the intellectual excitement? I feel like I’m operating on a low 6th grade level.” Another teacher talked about feeling schizophrenic. She is active in Teachers for Social Justice, but in her school she finds herself doing things against her beliefs in order to manage a situation in which the pressures of accountability are worse than ever and the social stress on kids rebounds on the classroom. A new high school teacher, also a social activist, with two master’s degrees, said, “If it’s going to be like this, more mandates every day and no time, I don’t think I can do this job for more than three or four years. And this is what I want to do.” These are some of the most thoughtful, committed, critically minded teachers I know.
