"A New World for the Teaching" - Belief Statements in the Des Moines Teacher Flash Mob

Have you seen the "Les Mis" flashmob video that has gone viral this week? Teachers in the Des Moines, Iowa school district broke into the final day of workshop week to perform a back-to-school version of One Day More. If not, take a minute to watch it, and scroll down on the YouTube page for the lyrics - as sung, they overlap so are hard to discern. 

It is well done, and even just looking at the surface level, and it speaks plenty of truth - these really are the thoughts that go through the heads of teachers I know, these are their cares and worries as they head into a new school year feeling like they have not and could never have enough time to truly be ready for the kids. Watch it once that way and have a good laugh. And then consider why it's funny - the idea of teachers being as committed to their beliefs as the French revolutionaries of Les Mis. Preposterous! In my work I see that teachers, as a group, are more willing to speak of their thoughts, feelings or actions than their beliefs - particularly white teachers who form the majority of our nation's teaching force. When educators do try to articulate beliefs, they are not often helped by their district's or school's mission statement - frequently just a lukewarm rehash of some platitudes about all children being ready for college and life, etc. Hardly something to spill blood over.

But, Is There More?

Looking underneath the seeming breeziness of this light parody and comparing it to the original, we can find a deeper truth. Hidden underneath the comic presentation are some underlying beliefs that fuel an actual controversy in education, something for which blood is indeed being spilt - though the casualties are often the students. 

In the play, One Day More is set on the eve of an uprising. The men with the flag are singing about their ideals and how the time has come for action - trying to recruit a young man who has been on the edge of their group. They are willing to risk their lives to end the inequities they see. In the play, most of them die. The parody lyrics of this group and their prospective recruit are: 

One more day before we start!  

                                 Do I join her for PD?  

Learning targets bring you freedom! 

                                 Shall I join their PLC?  

Common assessments shall be made. 

                                 Formative or summative?  

Will you come and plan with me?

So, the revolutionaries’ sleeper cell is now a PLC and their ideology is a very technical focus on learning targets and assessment literacy. Good ideas and ones that I’ve espoused in public before, but hardly something I’m willing to spill blood over. Hmm. Stay tuned for the deeper beliefs. 

Les Mis contrasts the revolutionaries with the aristocrats, older men who in the play fully believe that they will put down this nuisance of a revolution led by the younger generation. They dismissively call the revolutionaries “schoolboys,” and sing “they will wet themselves - with blood!” This group is clearly confident in themselves and their belief in the status quo. In the parody they sing:

One more day to education, 

We will help these students grow!

We'll be ready for these schoolboys,

We will teach what they don’t know!

To my mind, this actually is the sound of the education status quo - that mindset that students are empty vessels and we will just open up their heads and pour in what they don’t know. Notice who is in the position of power in this scenario. Like their counterparts in the play, these teachers believe their status is part of the natural order and don’t see anything wrong with their domination of the classroom. They come right out and say it. 

Comic Relief?

In the play the comic relief is a husband and wife who are essentially con artists, existing on the edges of society and bilking the unwitting, wealthy or poor. They survive no matter what turn the economy takes because there’s always someone to take advantage of, and they themselves don’t connect with either ideology. They are benevolently treated as kind of an inconvenient fact of life. In the parody, they appear to represent the early childhood teachers:

Watch 'em run around,

Catch 'em if they fall,

Making sure the classroom’s ready for them all!

Here’s a little crayon,

There’s a little glue,

Markers, pens, and pencils -

They know what to do!

Notice that the implied mindset of this group stands in opposition to that of the teacher aristocracy above. Rather than being empty vessels, these kids “know what to do.” The teacher’s job is to prepare a learning environment, allow children to be active and take chances, then act as the safety net - both intellectual and physical. Reggio, anyone? These teachers are the committed 

constructivists with a view of the child as competent - and notice that they are the comic relief. What’s going on in those rooms doesn’t seem very serious or connected to the common core, etc. I am reminded of the cartoon show, Recess, where the Kindergartners were portrayed as a tribe with rules of their own. (Of course the Recess depiction itself references both white society's appropriation and dismissal of indigenous ways, also not to be taken seriously in schools - but that's another post!) Furthermore, these early childhood teachers are so busy being and doing with their children that they don't always advocate well for their beliefs. I mean, just look at the woman in the picture, clearly an experiential teacher. Her high school AP and IB colleagues - the literal and figurative "upper class" of any school district - could learn a lot from her, but how many would take her seriously enough to listen? Or do they believe that this level of constructivism is essentially a long con?

Finally the Revolutionaries Spit It Out!

Next, the revolutionaries come back in with their underlying belief: 

There's a new world for the teaching! 

                              There's a new world to be taught!

OK, there's a subtle difference there between the revolutionary and the recruits - who is doing the teaching, the world or the teacher? The belief that is beginning to appear is truly revolutionary: the world is new and we as teachers must be responsive to it. We must understand that the students are already living in the new world and we need to meet them there. And this isn't always easy. This world is new in many ways that may be foreign to us - it constantly sprouts new technologies, is connected by social media, recognizes gender beyond a simple binary, and is full of the multiple perspectives of people of different colors. No one can know this whole world, or even the sum of the experiences of all the students in a single classroom - so we must turn the learning back over to them.

But then the old guard reiterates their position:

We’ll become these student’s heroes,

We will lead and they will go.

We will build them a bright future,

We know things that they don’t know!

Now they also have belied their underlying belief. The world isn’t new so much as there is a future to be built, by the teachers, for the students, using the teachers’ superior knowledge. For this to work, the students must follow the teachers as heroes. If we take this metaphor out to its logical end, we can’t then tolerate dissension in the ranks, and we will call it “insubordination,” because it is getting in the way not just of our teaching, but of all of their bright futures. 

So, What are the Patterns?

I want to be clear that these patterns show up across the country, not just in the particular district that produced this musical moment. But, as with all art, the composers may not be consciously aware of all the influences that they have channeled. As with education, the arts can be a provocation for social construction of knowledge. So here is what I see, through my critical lens as a white, female, Reggio-inspired educator: 

Those who believe in the heroic myth of the status quo do hold a beautiful vision of a bright future that must be built; but their deficit view of the child dictates a teacher-centric approach.  

The revolutionaries do sense that there’s a new world for the teaching but may or may not understand how to go about that.   

And, as in the original, the early childhood constructivists who don’t relish conflict go on surviving at the margins, keeping their heads down and ignoring the battle between the revolutionaries and the status quo. 

But, 
Imagine if we started the school year as true revolutionaries; 
Imagine a school where the mission statement was that inspiring; 
Imagine a district whose flag actually caused teachers to rally, to put an end to the inequities they see despite the highest of stakes. . .