I Googled “education news” and here’s what came up in the headlines: “Education Cuts and Teacher Burnout”, “NY Board Aims to Catch Test Cheating” and “In Wake of National Scandals, State Reviews Test Security”. I don’t know about you, but I find it depressing and if I thought about it long and hard enough, I might even feel a little defeated by the negative press and seemingly unending attention our profession is receiving. Here’s the hard part for me: these headlines are based on some shred of reality.
So, the theme of this blog is “It’s Time” because I have this ever-playing song in my head that says “Now is the time to make a move. It’s our responsibility. It’s time.” Time for what?
- Time to take control of the perception of our profession by shedding light on what’s right in our personal education realms.
- Time to stop blaming the things that we have no control over for the demise of the country’s lagging educational performance.
- Time to stop blaming increased accountability for low performing schools.
- Time to live self-fulfilling prophecies where students who were “troubled” last year are yet again troubled this year.
- Time to move past the idea that the conditions in the school or classroom have to be absolutely perfect in order for us to have success.
- Time to realize that we are the ones that the students need and when we show up and they show up, we have everything we need to have a highly successful year