JOE, A HIGH SCHOOL history teacher, was committed to helping youngsters learn to participate thoughtfully and purposely in the democratic process. After eight years of teaching, however, Joe began to question why he taught.

Joe knew if he was going to inspire students, he needed to be inspired. He had to like being in the classroom and he had to believe in what he was doing. But authorities outside Joe’s classroom were the ones making many of the decisions about what happened inside his classroom. 

He seemed to spend most of his day teaching what those officials expected, in the manner recommended, on the timetable required. The personal vision that had inspired Joe to teach was quickly disappearing.

Vision Lost
The problem of over-direction in K-12 education is not new. It first gained attention in the aftermath of Sputnik and re-emerged in recent decades as legislatures applied new pressures on teachers in the classroom.

Some will recall efforts in the 1990s to re-engage teachers in decisions about teaching. Site-based management became a familiar buzzword. Unfortunately, this well-intended attempt to protect the creativity, morale and staying power of teachers came to be less about needed change and more about additional committees, added mandates and teacher time diverted to problems only marginally related to the classroom.

The ongoing push of outside demands is simply too constant and too wearing to allow space for what teachers believe in, enjoy and are good at doing. There is almost always a loss of energy and morale as teachers focus less on implementing their own creative ideas and more on the essential survival skills of going along to get along. Like Joe, their personal vision is lost.

Can we find a way to return enough of the classroom back to the teacher so that instruction becomes a creative and satisfying expression of who they are? What, if anything, can be done to preserve teachers’ personal visions?

Gradual Change
Unfortunately, so much has been invested in providing outside direction to K-12 teachers that change may be impossible. But we should make an effort — first by eliminating unlikely sources of “help” that often contribute to the problem, like unproven reforms, untested programs and lists of recommendations from outside experts.

If change comes, it will come quietly, slowly. It will begin as teacher candidates consider why they choose to teach, explore what they bring to teaching and ponder what they want in return. From this experience, personal vision will begin to form, and it’s that vision that will carry into their classrooms, grounding them when voices from the outside overwhelm.

We cannot rely on those in the halls of state legislatures or even in downtown central offices to initiate necessary change. They view teaching too generically — it is almost a requirement for the work they do. Rather, the change will happen within the school — a decision by a principal to devote part of several faculty meetings to a discussion of “Why I teach,” a commitment by a teacher to do something every day to honor her vision for teaching, a pledge by a struggling teacher to ask for the help he needs and the kindness of colleagues willing to extend help to him and to others.

Change comes slowly, but enduringly, largely through the efforts of those who do the work of teaching, assisted by those who stand at their side.


CAROLYN BUNTING, a retired school administrator in North Carolina, is author of Getting Personal about Teaching.