Good teachers will spend some time this summer thinking about how they can improve their lessons next year. That’s just what they do.
— Danny Steele (@SteeleThoughts) May 25, 2018
The rest of us crap teachers will use summer to rest and take a break without feeling guilty about not thinking about work. That's just what we do. https://t.co/llVbSvNBV5
— Doug Robertson (@TheWeirdTeacher) May 28, 2018
There are lots of important and difficult conversations that we need to have about education that we can’t solve in a Tweet that encourages teachers to work harder and longer, or in books that offer ‘hacks’ to a system.
Power dynamics matter. Teachers put themselves at risk when they criticize administrators’ Tweets. So when Danny Steele - a principal who unironically encourages people to drink the Kool-Aid - tweets about what makes a ‘good’ teacher, he sets up labor expectations for those who work for him and teachers more broadly. It then takes real courage to challenge the narratives that can reduce the problems of the education system to the mindset or work-ethic of teachers. Put another way, the dominant narrative about education encourages a kind of toxic positivity where people who bring up critical issues are labelled as being ‘negative’ for not participating with ‘likes’.A phrase I borrow from Chris Hubbard
A meaningful conversation about professionalism in education will need to challenge the prevalent power dynamics that push concerns about equity to the side. Many of the book publishers and white male ‘thought leaders’ frame the conversation about professional learning in narrow terms that do not take into account any kind of “structural theory about processes and systems that make our identities mean something in different contexts.” ‘Thought leaders’ simply don’t personally put much on the line when they tell us about their 5 favorite leadership quotes, or that Twitter is ‘free PD’, or that we should work over the summer.
In his When Teachers Bash Teachers, Barnes responds to critical commentary about Danny Steele’s Tweet with an attempt to reign in criticism by painting it as unprofessional :
“…connected educators are working very hard to be the best at what they do. They share links to wonderful resources and articles about innovative teaching and learning, and they participate in some inspiring conversations that help me reflect and, in some cases, drive content at Times 10 Books. This is powerful, free professional development. As I observe a mountain of marvelous content on Twitter, I’m also seeing an increase in what looks a lot like subtle bashing of other educators who submit their ideas of “best practice.” … This bashing, which some people defend by saying, “I was talking about the idea, not the person” is, surprisingly, prolific, which might make you wonder, How can this happen in the education space? These are adults, after all, who are supposed to model proper behavior for kids.”
Would Barnes find it an ‘inspiring conversation’ if Black or First Nations women asked why they are underrepresented in leadership? Would ‘wonderful resources … about innovative teaching’ leave room for critical pieces about the racial profiling of students or the labor conditions of teachers? Why can’t these conversations happen in the education space?
Here are my thoughts on the 3 Hacks To Kill Critical Conversations before they can get off the ground.
Hack #1: Make it about intent rather than impact.
The fastest way to kill a critical conversation is to cut down how other people interpret what you have said and to revert back to your intent, which in fact, no one can know but you. As a follow-up, do not take on board any of the points made against you or reconsider your initial statement.
I know what you’re thinking. How do I pull off this strategy against people who know that the idea of authorial intent has been long dead and that in anti-oppression work, it’s impact rather than intent that counts? The trick to keep in mind is that you’re trying to kill off the critical conversation, which requires you to be a partner in dialog for it to work. At once you can make it clear that you’re not going to discuss impact and how your actions live out in the world beyond your own mind, it’s over.
Hack # 2: Misrepresent the actual power dynamics.
If you can be the first to get your thoughts out there, then you can make everyone else look reactive. That’s right! In your initial framing, you can cover up a whole range of issues – in this case, labor – if you can get the right kind of pithy statement that encourages people to hit ‘like’ as a performance of their ‘positivity’.
When people call you out with criticisms, there are two basic strategies here. First, tone police what they say. They are being unkind, and need to “model proper behavior”.
Second, construct analogies to make yourself look like a helpless victim. If you’re a principal or head of a publishing company, it’s too easy to look like you’re the bad guy when teachers push back against your thoughts about how much harder they should be working. How do we reverse the power dynamic? Change your gender from male to female and make everyone equal in status. An analogy where we are all students would work. Then, subtly indicate that the people who offer criticism have more power than you by labeling them “the popular student” (it doesn’t matter if you have 10 times more Twitter followers). Now, it looks like you had the innocent intent of a young girl who had drawn “a beautiful picture of three children with light bulbs over their heads” that was crushed by the unfeeling popular kids.
https://twitter.com/Jess5th/status/1001996698565136386
Hack # 3: Sell ‘hacks’ rather than systemic change.
You need to create ‘likable’ content. When I was a kid, my dentist had these posters on the ceiling. Baby animals with short quotes that Einstein never said. After you get people into the ‘likable’ groove, it’s essential to frame life as ‘hackable’ with secrets and tips to be more productive or efficient, which keeps people from wondering why the world works in the inequitable way it does and wondering about who might be responsible for that.