Learning a new humble style

William Tobin, Ph.D./ June 16, 2020/ Blog, Uncategorized/ 0 comments

 

Durham Public-School’s five-year plan begins with the conviction that “fulfilling every child’s potential” depends on the people of Durham “work[ing] collectively and intentionally to embody “the highest aspirations for our children.”

So, I and the members of the lab took seriously the idea that the wellbeing of the children of Durham is the responsibility of all of residents of the county.  We assumed that shared responsibility would mean working together as a community to make sure all students got what the “best” parent would want for their child.

Over the years we found that the District didn’t really want shared responsibility. Instead it preferred to frame problems in its own terms and produce its own solutions, even if they didn’t work.

What shared responsibility for the children of Durham often means for the District was that community members and parents are invited to bring concerns about our children to officials and they will listenoften genuinely, attentively and actively.

This listening sounds like this:

“I hear you Mom.”

“My door is always open,”

“Thanks for your advocacy,”

“It is a pleasure to work with such a committed community stake holder.”

But what school leaders hear and how they respond is invariably filtered through current practices, policies, and, above all, through the District’s own understandings of what is possible.

This response sounds like this:

“Here are the budget numbers, that limit our degrees of freedom,”

“Can I help you understand this situation?”

” I wish things worked that way.”

“You’re the first person who has voiced that concern [and thus I will not be acting on it].”

“Ok, you and the state constitution insist that all young people are prepared for career or college, let me show you our graduation rate.”

In other words, ”we hear you loud and clear and we will take it from here.”  What gets lost in the process of translating the hard and unpleasant lives of students and their families into District language is the urgency and the corrosive human cost that comes with a lack of hope.  Shared responsibility doesn’t end with a plan, new curriculum, increases in graduation rates.  It ends when all students in the District are actually educated.

And then two weeks ago something totally unexpected happened, something that forced me to use the past tense in the above paragraphs. Superintendent Mubenga and the Board reversed a personnel decision in regard to a high ranking administrator in response to the community. Personnel decisions are by their very private and personal nature, the decisions that are least likely to be part of  shared public responsibility.  Admitting in this most internal and personal of  areas, that the community was right required humility and courage. (Some background: About a month ago Dr. Kristin Bell, Director of the Exceptional Children (EC) office in the District was reassigned, really demoted, and the District announced a search for a new director. No one, especially Dr. Bell, would argue that EC is where it should be. But no one who is at all familiar with EC in the District—especially those who have sat across the table from Dr. Bell arguing for a student—would understand the demotion of Dr. Bell. Indeed, she is one of the only good things about EC.)

 I hope the District realizes that this humility and courage didn’t really hurt and, in fact, increased its standing in the community.

Now the District should keep going and proactively co-produce other solutions with the community. Humility—precisely, what so many  parents whose children are struggling educationally already feel everyday—is a prerequisite for addressing the most vexing educational problems  confronting the children of Durham.

Here is an issue that could use some administrative humility:, as far as we can tell none of the high schools the Durham students in the Lab attend have the capacity to teach remedial reading and basic math to (the situation is slightly, but only slightly, better for students that have an Exceptional Children designation and an IEP or 504 Plan).  Many of our high schools simply do not have a qualified reading teacher or anyone who can teach, what one Math teacher in the District called “mental math.” The District’s policy of social promotion ensures that there are not a few high school students in Durham who are illiterate. Nationally, about 20% of high school students are illiterate and our experience suggests there is no reason to think that this figure is lower in Durham.

What is required here is the humility and, yes, courage to say, “we don’thave this, and we desperately need help.”

The district could start by identifying resources in the broader community. Then they could try to  figure out ways to bring these resources into the school so students can learn to read before they graduate.  A high school student who can’t read or add, needs individualized attention and instruction.  The Hill School, the Augustine Literacy Project and Durham Tech know how to diagnose and address illiteracy in young adults. But actually, bringing this knowledge and expertise into our high schools would require the District to give up control at the classroom, school and district levels. This, of course, will be difficult, messy, and awkward, but that is the best—the only?—way to teach our children in high school to read, add, subtract, and multiply.

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