Dallas ISD tells us teachers to ‘embrace flexibility.’ If only ‘flexibility’ were possible.
Recently, Dallas ISD’s weekly staff newsletter, The Beat, advised me to “embrace flexibility.” Accepting flexibility, The Beat assured me, is “one of the core tenets of culture” at DISD.
It also boasted, “At Dallas ISD, we will do everything we can to meet the needs of our students, families and employees. Ground situations and create an environment that really caters to needs and creates positive experiences. “
That was great news as a teacher! I don’t know when DISD will implement this plan for flexibility and readiness to meet the needs of their employees, but I hope it is soon because we can only tread on the spot long before we drown for good.
For example, I hope this plan gives teachers the flexibility to test our children, when we see fit, on the material we have covered in class. At the moment, all secondary school teachers in the district have to take exams in the same school week. Within a subject area, teachers at a particular school are required to take identical tests, even if the way we taught our children or the order in which we covered the material is different.
The idea behind this is to force all of us to teach the same thing in the same way, to standardize teaching for our students regardless of the fact that teachers have different teaching styles and students have different learning styles. In other words, the exact opposite of flexibility.
I am also curious to see if this eagerness to meet the needs of students and staff leads DISD to move away from the rigid and incredibly time-consuming protocol of the Professional Learning Community (PLC) that we go through at least twice a week. Four pages of bullet points and actual scripts have replaced the time my colleagues and I used to plan together, seek advice, compare teaching methods, and create activities and assessments. (“These steps look great. Let’s add [fill in the blank] about your script / timetable “says the SPS document to my administrator.)
If the core idea of the district’s flexibility is that teachers can again use PLC time in the way we think it will best benefit our students, join me!
In fact, teachers are being suffocated in DISD. As the administrator and activist of my Alliance / AFT union, I have spoken to more weeping teachers this year than in any of my years together. I’ve been the crying teacher more times this year than any of my previous years combined. We love being with our students again, but the return to any face-to-face class has meant a return to laser focus primarily on test scores, strict monitoring of our classrooms, and micromanaging of our teaching strategies.
This happens while students still frequently disappear from our classes for 10 days at a time in quarantine. This is while we are all adjusting back to a normal school schedule with normal school expectations. During this time we will deal together with the trauma of what we have experienced and are still experiencing under the rule of COVID-19.
I am very clear about what flexibility means and how it would feel in my job. This is what students, parents and teachers need. The only confusing thing about The Beat’s pro-flexibility message is the use of the present tense. Obviously, this is not a cultural principle that has yet to be put in place.
Nonetheless, I am delighted to learn more about how DISD can finally show some grace to its teachers and staff, who have made such incredible sacrifices, especially in the past year and a half. When these changes occur, I know we will feel them and appreciate them.
Rosemary Curts is a high school teacher for the Dallas ISD. She wrote this column for the Dallas Morning News. Email: quinnopolis@gmail.com
You can find the full opinion section here. Do you have an opinion on this subject? Send a letter to the editor and you might get published.
[ad_1]
https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2021/10/19/dallas-isd-tells-us-teachers-to-embrace-flexibility-if-only-flexibility-were-possible/