"El Milagro Weblog"

Now I am conflicted.

Usually when some CEO from a dysfunctional industry shares his or her insights on how I can better do my job as an educator, it is easy to dismiss.  Is serving in Congress really all the experience you need to become an authority on educating children?  Or is running a computer start-up sufficient enough to make one an expert in the nuances of pedagogy?  Or is joining the Rotary Club?  Or having your own kids?  Or coaching a little league team?  Or managing a fast food outlet? Is not being an educator  really all it takes to know what ails the public education system?  Really?

I think educating another human being is far more complex a process than dentistry… but when it comes to root canals I’m more than willing to defer to my dentist, Dr. Disraeli.  I have a healthy regard for his expertise.

And yet, for whatever reason, EVERYBODY is an expert on what is wrong with our schools and what we should do to fix them. So I really was conflicted on Sunday morning when I read an editorial by James Comstock, a retired Army Major General who is the latest non-expert expert to weigh in on how screwed up our schools are.  His is a little different take.  He wrote:

“A report by the nonprofit Mission: Readiness estimates that 75% of young Americans are not able to join the military and one of the leading reasons is a failure in our education system.”

The Major General cites the current high school drop out rates, the high percentage of physically unfit kids, and the incidence of juvenile crime as deal breakers for individuals who might otherwise want to join the all-volunteer armed forces.  And they are.  These are the trends that every community must address through a combined effort of public policy, law enforcement, health care, social services, fitness, recreation and business. And yes, education services—from Pre-K to the university.

But not having enough enlisted recruits to slake the military’s thirst for perpetual war is not what keeps me awake at night.

It’s not that I’m unpatriotic or that I don’t appreciate the military service of my father and my two older brothers and the millions of other American veterans.  I am.  That’s why I am conflicted.  I want our students to be academically qualified for West Point (or USC)– not necessarily to enlist in the army.  So I did some research about who really does join the armed forces.  I was pleasantly surprised.  I learned that:

• Members of the all-volunteer military are significantly more likely to come from high-income neighborhoods than from low-income neighborhoods.

• Only 11 percent of enlisted recruits in 2007 came from the poorest one-fifth (quintile) of neighborhoods, while 25 per­cent came from the wealthiest quintile.

• American soldiers are more educated than their peers. A little more than 1 percent of enlisted personnel lack a high school degree, compared to 21 percent of men 18–24 years old, and 95 percent of officer accessions have at least a bachelor’s degree.

• Contrary to conventional wisdom, minorities are not overrepresented in military service. • Enlisted troops are somewhat more likely to be white or black than their non-military peers.

• Whites are proportionately represented in the officer corps, and blacks are overrepresented, but their rate of overrepresentation has declined each year from 2004 to 2007.

Evidently the military is actually meeting its recruiting quotas with quality folks who are drawn—no doubt—from the public school system.  We must be doing something right if it is our alumni who are fighting the general’s war. If you ask me the purpose of public education is in the United States today— or what legacy I might one day leave behind in my leadership of public schools— I honestly would not list feeding the military pipeline as one of my accomplishments. I am not striving to close the achievement gap as a patriotic gesture.

“America’s military strength depends on its young people,” says the Major General.    “Encouraging physical fitness in schools and providing children with the quality education they deserve will help insure our national security for years to come.”

It turns out Major General Comstock isn’t the only high-ranking officer who wants schools to do better in the interest of maintaining our military supremecy.  Former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Generals Shalikashvili and Shelton stated that “investing in our children through early education is a plain common sense issue critical to our National Security.”

Indeed.

But I’d like to believe– however naïve it may sound– that the more advanced and effective our educational system becomes, the more equitable the opportunities we provide for our students, the more just our society, the more civil and fair and moral our nation… the less we would have need for a military at all.

I still sit in awe of the extraordinary courage displayed by Patrick Tillman when he abandoned a multi-million dollar NFL contract to join the Major General’s army for a soldier’s salary. Brilliant.  Beautiful.  Athletic.  Young.  Patriotic.  The very, very best of America’s youth.  Killed by friendly fire and then buried in bureaucratic lies.

I wonder what would the army would do if our public schools produced more children of the quality of Patrick Tillman.  Until that is resolved, maybe we strive to prepare children to change the world in their own way, to be all they can be, and manage our own conflicting feelings about patriotism, and the “failures of the public school system”, and the supposed dearth of soldiers qualified to execute a war.

Simultaneously posted on Leadertalk

I was asked by Scott McCloud to be a guest blogger on his site called “Dangerously Irrelevant”.  He invited several veteran administrator/bloggers to respond to this question:

“What do administrators expect of their teachers?”

You can find my post at Dangerously Irrelevant.  Or just read it here!

When Scott first invited me to contribute a post in response to “What Does Every Administrator Need from Teachers” I immediately thought about the “Seven Gifts of El Milagro” that I wrote about a few years ago. At Mueller Charter School (aka. “El Milagro”) there just seem to be some common attributes shared by our most effective teachers. In the long grind of the school year and the relentless escalation of demands imposed by No Child Left Behind, I have come to expect these seven attributes from all of our teachers: commitment, talent, innovation, collaboration, intrinsic motivation, resiliency, and compassion.

THE GIFT OF COMMITMENT
The first of the Seven Gifts is the Gift of Commitment; an ability and willingness to focus like a red laser on the battle at hand. A belief in the cause. We look for warriors, and not just in the poetic sense of the term. True warriors are relentless in their pursuit of the mission. Even in the face of personal loss and harm, they give of themselves. No excuses. No compromise.

THE GIFT OF TALENT
While it would be nice to place a classic and complete teacher in every classroom, we have to settle for talented and inspiring and academically curious idealists. Our teachers have to have a strong, foundation in literacy and mathematical reasoning. They have to have that content knowledge.

But math and language arts content is not enough. Nor is science, social studies, physical education, and the visual and performing arts content. In between, who will make Yo-Yo Ma as real as Beyoncé? Who will inspire children to take a second microscopic look at a cricket’s wing and marvel at the intricate similarities that exist among living things? Who will explain how the same people who gave us Babylon, now give us Hamas? Who will teach children to sing with whatever voice God gave them…if not their teacher?

At El Milagro, our teachers must first be talented human beings if they are going to be talented teachers. And talent is formed from each individual’s unique amalgam of interest and curiosity, their personalities, their life experiences, their natural gifts. And, of course, their ability to translate their excitement and love for learning to others.

THE GIFT OF INNOVATION
The grand metaphors of life do not escape the creative observer. Life, in and of itself, may very well be the metaphor. In the meantime, however, there are those whose minds can bend and accept ambiguity and change and chaos and the long rough ride. There is a flexibility in their mental constructs. They solve problems with a sense of humor. They are confident in their own efficacy.

We used to say that we were looking for people who were capable of “thinking outside the box” until thinking outside the box became its own confining metaphor. So now we are just looking for gifted innovators…people with imaginations, playful spirits, and an ability to create El Milagro from Mueller Charter School. We are looking for Picasso or George Lucas. We are looking for Andy Warhol to find something useful to do with a can of soup besides open it with a rusted kitchen tool. We are looking for Christo to drape Central Park in orange banners and photograph the tourists as they run through them—catching and consuming them as if they were snowflakes melting in their mouths for the first time.

A GIFT FOR COLLABORATION
We are not the passengers. We are the crew. We row together or die in irons. There is no option for reclusive entrepreneurs concocting innovations in the broom closet. We share. We talk. We brainstorm and ask lots of questions that begin with “What if…” Our teachers communicate about their students’ progress on a regular basis. They collaborate with anyone who wants to play. And they all want to play.

THE GIFT OF INTRINSIC MOTIVATION
We are looking for teachers who have the rare ability to find inspiration in their own magic; teachers who are driven only by a compulsion to serve. Indeed, if people are intrinsically driven to achieve greatness on behalf of others, and to be a part of a passionate force of change, there is simply no more powerful source of motivation. If we are truly committed to the success of every child…then nothing can motivate us but their success! Nothing. Not money, not fear of sanctions, nor a manager’s praise.

THE GIFT OF RESILIENCY
Our teachers have to be resilient. That’s why we seek warriors who will not take “No” for an answer. Our teachers will not be denied. They fall and they rise up. They fall and they rise up. Their resilience is as much a part of El Milagro as anything else we do. We can’t promise much. But we can promise you will stumble and swear and agonize over the challenges: the mobility, the poverty, the ambiguity. The never-ending meetings and demands when you are sick and tired and buried and when you just want to hide out in your classroom and catch your breath.

And just when you arrive at your breaking point, in that moment when you discover that you cannot succeed at El Milagro unless you are resilient…you rise yet again. Bouncing back. Modeling persistence. While children all around you notice that the mysterious strength that they are drawing from their teacher somehow carries them—and they discover in themselves the strength to overcome anything.

THE GIFT OF COMPASSION
In “A Love Poem for My Students”, Ms. Michel, one of my first grade teachers wrote of her compassion for her students.  In part, it says:

I live to learn how to teach
my young people how to reach
the stars.

By far—
they are the most blessed gift given to me.

Ms. Michel has many gifts as a teacher. But the ones that her students derive the most benefit from are her commitment… talent… innovation… collaboration… intrinsic motivation… resiliency… and compassion. The Seven Gifts.

She reminds me of the verse I once read from Exodus: “You are blessed. You are a blessing to others. You are a blessing to the world.” I suppose, in the end, that that is what I ask of teachers every day: to bring the seven gifts and be a blessing to the world.

Isaac got in between his mom and her boyfriend when they were fighting and caught the flying coffee pot right on the corner of his cheekbone.  Even through the stitches he refused to cry.

Andre lost his little sister when she rode her bicycle in front of the trolley.

Erica has a parent in prison.  Both of Emilio’s parents are incarcerated.  Joaquin never knew his parents.  Beto is the parent because his mom works three jobs and is still below the poverty level.

Survivors.

But teaching survivors how to add fractions or to sort between metaphors and similes or to distinguish the relative power of the three branches of government– all while their lives are falling apart around them—is almost cruel.

Then again, it is essential to the healing.  In the worst of life crises, school is often the one stable element in children’s lives.  So we go on.

But it is a lot to ask children to overcome adversity on their own.  They need the support and the structures to persevere.  So at El Milagro we build on their natural assets.  We intentionally teach them to be resilient, and in fact, to come through fire stronger than before.

We create the processes to monitor students, assess the extent of the services they need, and marshal our resources to fully support them outside of the classroom.  Some students need counseling.  Some need to be in a support group.  Some need vision screening, or a free lunch card, or a Big Brother.  Some need the intervention of child protective services.  Whatever their needs, we have the system to address it.

Recent reports that the national poverty level has worsened came as neither a surprise nor an epiphany for us.  We see the effects every day.   We find ways to mitigate against the environmental factors that make academic achievement difficult to engender. Not impossible.  Just real tough.

We have become experts in teaching children to overcome poverty; to be resilient.  Maybe that is as it should be.  But it would far better for kids if the root causes of poverty and despair where addressed in their communities; if there were real systemic solutions to unemployment, crime, neglect, and lack of health care.

If only adults were as resilient as the children they are obligated to serve.