The Four Seductive Temptations of Teaching
One of my dearest colleagues, Cicy Po, once talked about certain concepts in education being seductive. She meant that these ideas were alluring and easy to fall for, but they weren’t always good ones. They are tempting because these ideas make it seem like life can be simpler and better. But they can also be hollow dead-ends. These are four of the ideas I find seductive, and I need to fight the temptation to embrace them.
First Tempting Idea: Standardized Testing + Learning Standards Guide Everything
When I first started teaching in 1998, MCAS was the tempting idea. It was not yet a graduation requirement. But it was the thing that would help uplift poor urban Black and Brown kids to be as successful as their white suburban peers. And today, we see an entire charter industry built around this idea. “How will we know how kids are doing if we don’t test them?” is a common refrain I hear. The responsible thing to do is to measure and assess.
Learning standards were something we thought about and were aware of. They certainly weren’t bad in and of themselves, but somehow, they became the absolute Truth. A lesson is no longer deemed valuable if there is not a specific standard that the lesson is linked to, standards that can then be mapped sequentially—vertically and horizontally—and “rigorously assessed.”
To illustrate why a focus on testing and standards falls short, I want to give you an example of how we used to teach at the Boston Arts Academy.
As a science teacher, my favorite unit we designed was on color and light. In this unit integrating multiple science disciplines and the arts, students explored a wide range of topics. We discussed the chemistry of paint, making our own egg tempera paint and testing it with and without egg. I can still remember the paint without egg flaking off the paper after it dried and discussing the molecular properties that resulted in observable binding. We compared pigment mixing to light mixing, visiting the black box theatre and shining blue and yellow lights together and pondering why they did not turn green. We used a spectrophotometer to create absorption graphs, learning how colors are detected by our eyes, which led to dissecting cow eyes. Seeing the thick optic nerve at the back of the eyeball led us to the importance of the brain in processing imagery, and examples of when that system is fooled through an array of optical illusions in art. This rich unit was engaging, rigorous, and deeply scientific. It was also eliminated in future years when we were forced to abandon integrated science courses to teach specific subjects in accordance with state testing requirements.
“Educating humans is a messy business. It’s natural to look for ways to tame the chaos sometimes, but the true beauty in teaching is not about standards or tests or defined outcomes. Is what we gain through order and structure worth the loss of creativity, passion, and connection?”
With testing and standards, the tempting idea is that we can control learning and the outcome. The problem is, learning is not an isolated physics experiment. Learning requires us to stay engaged, and this often is messy. We should not be afraid of the mess.
Second Tempting Idea: Being Nice
Beware of being too nice. I’m not saying “don’t be kind.” I’m saying look out for when you’re being too kind. Or when your kindness is a proxy for something less comfortable.
When I first became a principal, my colleague Rasheed Meadows was also a principal in the same building complex. I once asked him for feedback and he told me that I was nice to everyone, whether they deserved it or not. He pushed me to consider if everyone deserved my niceness at all times.
I have never forgotten this feedback. Rasheed knew me, and he was sensing that sometimes what appeared to be bottomless patience was also my avoidance of holding others accountable; avoiding difficult and direct communication. We want our work environments to be harmonious and pleasant, but we do not always consider that a peaceful workplace for us may maintain a harmful environment for students. Difficult conversations are necessary in schools, particularly examining where student access to opportunities are not equal.
In her online piece “Dear Nice White People” about her frequent work around race, Austin Channing Brown writes: “You are afraid to speak up because you know there will be repercussions for doing so… you are not a child afraid of some intangible, imaginary outcome. You are afraid of being on the receiving end of the oppression you have witnessed.”
She goes on to describe the way people of privilege protect themselves from risk but then feel badly afterwards that they didn’t act for some mysterious, elusive, unknown reason. She ends by saying, “Your niceness serves only you.” I believe deeply that teaching is a service profession, and if we are truly to serve the greater good, we must be willing to take risks equal to our level of privilege and be true allies and conspirators with those who do not have the same safety to risk. And if someone calls you out in a way that is not “nice,” listen for the content and hear the emotion or edge behind it as evidence of a deep emotion—anger, hurt, frustration—not as a personal attack.
With being nice, the tempting idea is to keep the peace and proceed slowly. The problem is that, in education, we have normalized inequity and dysfunction. Change requires that we recognize the ways in which niceness is an enemy and instead we must embrace discomfort and be willing to risk.
Third Tempting Idea: The Capitalist Mindset
Hayden Frederick-Clarke, a former colleague in Diploma Plus and former Director for Cultural Proficiency in Boston Public Schools, challenged me to think about the ways in which a capitalist, competitive mindset infiltrates all our thinking about schools. We need to first acknowledge the two great sins this country is founded on—two sins that are not frequently discussed and certainly have not been addressed:
Theft & Genocide
Exploitation
Sin is not a strong enough word for these. As I write, I am on land stolen from the Massachusett and Pawtucket peoples, land that belonged to them for generations upon generations. Upon this land, enslaved people built a foundation for American economic power and were brutally abused in ways that have never been acknowledged or restored. This history of extreme atrocities are the foundation of the wealth many of us benefit from today. Enormous inequities continue today upon this land, maintained by our capitalist system. It should be no surprise that with beginnings like these, our educational system is fraught with cracks so deep, they feel impossible to heal. This is jarring for me because in theory, the premise of public education—creating opportunity for all—is amazing.
Some evidence of the capitalist mindset in schooling is easy to spot: competing to be the valedictorian; tracking students in school; using standardized test scores to place value on schools and even on individual students. But some are harder to spot. What about honor roll assemblies? Aren’t those feel-good events? What about honors classes? Selective schools?
We need to introduce examples of communal, socialist education: Restorative Justice Circles; each one reach one teach one; accepting and giving voice to student resistance; building networks and coalitions; challenging the competitiveness of educators in a resource poor environment.
With the capitalist mindset, the tempting idea is that we make things fun and motivating by introducing competition. The problem is that this sorts human beings into winners and losers. A communal mindset motivates with the understanding that we sink or swim together.
Fourth Tempting Idea: The Starfish Metaphor
Perhaps you’ve heard the starfish story. An adult sees a child on a beach strewn with stranded and dying starfish. The child bends down and throws the starfish back into the sea, one by one. The adult says to the child, “There are thousands of starfish washed up on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t make much of a difference.” The child replies, throwing another back into the sea, “I made a difference to that one!”
It’s a nice story, but I interpret it as an excuse. An excuse to stop pushing. An excuse to be comfortable with the playing field staying unleveled. The temptation here is to think you’ve done enough if you attend to some individuals. Have you? What else could you do?
There are actions we can take as individuals, but there are also collective movements we can join. During my time in Boston Public Schools, I have seen large national movements arise like the Occupy movement or Black Lives Matter. I have seen local efforts like the Student Immigrant Movement, organizing against budget cuts, resisting arming school safety personnel with pepper spray, or even not allowing the armed forces to freely enter schools or obtain student records without direct parental consent. Most recently there is a movement to examine selective school admissions in Boston.
As teachers, when we engage in these larger movements, we attend to the wider landscape. We are well-trained to see the individuals, but our participation in movements ensures the next generation of individual students will find a better system waiting for them. Are we attending to the movements? Teaching is political. It’s not “urban teaching” that is political. It’s not “teaching Black and Brown kids” that is political. Teaching is political, full stop. Schools are a venue where we can enact and enable social and political change. It is crucial that we do so.
With the starfish metaphor, the tempting idea is to give in to exhaustion and say you are doing enough. The problem is that we need to persist to change systems. Self-care and boundaries are still important, but change requires that we accept the responsibility to act politically.
It is crucial that we resist the seductive temptations of easy answers in education. It’s not enough to grow roses in concrete. We need to smash the concrete. Only then might we have the schools that our children deserve.
Sunny Pai is a PSi Faculty Member and Director of Systems & Innovation at Charlestown High School, Boston Public Schools. This blog is based on Sunny’s talk for the Art Education Speaker Series of the Massachusetts College of Art & Design on March 4, 2021.