So I see that former TV star Tony Danza is thinking about starring in a reality show called TEACH. That’s right, a reality show. Currently, according to highly placed sources at some internet tabloid drivel I ran across while mindlessly surfing the web, I came across this story.

Yep, the guy from Who’s The Boss is gonna tackle the classroom. An inner city high school classroom in Philly. And what’s he gonna teach?

10th grade English. (Because any schmoe can do it I assume.)

Actually, I don’t want to jump to conclusions. Mr. Danza (or will he be, “Yo, Mr. D!”?) is supposedly doing teacher training right now to step up to the task. About a zillion questions cross my mind. In no particular order (and I have a feeling I am going to simply have to stop at some point before exhausting all of my musings):

Is he…

–Doing this to show how tough it is to be a teacher… much less be a first year teacher? Or is he doing it to show how easy it is to be a teacher if you just 1) care about the kids 2) try your hardest 3) are a good guy 4) are from the hood 5) speak their language 6)

–Expecting that teaching a class that is being filmed by TV cameras to actually resemble a class that is not being filmed by a crew of reality TV cameras?

–Of the opinion that he will be given the same treatment by the administration that all other first year English teachers are given in schools such as this?

–Taking the job/classroom of someone who was fired in the latest budget cuts?

–Planning to use this as an honorable platform to bring more positive attention to the plight of American students and educators?

–Planning to stick around or is this a one and done type of deal whereby he exploits all this media attention for whatever purpose he is doing this for in the first place and then planning to go back to living off of his TV residuals, real estate portfolio, etc?

–Going to be held accountable in any way, shape or form for the performance of his students (or of himself, for that matter)?

– going to have final cut over the show or is the Philly School District going to allow him to show whatever he wants, warts and all?

Remember when I said I have a feeling I am going to simply have to stop at some point before exhausting all of my musings… well, we are now hitting that point.

I mean why is the Mayor of Philly on board with this? Why is Tony doing this? Is the road to hell being paved with good intentions right before our eyes?

Tony, please don’t spoil my fond memory of you… on Taxi. You played the lovable lunk so well.

So I see that former TV star Tony Danza is thinking about starring in a reality show called TEACH. That’s right, a reality show. Currently, according to highly placed sources at some internet tabloid drivel I ran across while mindlessly surfing the web, I came across this story.

Yep, the guy from Who’s The Boss is gonna tackle the classroom. An inner city high school classroom in Philly. And what’s he gonna teach?

10th grade English. (Because any schmoe can do it I assume.)

Actually, I don’t want to jump to conclusions. Mr. Danza (or will he be, “Yo, Mr. D!”?) is supposedly doing teacher training right now to step up to the task. About a zillion questions cross my mind. In no particular order (and I have a feeling I am going to simply have to stop at some point before exhausting all of my musings):

Is he…

–Doing this to show how tough it is to be a teacher… much less be a first year teacher? Or is he doing it to show how easy it is to be a teacher if you just 1) care about the kids 2) try your hardest 3) are a good guy 4) are from the hood 5) speak their language 6)

–Expecting that teaching a class that is being filmed by TV cameras to actually resemble a class that is not being filmed by a crew of reality TV cameras?

–Of the opinion that he will be given the same treatment by the administration that all other first year English teachers are given in schools such as this?

–Taking the job/classroom of someone who was fired in the latest budget cuts?

–Planning to use this as an honorable platform to bring more positive attention to the plight of American students and educators?

–Planning to stick around or is this a one and done type of deal whereby he exploits all this media attention for whatever purpose he is doing this for in the first place and then planning to go back to living off of his TV residuals, real estate portfolio, etc?

–Going to be held accountable in any way, shape or form for the performance of his students (or of himself, for that matter)?

– going to have final cut over the show or is the Philly School District going to allow him to show whatever he wants, warts and all?

Remember when I said I have a feeling I am going to simply have to stop at some point before exhausting all of my musings… well, we are now hitting that point.

I mean why is the Mayor of Philly on board with this? Why is Tony doing this? Is the road to hell being paved with good intentions right before our eyes?

Tony, please don’t spoil my fond memory of you… on Taxi. You played the lovable lunk so well.

TIME magazine just published this story called Morning the Death of Handwriting. It made me realize that the more deeply I think about my job as a teacher, the more acutley aware I become that I really can’t say for sure that I am doing the right thing — or teaching the right things — in my classroom.

Sure, my state has standards — and our nation is currently developing national ones — but let’s be honest… they are a “best guess”.

No one really knows for sure what knowledge we need to impart to our kids in order to best prepare them for the demands of the future.

We can guess. We can speculate. We can use expert opinions to rationalize our reasons, but do we know? Do we really know?

We don’t. And I am not sure why we do not acknowledge this more openly. I think exposing our sense of “fallibility” would make us more compassionate towards one another as we discuss these matters and more willing to listen to people who have different opinions than the ones we ourselves currently have.

Because at the end of the day, these are all opinions — only opinions — that we are offering as to what will matter. Cause as I said, no one knows for sure.

For example, I teach Orwell. But I can’t say for sure that the impact of teaching Orwell creates a better future life for my students in a way that leaps over what I could have imparted should I have chosen to teach Jane Austen.

And while I make an effort to incorporate 21rst century digital literacy skills into my classroom, I can’t say that I’m not participating in the education of my kids in an area that’s a total waste because it will soon enough be obsolete due to somebody (probably a pimple-faced teen with a whole lotta Red Bull running through their veins) already figuring out a better means of accomplishing the same task in less time with more accuracy and insight.

I mean I teach MLA style. Is there not a point at which papers will simply be hyperlinked to their reference source so that I do not have to have my kids go through the process of typing last name, first name and so on?

Once, doctors believed in leeches and bleeding. Today we believe in slashing the arts in order to drill the “core”. Will history view us one day in the same manner?

No one knows. People may say they know, people may shout they know, people may drum up all sorts of intellectualized justifications for why they know.

But they don’t.

We’re all just doing the best we can and if we took a moment to take the bullhorns out of our mouths and tried to listen to other people’s points of view as heard through this perspective of understanding, “Hey, they really don’t know what they are talking about anyway” our educational dialogue in this country would be much more civil.

And less dogmatic. And less infuriating. Wouldn’t it? (I am only speculating — I don’t really know.)

But I do know that the folks who have PhD.’s — they don’t know. And that smart-mouthed kid in 3rd period. He just might know.

And which of those two thoughts is more disconcerting?

Education is a best guess business.

A part of my teaching life is paralyzed by feelings of perpetual professional inadequacy. And I feel like I am not alone.

I mean I finally get a grip on how to effectively teach theme and then I recognize the value that incorporating a classroom wiki could have. So I learn how to add this tool to my growing digital teaching arsenal but realize that there are some really high qualities insights to be gained by doing a bit more reading on using inquiry in the classroom. So I start to dive into inquiry theory when the idea of crafting a variance on student portfolios rears its head. Of course, there’s finding new ways to make Langston Hughes more accessible, figuring out if there is a better way to manage the paperwork, taking on a few more school duties so that I am really a part of a team and not just an island among other islands in this thing we called a “unified school district” even though it seems as though we are really quite separate and distinct from one another in so many various ways…

and on and on and on.

I mean, I am never at a place of just feeling comfortable with my current repertoire or abilities. There is always more to learn how to do unless I want to bury my head in the sand about the idea of the need for me to learn more in order for me to do a better job with kids.

But there is so much to learn — and so much that I am teaching once I learn it — that not even summer really provides me a sense of respite. It’s like people have this image of educator as summertime loafers who simply put school in a box,close the lid then fish, nap and grill on the bbq until back-to-school season rolls around.

Yet none of the teachers I admire (and there are scores of them) really approach their jobs — or their summers — this way. Sure, they relax over summer, take a trip and chill or whatever, but do they forget their classrooms? School? The plight of contemporary American education?

Or, do they already show a ton of concern for kids they have not yet even yet met (think about that, we deeply care for people we have not even yet met) and conjure up ways to better reach and teach them even if it is the middle of July and there’s not a school bell set to ring for well over a fortnight? (BTW, I always wanted to use the word fortnight in my writing. Check that off the list of things to do before I die.)

So, how do I get over the hump of feeling as if I still need to learn so much more? Is to be a teacher really to be a perpetual student? Does one ever ascend to the level of “master” and if so, does mastery mean you need to work less hard, as hard, or more hard in order to to learn the mysterious ways of the secret ninja teacher warrior?

No one asked me but…

Considering that a bunch of high-fallutin’, really smart, really accomplished folks are now getting together to concotuate national standards (and you wonder why they didn’t invite me to the party?) I figured I throw in my own 2 cents.

All I ask is that they give me one standard. Just one. The rest, I’ll leave to the professionals.

Standard 1.0: Have fun!

That’s right, have fun. Enjoy your class, enjoy your students, enjoy your work and enjoy your challenges. Smile. Laugh. Tell jokes. Throw open our classroom doors to humor.

After all, these are kids. Diverse, unique, spectacularly special kids who are universally bound by very few universally applicable elements whereby a national model of standards is really going to aptly apply to meet the needs of every kid in this country anyway.

But all kids need to laugh. And all kids love to laugh. And, as someone much smarter than yours truly once said, there is no shorter line between the chasm of two people than a shared smile.

Having fun in the classroom is not a luxury… it is a critical need. People learn better when they enjoy what they are learning. Teachers are more effective when they enjoy what they are teaching. School administrators grumble less when they see kids enjoying school and the teachers enjoying that the kids are enjoying school. Great parents appreciate the value of fun. Great teachers appreciate the value of fun. Kids most assuredly appreciate the value of fun and we will never reach our fullest potential as penultimate technicians of the academic craft (whatever the heck that means — I just stuck it in there because it sounded all erudite) unless we are having fun.

Fun and rigor are not mutually exclusive in the classroom and anybody who thinks so… well, they are a stick in the mud who doesn’t really know much about how best to reach kids.

I’ll say it again… Standard 1.0: Have fun!

It would be a great contribution to American education if we could all recognize its value. And it applies top to bottom across the board in the world of K-12.

See, this is why my students need to be readers who can apply text-to-world critical thinking to our classroom and the world at large.

Take for example, the inimitable actor Woody Harrelson, most famous for being Woody on Cheers but also pretty well known for a heck of a lot of other quite solid — and not so solid — movies he’s done.

White Man Can’t Jump… big thumbs up!

Money Train… big thumbs down!

Anyway, Woody admits getting into a physical confrontation with a paparazzi a few days ago. But he had a good reason. And I quote…

“I quite understandably mistook [the photographer] for a zombie.”

Yep, he really said this. And he also said this…

“I wrapped a movie called ‘Zombieland,’ in which I was constantly under assault by zombies, then flew to New York, still very much in character,” Harrelson said in a statement issued Friday by his publicist.

Niiiicce!

Now if my students were actual readers of the news — any news; The NY Times, The AP wire, FOX or MTV (those last 2 are kinda the same) — they could build a text-to-world connection that could easily get them out of their homework for the night.

I mean if I had a kid come into my class and tell me that “…while scouring the Washington Post for the latest political insight into world economic fiduciary policy they ran across this brief but salient human interest story about Woody Harrelson and then — whodda thunk it — alien zombies ate their HW assignement and there was simply no way Mr. Alan that it could ever be replaced.

And so, I should give them full credit yet not require to see the actual work.”

I’d go for it.

Text-to-World connections. If only our kids could see how valuable what we perpetually advise really could be to their lives.

So yesterday we had walk-throughs. Basically, under the punitive rule of NCLB being that we are a Probationary 3 (I think) school, we have muckety-mucks come in from the… well, I am not sure where this lady came from… to “evaluate” our classes.

So this lady walks into my room with her little checksheet and starts scrutinizing. She checks for things. Mysterious things. Things that are supposed to prove I am teaching and my students are learning.

Having the content standards written on the board seems to be quite important to her. I always have them up but the truth is, I only really do it for the muckety-mucks because in reality, I see virtually no educational value to posting these things on the board. Teaching them is very important. Writing them on the board is practically irrelevant. I mean, it is a reminder to myself of what I am supposed to be doing? That’s kinda like putting a post-it note on my bathroom mirror in the morning reminding myself to “BRUSH YOUR TEETH” isn’t it? And just because the post-it note exists, this doesn’t mean that I will have brushed my teeth. And if the post it note is not there it doesn’t mean I won’t have brushed them either. Writing things on the board such as this strikes me as superfluous… but when you are a muckety-muck with checksheets there are boxes to put X’s through and this seems to be one of the bigger ones.

And how in the heck would she know if I simply put some standards on the board when school started in September and just left the same ones there all year in case muckety-mucks like her popped in for a surprise visit?

Administrators hate those kinds of questions, don’t they?

Overall, I felt “judged” by this woman with all the negative connotation the word “judged” musters. I recall no positive acknowledgement of what I was doing right. (And she walked into a class of high school freshman who were all 100% silent at their desks composing a response to literature based on a novel we were reading — no small feat if you know what it’s like to teach English 9). I obtained no useful feedback as to how my craft could be improved. (But in full disclosure, I sincerely doubt that the input of a muckety-muck who spent a grand total of about 5 minutes in my room would have given her any credibility to comment on my methodologies). And truly, I questioned whether or not she could even step into a high school classroom and actually perform the job she had been assigned to evaluate. She just didn’t seem like she had the verve, the energy, the spirit nor the determination to actually be a real teacher.

But she’s perfectly qualified to evaluate other real teachers, right? Essentially, her short visit left me dispirited.

Then today came and my students rocked a few projects whereby the applied their knowledge of figurative language by creating digital slide shows with musical sound tracks explicating the difference between similes and metaphors through one of 5 themes evident in the novel Tears of a Tiger… and the world was right again.

I mean, I love teaching but the muckety-mucks are like some sort of wet blanket on my fire to do this job. It’s obvious that we, as a nation, don’t trust our professional educators anymore to be professional educators and the fact is, it’s demoralizing. I mean this muckety-muck could have said something positive. She could have tipped her cap to my work ethic, efforts to reach my kids, obvious demonstration of classroom management and on and on and on.

But what did she care about? Her checksheet. And what do I care about? My kids. And you know what, I don’t think they are the same thing.

So yes, I put the standards on the board to avoid confrontation because with so many battles to fight with the muckety-mucks, this seems like one that’s not really worth it. But teaching is not about the checksheets. It’s about the students and I’d venture to say that nowhere on her list were things like “students felt emotionally safe in the environment to express their genuine inner feelings and the educator’s policy of running a Mock Free Zone contributed to a tangible — if ineffable — sense of classroom community.”

Geesh? Why do paper pushers have so much clout?