Why do I choose the books I choose for my class? Me, I always spent a lot of time thinking about the choices of text for my students because, well, for one… I could.

Unfortunately, teachers today are seeing more and more and more micro-management of their curriculums/books/texts by people who do not actually ever have to work face-to-face with any of the real kids in the room.

It’s kind of like going to Web M.D. for medical treatment. Sure, there might be some highly qualified folks who are posting very high quality material there, but only a fool would remove a face-to-face visit with a real doctor from the equation should someone actually fall ill.

Yet, removing the power of the teacher to be a “professional diagnostician” of the literacy needs of the actual kids sitting in the classroom is not only how we operate (all too often), but it’s a wave of tomfoolery that way too many school districts in America have bought into hook, line and sinker because they wrongly believe curing literacy shortfalls in kids today can actually work from afar.

It’s as if the solution to “fixing” our kids can be purchased in a box. Great tools can come in a box. The craftspeople who wield those tools cannot.

Teachers, when I really think about it, have almost been backed into a corner in far too many schools whereby they are supposed to be executors of curricular decisions; not parties to the crafting of the curriculum itself.

And so, how do I decide which books my kids will read? First, I made sure to grab the power to do so.

My feeling was always, “Hey, you hired me to do this job, now I am going to actually do the job,” and no, I am not saying the means always justify the ends. But I am saying that if I hire a contractor to build an addition on my house, I’d be a bozo to stand over them the whole time saying, “Okay, now use the hammer. Okay, now use the saw. Okay, now I want you to use the tape measure, the wrench and then the level – in that order and at these intervals.”

The person who is doing the work needs latitude in order to smartly and effectively do the actual work.

Do teachers have the latitude to make book choices for my their own classes in this day and age. class? Do you?

The teacher as “professional diagnostician”. Our importance in the classroom of today (and tomorrow) – despite the false appearances in the media – is on the rise. The question we all must face is, “Are we up to this challenge?”

Now I know that I am a bit of a hot-blooded alarmist. Quick to fire off emotionally charged diatribes and even quicker to flame tomfoolery where it rears its ugly, almost omnipresent head in public education today.

However, this morning I read this line from an article in the Los Angeles Times in regards to re-making one of our city’s high schools. The line said — and this is a direct quote…

What is happening there reflects a near desperation for reform that is seizing many schools.

See, I know why I am so quick with a trigger to roast education-policy idiocy. Because I see firsthand how the foolishness negatively impacts real kids in real ways. I mean my students don’t have time for “committees” to meet so that self-evident issues can be “studied” in think tank halls that are politically influenced by re-election contributions and impacted by the nuances of allegiances that one must have with certain like-minded factions (i.e. cronies) in order to remain viable as a “player” in the elections of the future.

My kids need this off-course ship to be re-aligned now!!

This is why I sort of view my approach to this profession from a take-the-bull-by-the-horns mentality. If we don’t act — and act now — things simply will not get done and stuff will remain the same for years, with people looking back on this day and age with an, “Oh what a shame we didn’t do something a few years ago” mentality.

Well, these are the days that in a few years will be a few years ago! That’s why I am such a fire-alarm pulling flamethrower by nature.

Yet the line from the L.A. Times article uses this language: What is happening there reflects a near desperation for reform that is seizing many schools.

Thems is strong words! And so I wonder, does everyone else in this country work in a school that smacks of being in “near desperation for reform”?

Are there folks working at schools that simply sorta need mild change (because nothing’s perfect) but for the most part, scrapping the entire configuration of the school as it currently exists and then reinventing itself wholesale is not a best case thing to do because in reality, that would be overkill?

As the article points out, Birmingham High is talking about a wholesale re-imagination of itself, stemming from a sense of near desperation. Personally, I see scores and scores of schools that also fit this description. Elementary schools in this country seem to be functioning better than middle and secondary — that’s my own take on the matter — but at the higher levels I wonder whether we even have 10% of our nations middle and high schools not viewing themselves through a lens of being in “near desperation for reform”.