Educators and Education: The Common Sense and Soul of the Nation
Aaron J. Griffen, Ph.D. @DrAaronJGriffen
@DrAaronJGriffen
Lee Iacocca, once stated, “In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something else”. Unfortunately, for Mr. Iacocca and the best of us, we do not live in a rational society. We live in a completely irrational one spoon fed by the capitalist and geopolitical notion that wealth and material is the greatest determiner of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Far too long has the old White patriarchal adage, “those who can do; those who can’t teach”, lived as a determiner of the best of us.
We are now at a place in our nation where the best of us, the educators, are leading the country through an infrastructure and systemic failure of our current administration to make timely decisions despite having access to every conceivable resource to do so. Our nation has blundered in the face of the Corona Virus, setting a new precedent for idiocracy, hypocrisy, and, dare I say, the robbery of our national conscience and resources. In addition, this occurred under the watch of the supposed “best of us” in our completely irrational society – a businessperson with business minded yes folks – whose supporters felt that by putting him in place, they would see new levels of wealth and prosperity. As Malcom X said, “You’ve been had. You’ve been took. You’ve been hoodwinked. Bamboozled. Led astray. Run amok.”
How ironic is it that for one of the few times ever, the nation cannot place blame for a national crisis and failure of our system of leaders on P12 education nor its teachers or Urban-defined communities, parents and children? There is no Sputnik to call for new science, technology and math. There is no Nation at Risk to call for high stakes testing of minimal skills. There is no No Child Left Behind to question the validity or quality of teachers and administrators. From a safety stand point; there is no Columbine to call into question our safety and security measures and no Stoneman Douglas to question where we dropped the ball on mental health and supports. No one can lay this at education’s feet, saying we did not adequately prepare. No, this national crisis begins and remains squarely in the lap of the current U.S. administration and their failure to fully be ‘highly qualified’ to handle the situation at hand.
The infatuations of the past for scapegoating P12 education for the nation’s ills when convenient while relegating us to black sheep status among “better” more “elite” professions has now left it up to education to come to the rescue. Again, how ironic. How ironic is it that superintendents, principals, teachers, counselors and support staff are connecting across zip codes, across public, charter, and private systems to collect and redistribute resources for children and staff. We have school systems having to determine how to feed children who rely on school for two of their three daily hot meals during the week. Educational and Informational Technology departments in school systems are working around the clock to discern how to make online access equitable so that children without internet access can still learn.
We are in an urgent state of educational and national emergency and as we have always known, it takes educators to resolve and fix educational problems – not big business, not big pharma, not big tobacco, not big industry, and certainly not individuals whose wealth gives them an illusion of credibility. Money like time has made fools of us all. It definitely does not take any group of Billionaires to know what is best for educators. What this is showing us on a national scale is that money and wealth cannot buy educational capability nor intelligence. Money and wealth can buy you a seat at the table but it cannot make you eat the bread of knowledge put in front of you – as evidenced by the dismissal of the Corona Virus as a hoax and that to have better schools there must be free market in which schools operate.
Furthermore, the inequity that educators have been screaming and yelling about now are being amplified by the sudden urgency of communities and parents having to figure out how to maintain children’s education while they are missing school. Suddenly high stakes testing is not as important as a child’s health – this despite schools held accountable, yearly, for not meeting the test participation rate set by the federal government. Now, education gets support from industry to aid with free internet access. Why was this not free from the beginning? If you want to close the digital divide...close the digital divide. Provide access for those without the resources before a national crisis suddenly forces you to develop a conscience.
Hindsight is always 20/20, but in this case, those in charge cannot rely on hindsight excuses, for they accepted and valued that inequity was problem that did not affect them nor their constituents who mattered. As a result, there are redistributions of resources and funding from education, Special Education, Welfare, and after school programs, with no foreseeable plan for increasing teacher salaries or developing the community infrastructure they serve. The value of a society is in the value of its educational system and the education of all – not just some. Educators around the country are showing you, “America”, that we are the resilient ones. We are your leaders. We are the best and brightest, not those who have the money and wealth to influence decisions (or indecision for that matter).
Think about the times we are in and what we are witnessing. Thomas Paine penned, “THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman”. Paine is referring to the happy time “American” who sits atop the mountain bragging on their progress, their materials, their wealth and prosperity, and rewards themselves for the hard work of others for pulling up the proverbial “boot strap” only to disappear, sulk, blame, and take no responsibility for the crisis they have failed to address (and ultimately ignored). Educators have never had the option of hiding nor receiving any form of grace. Our perceived failure, regardless of fault or lack of resources, has always been deemed to be the result of ineptness and the “can’t do” manifesto of old.
What say you now, “America”, when it is educators on the front line determining how to educate and feed children while schools are closed? We are coming up with the solutions, the planning, the mental health supports for staff, students and families, and the infrastructure that remains non-existent while our elected officials play catch up, point fingers and sit behind closed doors trying to save face for the inequities that they have ignored and have historically promoted for profit. Therefore, that infatuation to blame education for any national crisis has highlighted our failures as a society to hold accountable those who place self, success and profit of a few above the good and needs of our nation’s people as a whole. As is proven this last month, money, wealth and the prospect of influence have bought elections and even bought a Billionaire with no educational experience or expertise the role as the top educator in the country. Money, wealth and the prospect of influence, however, cannot buy common sense nor a soul in the moment of an educational and national crisis. Common sense rests in the souls and skills of the best of us, the educators.
Bio
Aaron J. Griffen, Ph.D. is a P-12 practitioner scholar with over 20 years of experience in public and charter schools as a middle school English teacher, assistant principal, a high school principal. He is currently the Director of Diversity Equity and Inclusion at DSST Public Schools in Denver, Colorado and the CEO and Co-Founder of Prosperity Educators, LLC. Dr. Griffen’s Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in Urban Education is from Texas A&M University, College Station where he earned the 2013 Urban Teaching Award. His research interests include Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, Culturally Responsive Instructional Leadership, Multicultural Curriculum and Instruction, African American Educational Lobbying, and Urban Policy and Analysis. Dr. Griffen has presented at major conferences including the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the American Association for Teaching and Curriculum (AATC), and the Texas Oral History Association (TOHA). He has published in the American Journal of Qualitative Research, the National Journal of Urban Education and Practice, the Journal of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, and Intersections: Critical Issues in Education.
We are now at a place in our nation where the best of us, the educators, are leading the country through an infrastructure and systemic failure of our current administration to make timely decisions despite having access to every conceivable resource to do so. Our nation has blundered in the face of the Corona Virus, setting a new precedent for idiocracy, hypocrisy, and, dare I say, the robbery of our national conscience and resources. In addition, this occurred under the watch of the supposed “best of us” in our completely irrational society – a businessperson with business minded yes folks – whose supporters felt that by putting him in place, they would see new levels of wealth and prosperity. As Malcom X said, “You’ve been had. You’ve been took. You’ve been hoodwinked. Bamboozled. Led astray. Run amok.”
How ironic is it that for one of the few times ever, the nation cannot place blame for a national crisis and failure of our system of leaders on P12 education nor its teachers or Urban-defined communities, parents and children? There is no Sputnik to call for new science, technology and math. There is no Nation at Risk to call for high stakes testing of minimal skills. There is no No Child Left Behind to question the validity or quality of teachers and administrators. From a safety stand point; there is no Columbine to call into question our safety and security measures and no Stoneman Douglas to question where we dropped the ball on mental health and supports. No one can lay this at education’s feet, saying we did not adequately prepare. No, this national crisis begins and remains squarely in the lap of the current U.S. administration and their failure to fully be ‘highly qualified’ to handle the situation at hand.
The infatuations of the past for scapegoating P12 education for the nation’s ills when convenient while relegating us to black sheep status among “better” more “elite” professions has now left it up to education to come to the rescue. Again, how ironic. How ironic is it that superintendents, principals, teachers, counselors and support staff are connecting across zip codes, across public, charter, and private systems to collect and redistribute resources for children and staff. We have school systems having to determine how to feed children who rely on school for two of their three daily hot meals during the week. Educational and Informational Technology departments in school systems are working around the clock to discern how to make online access equitable so that children without internet access can still learn.
We are in an urgent state of educational and national emergency and as we have always known, it takes educators to resolve and fix educational problems – not big business, not big pharma, not big tobacco, not big industry, and certainly not individuals whose wealth gives them an illusion of credibility. Money like time has made fools of us all. It definitely does not take any group of Billionaires to know what is best for educators. What this is showing us on a national scale is that money and wealth cannot buy educational capability nor intelligence. Money and wealth can buy you a seat at the table but it cannot make you eat the bread of knowledge put in front of you – as evidenced by the dismissal of the Corona Virus as a hoax and that to have better schools there must be free market in which schools operate.
Furthermore, the inequity that educators have been screaming and yelling about now are being amplified by the sudden urgency of communities and parents having to figure out how to maintain children’s education while they are missing school. Suddenly high stakes testing is not as important as a child’s health – this despite schools held accountable, yearly, for not meeting the test participation rate set by the federal government. Now, education gets support from industry to aid with free internet access. Why was this not free from the beginning? If you want to close the digital divide...close the digital divide. Provide access for those without the resources before a national crisis suddenly forces you to develop a conscience.
Hindsight is always 20/20, but in this case, those in charge cannot rely on hindsight excuses, for they accepted and valued that inequity was problem that did not affect them nor their constituents who mattered. As a result, there are redistributions of resources and funding from education, Special Education, Welfare, and after school programs, with no foreseeable plan for increasing teacher salaries or developing the community infrastructure they serve. The value of a society is in the value of its educational system and the education of all – not just some. Educators around the country are showing you, “America”, that we are the resilient ones. We are your leaders. We are the best and brightest, not those who have the money and wealth to influence decisions (or indecision for that matter).
Think about the times we are in and what we are witnessing. Thomas Paine penned, “THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman”. Paine is referring to the happy time “American” who sits atop the mountain bragging on their progress, their materials, their wealth and prosperity, and rewards themselves for the hard work of others for pulling up the proverbial “boot strap” only to disappear, sulk, blame, and take no responsibility for the crisis they have failed to address (and ultimately ignored). Educators have never had the option of hiding nor receiving any form of grace. Our perceived failure, regardless of fault or lack of resources, has always been deemed to be the result of ineptness and the “can’t do” manifesto of old.
What say you now, “America”, when it is educators on the front line determining how to educate and feed children while schools are closed? We are coming up with the solutions, the planning, the mental health supports for staff, students and families, and the infrastructure that remains non-existent while our elected officials play catch up, point fingers and sit behind closed doors trying to save face for the inequities that they have ignored and have historically promoted for profit. Therefore, that infatuation to blame education for any national crisis has highlighted our failures as a society to hold accountable those who place self, success and profit of a few above the good and needs of our nation’s people as a whole. As is proven this last month, money, wealth and the prospect of influence have bought elections and even bought a Billionaire with no educational experience or expertise the role as the top educator in the country. Money, wealth and the prospect of influence, however, cannot buy common sense nor a soul in the moment of an educational and national crisis. Common sense rests in the souls and skills of the best of us, the educators.
Bio
Aaron J. Griffen, Ph.D. is a P-12 practitioner scholar with over 20 years of experience in public and charter schools as a middle school English teacher, assistant principal, a high school principal. He is currently the Director of Diversity Equity and Inclusion at DSST Public Schools in Denver, Colorado and the CEO and Co-Founder of Prosperity Educators, LLC. Dr. Griffen’s Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in Urban Education is from Texas A&M University, College Station where he earned the 2013 Urban Teaching Award. His research interests include Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, Culturally Responsive Instructional Leadership, Multicultural Curriculum and Instruction, African American Educational Lobbying, and Urban Policy and Analysis. Dr. Griffen has presented at major conferences including the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the American Association for Teaching and Curriculum (AATC), and the Texas Oral History Association (TOHA). He has published in the American Journal of Qualitative Research, the National Journal of Urban Education and Practice, the Journal of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, and Intersections: Critical Issues in Education.