Great teachers are trapped inside a bad model. Most are unable to create an exemplary learning environment for their young learners because the districts they work for dominate learning time with mediocre curriculum, predictable pacing guides, and simplified lesson plans. If that’s not bad enough, great teachers are underpaid, unappreciated, and, for the most part, powerless.
The worst part of this condition is that great teachers are the victims of a patronizing attitude from the general public that doesn’t help improve their condition.
Last week Jherine Wilkerson, a middle school art teacher from Peachtree City, Georgia, wrote this for an EducationWeek opinion post:
“’Remember your why.’ Arguably, these are the three worst words any administrator or professional development trainer has uttered in the past decade. It is usually preceded by a half hour of nonstop motivational quotes, which is itself preceded by an upbeat song and a Post-it Notes-heavy ice breaker. Despite feeling as professionally developed as we care to become, we are dragged from room to room, asked to ‘dig deep,’ ‘dissect the data,’ and of course – ‘remember your why.’”
“’Remember your why’ is patronizing for several reasons, least of which is that it usually comes from someone in an expensive suit outearning everyone in the room for two hours of quotable nothingness. The speakers (and the people hiring them) are presumably well-intentioned but are met with resistance because we, unlike them, are still in the classroom. We haven’t forgotten anything.”
“Remember your why” is a desperate plea from an archaic, dysfunctional K-12 system that shows every day that great adult learning leaders are minimalized and subjected to a rallying cry that doesn’t measure up to what an outstanding learning leader is really worth.
Instead of insulting the intelligence of these exemplary learning leaders, let’s accomplish the following:
Pay outstanding adult learning leaders a top salary, say $100,000. This can be done by applying a staffing model already utilized in most of our elementary schools to secondary campuses. If a learning leader is responsible for 20-25 middle grade-aged learners, and they are given $8,500 per learner annually, that offers that learning leader a budget of a little over $200,000 each year. A salary of $100,000 leaves another $100,000 to pay for young learner needs.
Empower adult learning leaders to create dynamic, personalized learning plans for each of their young learners. Learning plans that include reading, writing, problem-solving, and character development goals. Learning plans that teach every young learner how to define, plan, execute, and evaluate their own learning. Learning plans that are goal-directed and outcome-based.
Empower adult learning leaders to build learning budgets that support each young learner’s learning plan.
Empower adult learning leaders to decide what instructional strategies are needed for every young learner to meet their learning plan goals and achieve their desired outcomes.
Empower both adult learning leaders and young learners to negotiate how time is used during their learning day so that every learning plan looks different depending on each young learner’s needs.
If we accomplish these five steps, then “remember your why” changes drastically for great adult learning leaders.
Let’s stop paying lip service to some petty rallying cry that demeans our great teachers. Let’s create a new learning world the empowers adult learning leaders and young learners both to “remember their why” in a new and more important way.
Til tomorrow. SVB
A Better Path to Learning 
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