Superheros

Batman. Spiderman. Wonder Woman. Whereas superheros have transended time, the idea of teachers as "superheros" is relatively new. I wanted to be a superhero when I was a kid, Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman to be exact. After watching the show, I would promptly get whatever my "cape" was for the day, go into the bathroom, shut the door, and spin and spin just like Lynda Carter, so that I could become Wonder Woman. While spinning worked to change your average girl into Wonder Woman, it never actually worked for me, so each time my spinning failed, I'd slump out of the bathroom feeling completely

defeated. "Try again tomorrow, just the same way, it will happen!" I'd say to myself and off I would go to play with my Wonder Woman Barbie.

Little did I know, later in life, I would BE considered a real superhero, even WITHOUT THE CAPE. Before the pandemic I heard myself and other teachers called superheros, but Lord, DURING COVID, "superhero" became a term that, for the most part, DEFINED what a teacher was. How lovely. Not.

Righ now I'm reading this awesome book about equity in teaching. It's called "We Got This". It was written by a high school writing teacher, Cornelius Minor. The idea behind the

book is to think really hard about how as teachers, we can know our students well so that we can create equitable ways to teach them. It is FULL of resources and ideas that totally resonate with me. The introduction is overflowing with the troublesome idea of teachers as superheros. He says this:

"The story of the superhero teacher narrative creates a set of problematic expectations for our profession. It suggests that one can work alone, that constant sacrifice is the expected method for doing this work well, or that our work is the result of some kind of inherent or mystical goodness and NOT years of careful practice and study. It discredits the work that is in progress or those who do this work in nontraditional ways."

Think about this - the superhero story is a formula that goes like this: a problem is caused by a supervillan, then, shockingly enough, a common citizen turns into a superhero, and the superhero saves the day. It seems to me that teaching could and should be anything BUT a formula that is used and reused over and over and over again.

Standardized tests, schedules to fit all grades into specials, lunch and recess. On top of that, there is a schedule for the amount of time for recess, movement and lunch. These schedules, SOL's, worksheets and homework are the public school villians .

Don't get me wrong. I'm not questioning the importance of all of those things - they are a necessary evil for a school to ensure access to playgrounds, lunchrooms and specials for all students. The testing, worksheets and homework I'm not so sure about.

The real question for me is how do we spend our time with our students in between those mandated hours? Do we teach writing with out teaching student voice? Do we teach writing completely absent of punctuation? So much so that it is impossible for a reader to understand what the piece is about? How much time do we spend on writing? How about spelling? How do we hit the standards in a way that acknowledges that all children can learn, but they cannot all learn in the same way? How do we know what they know? How can we give them more meaningful ways to spend their time during the day? How do we spend the time to get to know the student well enough to even know what works best for them as people rather then just students?. Can we group them for reading in a way other than reading groups 1,2,3,4 or 5? All the questions. How can we

EVER make all of this work? In my opinion it's practice, reflect, adjust, practice, reflect, adjust, practice, reflect adjust. Unlike Wonder Woman, we don’t have to answer these questions alone. We can be Batman instead AND use all the Robin's we can find to be our partners in this work. Our grade level teams,specialists, admin, SPED and ESOL teachers can be Robins.

Because I love challenges, I find myself actively refusing to teach in sedentary wheels. I'm not arguing to ditch PLC cycles or any that are relevant to improve our practice, but there are many that just don't serve a purpose anymore, like the paper and pencil pretest, pencil and paper homework, then the pencil and paper post test. It's like this: because we will have to hold every single student and class we will ever have differently, we should take a look at what works for them as groups and individuals and what doesn't.

So now, as an adult, I guess I don't want to be Wonder Woman after all. I don't want to keep spinning in circles and never really get anywhere. That spinning just makes me feel defeated and dizzy. PLUS it puts the kabosh on finding OTHER ways to turn into Wonder Woman. After all - who wants to continue with a practice that we know doesn't work every time for all students. I'm not how long it took me to finally give up on the spinning but I know this coming year, I'm giving up on the same old, same old.