The Wrong Rally Cry

Fixin’ To: A phrase I first heard the secretary at my Arkansas high school tell my principal in preparation for the lunch hour. It was late July, and I was the new hire for 9th grade “remedial math.” He was telling me his vision for all of my students who had failed their 8th-grade exit exam, and logically, moved right on up to 9th grade. While he ardently championed the need for this class for those students, she had no qualms interrupting: “I’m fixin’ to order us some lunch before they get busy, what do you want?” The scene is comical when I look back. Verbiage I did not know. Vision I did not have. Gung ho as any other doe-eyed first-year teacher.

In the ensuing days, months, and years, I would learn two new languages: Southern and Real Teacher Talk.

Bless their hearts | verb

a phrase used primarily in the southern part of the United States when folks really should know something and most definitely do not

• “No child should be left behind? That’s what they’re saying now? Well, bless those politicians’ hearts.”

Fixin’ to | verb

a phrase used primarily in the southern part of the United States when someone is seriously going to do something, no room for questions

• “I’m fixin’ to write you up if you don’t stop that behavior,” the teacher said to the student.
• “She fixin’ to go on one,” the student whispered to another student when their teacher was obviously losing control in her classroom.

Civil right | noun

a phrase used primarily when thought leaders want to convince anyone, but most frequently, educators, to change their behavior without ever considering their belief set

• “Access to grade-level texts is a basic civil right,” the administrator pontificated at the end of the staff meeting. “Don’t this man go preaching to me about civil rights,” said the teacher at the back table.

My Vanderbilt colleagues alongside me know that just because a written piece of work is supposed to be academic, I do not believe it should ever start, or finish, boring. They also know, eventually, I am fixin’ to get to my point.

Accelerate, don’t remediate, is nothing new. Thought leaders in education have lectured for years about the inherent need students have to access grade-level texts, grade-level mathematics, and everything in between. Real teachers (and real principals and superintendents)? Well, they have made it happen. Often with little funding, and little support.

Accelerate, don’t remediate, is nothing novel. TNTP’s guide to the 2021–2022 school year is unequivocally filled with the right information. Invest and involve our students’ advocates to the highest degree? Procure and use high-quality instructional materials? Use effective decision-making? Real educators know what it means to have parent-teacher conferences in the supermarket aisles. Real educators know that high-quality, authentically researched, instructional materials make their life more manageable. Real educators consider so many facets before making a decision — whether that is after a hallway scuffle or in preparation for school or district-wide Covid protocols.

Accelerate, don’t remediate, is not the right rallying cry. It is August 1, 2021. And while we are in a very different place than August 1, 2020, our state level, district level, school level, and classroom level leaders are making many of the same decisions in a country that does not seem to wave the “hero” homemade signs anymore. At initial consideration, accelerate, don’t remediate, ignores the idea that many of our students have lost not just instructional minutes, but instructional weeks and months in the last two academic school years. Accelerate, don’t remediate, ignores the idea that our students and our professionals have lost their sense of safety and some have literally lost those that championed them most when they felt unsafe. Accelerate, don’t remediate, ignores the idea that we collectively have endured more than our nation has endured in generations, and it is nowhere near over.

The logical pivot here is to say what the rallying cry should be. And while I’ve had plenty of time since this report was initially published, I don’t have it. I have spent hours walking at my local park wondering, I have spent valuable shower thought time, I have talked to friends who were beyond weary in June and could not hold more excitement to meet their students now. And I don’t have the rebuttal phrasing.

But, I’ve become okay with that. Because I do not think there is one.

One of the biggest cliches in education is that there is a silver bullet. If you figure out and change the one thing, we will fix America’s education system. Bless our hearts.

There isn’t a problem with America’s education system.

There is a problem with America.

A problem that is rooted in a public school system being the backbone for all societal progress. A problem that was deeply and fervently exposed when we realized schools were where our children were guaranteed access to food, to the internet, and to medical care. A problem that believes the collective system could be transcended by educators who wore superhero capes. A problem that believes a buzz phrase and tactic will solve systemic inequities that have only been the problem of teachers at “those schools” for “those kids.”

Before our children and educators cross the physical or virtual threshold of the 2021–2022 school year, there are some things we should be fixin’ to do:

1. Invest in mental health support for students and educators. Programming should be enacted that is fundamentally grounded in the support of the mental health of all. The policies and procedures we have in employment guidelines for our educators should be revisited, and in many places set on fire, to ensure that their health is paramount.
2. Make funding decisions that emphasize longevity. Every financial decision made in the next year should endure the test of, “When the funding dries up, and it will, does this decision live on?” Our students and teachers deserve to get off the joy ride of “we used to have funding for that.” They never stood in line for that in the first place.
3. Communicate to stakeholders often. I swore I would not use the phrase in this piece, but these are still unprecedented times. While I get the magnitude of stress this implies, it is also a time where that title before or after the names of many matters. Communicate your thought process, and establish decision timelines. Make the best decision with the information you have. Hold to those timelines. Recognize the blunder of repeatedly reversing decisions. Be a leader.
4. Assess where students are in an authentic and logical way. Students who never understand the idea of a fraction become 9th graders who skip any problem with a fraction in it. Students who are assessed multiple times a day, multiple times a week, hate school. Find the balance, and seek the guidance of the best practice. Invisibly assess as much as possible.
5. Consider what we have never done before. Accelerate, don’t remediate, blows Aesop’s The Tortoise and the Hare premise out the window. We are good at doing so in education, and frankly in America in general. Our thought and policy leaders should upend this practice. Consider what modified year-round calendars can and should look like. Abandon the idea that standards-based grading is too difficult and families won’t go for it. Think about an optional Grade 13.

At its core, Accelerate, don’t remediate implies, “Here’s how to go back to normal.” Bless our hearts.

I’m fixin’ to preach and say, Normal is not worth returning to.