What is Really Behind the Curtain?
If you have never watched the original 1939 Wizard of Oz film, you have missed an important lesson. In my very abridged summary, a young girl, bored with her life, gets hit on the head during a tornado and dreams of a perfectly, magical land called Oz. In the end, all she wants to do is get back home because, it turns out, Oz is not so magical after all.
As a young graduate student of education, I dreamed of a school where I could provide young learners with patience, guidance, nurturing, and confidence. I learned how to teach from one of the finest educational institutions at the time, a place that was doing ground breaking research in how students learned to read and write. Finishing my graduate degree while my own four small children attended one of the pilot schools for this new and innovative literacy teaching philosophy provided me with all the proof I needed that teaching reading and writing as a process, in a workshop model, and providing learners ownership over that learning process, was brilliant. My children were writing massive amounts of text, reading and sharing their stories, and actively engaged in their own learning process. Their school day did not end when they got off the bus, they wrote scripts for plays, they wrote songs, they performed, they created, they wrote and drew pictures all the time. My education professors and my children’s school were doing the work of writer and educator Donald Graves. We all believed that to be a writer, you must write, and to teach reading and writing, you must read and write and talk about your work and learn from each other.
I became a teacher and went off with my ruby slippers to a district far, far away and learned that not everyone saw the beauty of children sitting in groups, working together and working independently, each child focusing on his or her own reading and writing goals. But I put the desks in groups anyways, and taught the way I believed children should be taught, and I was not asked back the next year.
I moved from school to school, trying to get to the land of Oz,that magical place I had learned of in graduate school, that place where the classroom was truly a democratic community of learners and the teacher learned what each student needed by treating each child as an expert, by sitting side by side, leaning in and listening to each child share their story, by reading and writing with the students. As I moved from school to school and classroom to classroom over the years, I never strayed from my belief that stories matter and each child deserves to be heard. I never strayed from my belief that children matter more than standardized test scores, more than curriculum, scope and sequence, grade level expectations, and schedules. The teacher in the classroom still and to this day matters more than any program or curriculum.
As I tried to decide which road to take, an invitation arrived asking me to entertain the idea of traveling in a different direction-out of public education, into the private world. It was very enticing. The company was responsible for publishing and sharing the work of Donald Graves and other pioneers in literacy education. Just thinking about the possibility of joining hands with others who believed as I did, that all children can learn and deserve the best educational environment possible brought back memories of my own children learning, of my own reading and writing in graduate school before there were computers and the Internet; so I made the choice to follow the yellow brick road.
I left my colleagues behind, and met others who were not like me. There was no turning back. I arrived at the Emerald City and found myself surrounded by people who cared more about spreadsheets and profit margins than children and teachers. But I did what I used to do in my early years of teaching, I did what I believed to be what was best, and with purpose and passion I used my education background to provide guidance and opportunity for other educators who were like me. I leaned in and listened to their stories, and I tried to help.
Eventually all I wanted to do was to get back home. In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy must get to the Wizard who is the only person that can help her get back to Kansas. But when she finally arrives at her destination and pulls back the curtain to reveal the Great and Powerful Oz, the wizard is just a little old man pretending to be powerful and to have all the answers, giving the residents of Oz what they want, trying to protect his people and keep the Wicked Witch away. I arrived at my version of the Emerald City and was blinded by the mission and message which were just words. In the end I realized that mission and message sold hope and provided encouragement to educators, and raised the profit margin. What appeared on the outside to be about people was about people…but only if it was profitable. The Great and Powerful Oz was nothing more than a man with a spreadsheet crunching numbers and pushing buttons. The people of Oz have no power whatsoever.
When you can no longer follow your purpose and passion and when numbers become more important than the people in front of you it is time to move on down the yellow brick road. Or you could just look in the mirror and remind yourself why you do what you do.
Close your eyes and repeat three times:
I can make a difference.
