Freedom

Earlier this week fireworks lit up the sky as communities around the country celebrated freedom in the United States. Freedom. Come to think of it, I, too, have been relishing my own kind of freedom. As I started my time-off this June, I commenced my list writing as is tradition. I have my list of places I want to visit on lazy summer days, another list of household projects I’d like to see completed, and then there’s my list of activities I want to do to prepare for the upcoming school year. Spending time at the beach, cleaning out overpacked clothing drawers, getting my teeth cleaned, and prepping for the new elective I will teach this fall are all ideas jotted down on this year’s summer lists. It was while working on the plan for my Student Inquiry/Research elective that a familiar, but almost forgotten feeling, swept through me. I haven’t really created curriculum in years. After the adoption of the Common Core and the feverish obsession with its standards, my school district-along with most-required the use of a published, sometimes scripted textbook series. Despite the passing of many years, I recognized this feeling as it surfaced and paused in gratitude to soak it in. I’m old enough to know feelings and experiences are fleeting and shouldn’t be rushed.

The feeling now taking hold was one of autonomy and creativity. I thrilled in the return of this feeling and the permission to create my own learning experience for students. I was so motivated by my desire to create that I ordered books on the ISearch process, I called the Historical Society to arrange a field trip, I collected useful resources for the students to document their process, and I worked on a blog site students will use to prepare their I Search stories. It was fun! No one told me I had to do all of this extra preparation; I did it because I wanted to. Just like so many years ago, this frenzy of activity was no longer work…it was my passion.

This passion is in the hearts of so many educators and it’s waiting to be unleashed. I look forward to a day, an Independence Day of a teaching sort, when all teachers in every subject are granted the respect and autonomy to design rich and dynamic learning experiences for their students. I know we will be given the side eye by publishing companies and technology platforms who will most likely lose lots of money if teachers are actually afforded that liberty. Perhaps I’m a cynic, but I believe corporations making money was always at the heart of what some dared to call “educational reform.”

Like the colonists of 1773 who dumped all that tea in the Boston Harbor, I’m “spilling my own tea” today and rallying around the injustice of designing education without representation. Teacher representation, that is.

Give teachers liberty in instruction design and let freedom ring for truly inspired lesson-plans.