XQSuperSchoolLive and High School Theatre

On Friday Night Sept 8, Laurene Powell Jobs produced a star-studded TV show, XQSuperSchoolLive that was broadcast on all four major networks simultaneously. 

The premise of the show was that High School needs to be redesigned to be more exciting, more relevant, and more current. That idea is certainly worth the conversation she and the performers ( pop icons Kelly Clarkson, Justin Timberlake and Chance the Rapper; and actors Viola Davis, Samuel L. Jackson and Tom Hanks and others), insisted that we need to have. Her case that it takes all of us to produce schools that are responsive and supportive to all children is, in my experience, undeniably true.

Jobs' efforts to make sure the country focused on this topic for at least one Friday night, and that we discuss Education is laudable. I'd like to thank her, and thank the presenters for what I’m assuming was their well-intentioned participation.

The show brought to mind three different show experiences for me.

1.      Disney productions like High School Musical with lots of flash and production glitz.

2.      Up with People- the 1970’s singing and dancing show meant to steer easily influenced young people away from the excesses of the 1960’s counter culture, and

3.      Cappies Galas I attended when I was teaching High School theatre.(Cappies is a competitive program that combines journalism and theatre productions across a region or state. )

 The first two recalls might be read as negative comparisons, since neither High School Musical nor Up with People will be remembered for their authenticity or great cultural contribution, but the Cappies connection actually has a positive element to it.

The formula for Cappies is that high school theatre programs across a region produce shows (as my students did) which journalism students attend and review.  The top reviews are published in commercial media outlets as well as school papers and non-profit outlets, training a new generation of writer/journalists. At the end of the year the shows and performers are nominated and winners awarded in a range of categories comparable to the list for Oscars or Tonys, encouraging and developing another generation of designer, director, performers.  It is a phenomenal program that introduces many high schoolers to more discerning ways of approaching their art.

Our Cappies Awards Gala for the mid-Atlantic is a grand red-carpet do at the Kennedy Center in D.C. Tickets are much sought after-- for High School theatre, because each show nominated for Cappies show of the year does a musical number or scene: Musical numbers from shows like 42^nd Street, Amadeus, Les Mis, Rent, and Sound of Music, and play scenes from Streetcar, Long Day’s Journey, Raisin in the Sun and others. It’s a grand night, attended by local dignitaries and proud parents, and the performances are staggeringly well done. Like the XQLive show, it showcases the bright beautiful performances of highly talented young people. At both you could see:

•  Young people tightly choreographed and smiling broadly for the audience.
•   Lighting and Tech designs crafted to maximize excitement and impact.
•  Punchy spoken segments interspersed with professional quality musical numbers and staged dialogues or monologues.

The only difference being that at the Cappies productions students themselves contribute much of the lighting design, choreography, and production choices.

The writing resonances of what XQLive raised were less positive because at the beginning, its stated thesis was that current public High Schools still operate like they did in the early 1900s.  Having taught English or Theatre for the better part of the last 20 years, I knew this could not be further from the truth. 

The classroom photo with an old chalk board and blank walls around a set of single rowed student desks  shown on XQLive was nothing like the classrooms I taught in or that my colleagues outfit each year for their students.  From whiteboards/smartboards and projectors to tables that could be grouped differently unit to unit, to highly colorful decorations and student work displays, current classrooms are about flexibility of instruction, inclusivity, and incorporating current technology in the most engaging ways. 

From that moment on, when the show misrepresented what is really going on in public High Schools, I couldn’t take the rest of the show seriously as an unbiased open invitation to the Education discussion.  Already, built into the base premise was the idea that teachers were teaching in dated, uninteresting ways that did not support young people in developing 21^st century life skills; something I knew to be antithetical to what teachers do.

The claims coming out of the initial network journalists’ bits were equally misleading and flawed, and I had to wonder if the journalists had done their homework about the words they were saying.  Had they fact checked for balance and factuality the things they were saying, as I taught my Cappies journalists to do?

Anyone knowledgeable or informed about education would know the high stakes standardized tests factoids that they were quoting were invalid measures of school performance, and that efforts to streamline High School to produce those data points were exactly what is pushing schools away from creative design cycle and interactive learning—even as teachers struggle to hold onto differentiated and individualized learning. 

One could excuse the performers for not having been in the classroom for a while, or could we? Were they simply repeating what the PR firms had given them to say? Or had they brought to this show the kind of dramaturgy that my theatre students brought to developing the authenticity of the pieces they produced and performed?  Had anyone done their table work, their research, their due diligence? Did any of them realize the subtext? Or its effect?

No one can deny that meeting the needs of the wide variations in experiences and talents among contemporary adolescents is hard.—even sometimes almost impossible. No one can deny that the challenges of  inspiring widely different students is complex and requires much of contemporary teachers.  No one can deny that there is wide disparity in what is provided to schools in different districts and states that can impair the quality of what teachers can deliver.  No one can deny that all students do not and will not like high school, some do, some don't, some are mired in much more than high school as their personal work during adolescence. No one can deny that the test and punish movement (data and accountability) of the last 20 years has taken a toll on both students and teachers in the high schools of our country. All those things do need to be discussed, and Jobs' case that communities need to come together to address them and all Ed issues is critically important.  

However, to insist that high schools haven’t changed in the last 100 years denies the innovations created by high school alumni of the recent past, who have led the way to the most dynamically changing culture ever known.  It denies the skills and talents of all those handsome, smiling, singing and dancing faces and bodies that performed so adeptly on Friday night during XQLive, because it is the programs in high schools across America that have nurtured the beginnnings of those skilled and innovative performers and thinkers.

It is our Science and History, our Math and Arts & Humanities, our Languages and Cultural classes that have given rise to so much of what we can be proudest of and hopeful about in our world. 

Sadly, XQLive and XQSuperSchools misses that and chooses to demean it rather than build from it.  What a disappointment.

Our Cappies productions are much better, even if not nearly so well-funded.

Change the Dynamic 2017-18 : An Invitation to Principals and Administrators Across the Country to Save our Education System

I taught in public schools for about 18 years, and have been retired about a year.  Across those 18 years,
I taught in three different schools for 6 different principals, 7 different supervising Assistant Principals, 4 different Assistant Superintendents, and 3 different Superintendents. I also have participated in several national and state level teacher groups that provide some insight into wider geographies.

Most of my Administrators were good people, hardworking, and smart, but also were fraught by things currently plaguing the job, such as:

1. Administrators, like teachers, feel professionally vulnerable.  As a result, they largely go along with what their superiors tell them, even when they know the practice, policy, or regulation is not best for the school, and will not solve the issues the policy claim to address.  Sometimes they quietly ignore, circumvent, or ameliorate the damage of those requirements, but seldom do they go to bat and openly challenge or contest them.

2. Administrators are, like teachers, caught in the double bind of having their evaluations tied to false testing-based measures that can destroy or make their careers without having real relevance to the quality of their job performance.  This makes their jobs highly uncomfortable, even as  they know in their heart of hearts that the “standards” currently used to measure their students, teachers, and themselves are invalid measures.

3. Even Superintendents often feel their hands are tied by political choices made beyond their control, like federal regulations, state policies, accreditation requirements, and funding formulas at all levels.

4. Most struggled at first to reclaim their professional center and fully develop their managerial abilities after the “Leadership Masters” they are required to take in preparation for the job and the bureaucratic gauntlet they had to run to get the position, and like teachers, their job spans and careers are getting shorter.

5. Out of necessity, more of the Administrative decisions they make for the schools are based on financial choices than on instructional choices; including who will teach the children in their schools, and which programs are offered. There is Never enough money to meet all needs.

6. Few Administrators are able to follow the labyrinth and time consuming processes of meetings, observations, and data collections now required (usually due to federal and state regulations)  for evaluating the overload of teachers they supervise.

7. They wish the job they struggle to do were as fulfilling as they had hoped and dreamed. They too want to make a positive difference in the communities they serve, yet often find that sense of accomplishment elusive. Their workload, like teachers, is heavier than it should be, and made so by the massive changes their schools have faced, and the student disciplinary part of their jobs is hard, even when they are very good at it.

What might bring a sense of fulfillment and a real sense of accomplished leadership back to the daily challenges Administrators face? How might you be the navigators who safely and effectively steer our schools through the quantum change and complex questions of the 21st Century?

And, Why is a retired teacher writing to the nation's principals and administrators now, and what can an old teacher have to say to those still trying to steer the schools in our communities?  Perhaps it is to finally say what your still working faculties cannot, and to ask for your help.

These are a few of the things we need:

1. Please ask yourself what are the most important things for your schools to do, not for the federal government, not for the state government, not even for the local school board or the business community at any of those levels.  Let this be your guiding question:
What are the most important things to do for the children in your care?

2. Ask yourself if each policy or stance is really good for your school and community, and ask questions of policy makers. Challenge decisions that you know are questionable.  For instance, many districts these days are spending vast sums on testing and the technologies that promise better test scores rather than on creative interactive teaching and learning. There are many areas in which districts, states and USDOE are pushing you and your colleagues to accept poor practices that drain your school’s resources and morale with crushing workloads.  Be willing to ask, which data is actually useful to learning, and which is expensive shelfware or merely valuable adlist for vendors. Accept your own knowledge and skills as superior in your field to those of entrepreneurs, moguls, politicians, and bureaucrats.

3. Ask teachers questions– about their favorite units, their most effective practices, and the programs that have made the largest differences for your students.  Listen– to the good stuff. Choose those programs and practices, not what the Edupreneurs with company funded studies tell you is best. Join forces with your teachers. The push for some time has been for administrators to not think like teachers, or view teachers as their colleagues. Throw that out. Teachers are not mastodons. Most are highly capable and dedicated to their field and students. They can both follow and create algorithms.   View them as your fellow professionals and encourage the rest of your administrative staff to do the same. Ask them for their help in your mission– and mean it.

4. Ask your parents about their hopes and dreams for their children and community, and share your aspirations for their children.  Let them know that you need their help in providing the kind of school they want, not just in cookies and homeroom, but in advocacy and vocal support in the community. Help the teachers and parents collaborate more openly and more often.  They will be your advocates and your champions, and you will be theirs.

It may seem presumptuous for a retired teacher to tell you these things– and I only do so because we teachers cannot reclaim and renew our schools alone.  We need your participation and engaged facilitation.  Until our Principals and Superintendents are as strongly activist in both protecting and renewing our schools as teachers and parents have been becoming, we can all only be partially successful.

The forces that would privatize our schools and take them from the communities they serve to turn a profit are powerful and well-funded.  We cannot fully meet the challenge without your voices and activism.

If I am underestimating the activism of you or your colleagues in general, accept my apology, but from the perspective of many teachers, Administrators' defense of our schools, teachers, and students has not been as visible or vocal as needed across these sorely trying years of “reform.” We have been hoping and waiting for your profession-wide vocal defense of our schools in vain.

Whatever you decide to do, we need you now— to approach this year 2017-18 with an open hand to your faculties, staffs, parents, and students, with an awareness of how hard we are working together to keep and renew our schools.

Help us, Help you, Help our students and save our schools.