Taking Risks

By Alden Bird

Two weeks in, I can unequivocally say that the National Writing Project is the best professional development I’ve ever done.  By far.

Years from now, I’ll remember the excitement I feel -- it’s Sunday afternoon as I write this -- to return to the Institute on Monday morning.

What this tells me is that I have needed what the Institute is now giving me -- for a long time.  I’ve needed the chance to examine my own practice through the teaching exploration; the chance to discuss and debate hot-button issues like rubrics (evil!) or the inherently political nature of our teaching; the chance to take a deep dive into the philosophical underpinnings (“The why, not the how!”) of a favored area of my practice; and most importantly, the opportunity to treat myself as a “real” writer for five weeks, to make myself once again just as vulnerable as my students every time they set pen to paper.

I’ve needed the camaraderie, too, with fellow writing teachers from different schools, backgrounds, and grade levels.  I feel particularly lucky to be attending an NWP chapter with such a commitment to international diversity -- it’s been an enriching experience to learn alongside gifted educators from outside the United States.

Most importantly, I’ve needed the risk.

While we think of teaching as public, it’s really quite private -- in the sense that it’s rare another professional educator watches or critiques us.  Our writing, too, is private. We share emails, surely, but when was the last time we shared a shaky first draft of personal writing with strangers?  Even our teaching philosophies are private. We form our beliefs, often quite haphazardly, and it’s rare we’re asked to systematically question them, especially in the presence of other practitioners.

I’ve needed that risk.  As an educator, it’s easy to get into a safe, familiar groove in which:

--You forget how messy the process of writing is, and how hard it can be for students

--You teach and teach with little to no meaningful feedback from the administrators tasked with evaluating you, and little to no guidance from busy peers

--Your ideas about teaching writing stagnate because you simply don’t have time to read deeply in the field or to debate philosophy with colleagues

The risks we’re asked to take in the Institute are the best antidote to stagnation that I can imagine.

But what I like best about the NWP is even more basic:  

It’s built on the premise of teachers teaching teachers.  

This idea feels strangely subversive.  Educational reform is so often top-down.  Teachers’ ideas are rarely considered. We find ourselves not acting but reacting to the newest mandate dreamed up by the stakeholders and string-pullers, most of whom have no educational training or experience: the clueless, impatient lawmakers out to use student test scores to win elections, the software or textbook companies eager to shape curriculum and to sell products, the ignorant billionaire tinkerers like Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg, the free-market wingnuts like Betsy DeVos who want to privatize education, the dilettante public policy wonks, often Democrats like Arnie Duncan or Michelle Rhee, who deep down don’t really believe teachers are capable of much unless threatened.  Most educational policy in the United States is driven by people who have spent little to no time teaching in a classroom.

That’s why the idea of an organization -- the National Writing Project -- that seeks to make change by asking teachers to teach each other-- guided by smart university partnerships and serious inquiry into educational research -- is so subversive. They don't want us smart. They don't want us talking back.  They don't want us banded together. But as the wave of teacher strikes these last six months has demonstrated, teachers, informed and united, are powerful. And the more I learn at the Institute -- the more my work is research-based, the more I challenge my beliefs and become deliberate in my practice, the more I can see our current reforms through the lens of history, the more I learn about teaching writing in ways that truly make a difference . . .  the more powerful and capable I feel to advocate for what’s right in education, even though -- to them -- I'm "just a teacher."

Taking risks is scary -- whether it’s putting our work in front of peers to critique at the Institute, or talking back to the powerful interest groups who dominate educational debates.

But it is, as I am learning, work we must do. Because American children are most definitely worth the risk.

I can’t wait for Monday.

The author, taking risks.  (Photo by Tate Aldrich)