Seemingly Gyrating

Not everyone loves their jobs. Undoubtedly over the last several years, and especially lately, I've begun to notice this fact. You can tell the ones that do. It's the cashier at Wal-Mart who is striking up a conversation during Black Friday with a line of impatient people awaiting her. It's the salesman that knows how to direct a conversation to where your answer will never be "no". It's also in the dance of a sign-flipper on a street corner, seemingly gyrating to no song in particular, offering no more than a free month's rent or 10 dollars of an oil change.

For a teacher, loving your job means a lot of things. Keeping yourself educated, willing to change, cooperation, calling parents when you really don't want to and grading papers until midnight. It's all of those things, and none of them in particular. I love my job.

Recently I attended a Leadership Conference of principals and teaching teams derived from each school building in my district. It was an opportunity to create a vision statement to drive the year's educators towards a common goal.

I sometimes think we are fighting a losing battle on so many fronts. One of the speakers was Bill Daggett, the guru of why every teacher in America either dreads or cheers when they hear the phrase "Rigor and Relevance". At one portion of his speech, he concluded we were the crazy ones. We sign up for committees, we dive in with new instructional strategies and we create our own environment by how we live. He explained the "rest" of the teaching field is comprised of the cynical and the defiant. The cynical teacher has heard it all before but won't buy in unless someone else tries it first. They are the reluctant kid on the diving board ladder, only hoisting himself upwards because everyone else was doing it. Diving in, they know water will get in their nose. The defiant teacher is the person, who for whatever reason, wont buy into any proposal. They will do anything to sabotage the system, and sometimes they even take the reluctant kid down with them.

The more and more I spoke to my friends about this, it became evident to me that everyone is like this to a certain extent when it comes to our jobs. There are the small percentage that love their career and profession. They provoke change in their environments, don't have to be told to be there early or to stay late. Sometimes, even, they allow the job to define them! There's the rank and file person just punching a clock as well. They will complain if others around them do or will praise of that's the vibe of the office. Most of the time they do just enough. The last percentage is growing. They are the ones who call in sick, they roll their eyes in meetings, show up late, complain. They are the cancers.

A series in church recently hit home on the topic of living the American Dream. We've gone from the Protestant work ethic to entitlements and TGIF. We tie in job status with life status. We work for the weekend and the vacation, nothing in between. Do I work for God or the school district? Who do you work for?

This past year I've taken this approach a bit too gung ho. I spoke up too much in the lounge and not enough in staff meetings. I judged others first and closed doors to those I felt weren't up to my standard. I debate with my colleagues about the changes I see coming to disrupt our teachers' union and end up alienating the very people I need to collaborate with. The lawmakers want us privatized. They want 100 percent results with a never-ending amount of variables. Diane Ravitch, a blogger for Education Week, recently brought her twitter followers into our world of No Child Left Behind standards. Would a mayor demand their police force to enact a 100% crime free city and fire the police when it doesn't happen? What if the military were supposed to enforce a world where we lived 100% free from terrorist? If not, anyone could become a NAVY Seal with little or no training. I see the bad teacher down the hall passing out packets and never using her technology and wonder if we should burn the whole system down just to fire one teacher per building. What's it worth to a company to scrape the cancer from its midst?

For the ones that love their jobs, no union would probably not be that much different to what they are already doing. We already are teaching 30 kids in a cramped classroom. We already are creating learning communities within their buildings to benefit the needs of the children first. No politician can take that away. Somehow, just maybe, God can give me the better words to say to bring others along with me.