'When I Grow Up, I Don't Think I Want To Be a Teacher ... '

By Paula M. Evans

"This paradox of getting more done by freeing up teachers to decide what they will do, rather than putting pressure on them to perform, is based on a universal human truth. Leadership which taps the creativity of those who are at the center of the project, whatever it is, will always do better than leadership that uses its authority."
--Harold Howe II

When I began my teaching career in the late 1960s, I found many opportunities for learning, innovation, and creativity. As a teacher, I felt like a critical person in the life of the school and believed that I made a difference, that my teaching would, in some significant ways, change students' lives. I worked in a school where we regularly asked ourselves: What am I choosing to teach and why? To what end? How will I know I have succeeded?

My school doesn't need to be romanticized. It wasn't a "collaborative community." There wasn't coherence across the entire curriculum for 2,800 students; some received a better education than others. But we as a faculty were working toward more-effective schooling. We held ourselves accountable--to each other and to our students. Our conversations were about teaching--content, pedagogy, assessment--and were often heated and intense. For the last 10 years of my teaching career, I never taught alone. I team-taught in a variety of different configurations that allowed me a stream of feedback about my own teaching and the chance to create exciting curriculum and programs for students. I was never under the illusion that teachers were revered--I just looked at my paycheck--but I did feel that the community was entrusting the education of its children to those of us who had made the commitment and fulfilled...