“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
- Reinhold Niebuhr
Anthony Muhammad Ph.D. (2010) has stated that teachers fall in one of four quandaries – believers, tweeners, survivors, and fundamentalists. The objective of the believers is to find success for each student. The objective of the tweeners is to find a role within the organization. In the meanwhile, survivors are simply seeking to survive and fundamentalists want to be left alone.
In my own career I am clawing to remain among the believers. I do so with a reality-based acceptance of the current state of education. Rosamund and Benjamin Zander, authors of the Art of Possibility, would call this the 7th way – The Way Things Are.
In accepting the way things are, a person is recognizing the reality of a given situation or circumstance. One can accept the fact that it is raining or lament that plans for a picnic is ruined. If one stays lamenting over ruined plans, then there is no movement forward. However, once the reality of it’s raining is accepted as the current situation – plans can be changed.
There are real concerns over the state of education. It is accepted as an axiom that 50% of new teachers leave the profession within 5 years. Our graduation rate is at about 75% of the students entering high school. I can lament over the situation or I can retool my skills and career to make a positive difference. My second master’s degree will be in Education Media Design and Technology.
Muhammad, A. (2010). Transforming school culture: How to overcome staff
division. 2010 Summit: Professional learning communities at work.
Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press
1 comment:
I thought that prayer was originally attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi... One thing that tends to be missing from the quadrant is what one does with what one believes. We work with the system (sometimes around the system), but we work for change. There's no controversy that that the system is broken. Just like the rain we don't waste energy on how disappointing it is that the system is broken. We look for ways to fix it, even if we plan on retiring in another 10 years.
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