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My calling, my gifting, my life revolves around encouraging, motivating, supporting and protecting children. I do that currently through teaching teachers to practice in ways that are equitable. When I first began teaching, I had not received the kind of training that I give teacher candidates, hence my utmost goal was to “do no harm.” People laughed, but I was serious. Regardless of whether I could teach students anything (which I soon found out that I really had a knack for), I wanted to cause no harm. Obviously I did not plan to cause any physical harm, but I also meant emotionally, mentally, culturally, and in regards to their academic identities and possible selves. I did not want to harm who they might become based on their current academic manifestations. In other words, I did not want to do, say, imply anything that made students feel, believe, or act less than they could be.
So this is me. This is me because of what happened to me as a child. My parents and family (other than my grandparents) did not have the goal of ‘do no harm’ where I was concerned….well, if they did, they had a really odd way of showing it. But I had teachers, wonderful teachers who thought I was precocious, engaging, vivacious, gifted. And they made sure to do and say things to help me see these things in myself.
So why am I saddened, but not surprised? Because the world is not this way. The world does not care about children. The world’s goal is not ‘do no harm’. Now, parents, don’t get me wrong. I think you care deeply about your child and the children in your circle. But children are not cared for in our country, or our world.
If children were cared for in our country, then people would not be holding vigil outside Joe Paterno’s house, chanting, “We love Joe.” Instead, a football coach is revered.
If children were cared for in our country, then an investigation into allegations against Sandusky would have been done years ago when those allegations were first made. Instead football is king.
If children were cared for in our country, then legislation limiting starchy foods, particularly French fries, would have been passed by the Senate. Instead politicians were swayed by potato farmers and child obesity is at its highest in our country, making them the first generation to be less healthy and less likely to outlive their parents.
If children were cared for in our country, the numerous cover-ups of molestations in the Catholic Church would not have occurred. Yet time again we see musical chairs with priests who’ve been accused.
So I am not surprised when children in schools are not put first. Instead we Race to the Top, we test and track, we under-prepare teachers.
Until we stop believing that this is a zero-sum game, our goal will never to be to ‘do no harm’. (See David Labaree’s new book, Someone Has To Fail, also.)
The phrase ‘do no harm’ is a precept of medical ethics taught to all medical students. However, there are instances where this is not lived up to. Henrietta Lacks, the Tuskegee experiment, are instances where it is at minimum questionable whether the goal was to ‘do no harm.’ However, I believe the medical profession (thanks to M&M conferences, IRB) has regulated themselves and made themselves accountable to one another and outside forces in ways that attempt to corral people toward compliance. Also, higher malpractice insurance and death of the patient are likely immediate outcomes of non-compliance with do no harm, also help to force compliance in some, but not all, circumstances.
The question then is how do we, as teachers and teacher educators, hold one another accountable? The current accountability system of testing isn’t working. I am not saying to throw the baby out with the bath water, but to consider ways that teachers hold those in their building, in their district, accountable. Ways that teacher educators hold each other accountable. Ways that those who know what the constraints and conditions are in schools (not policy-makers, school board members, and critics – my favorite being those education journalists…), but current and former teachers, administrators can establish clear, assessable procedures for holding each other accountable to the goal of ‘doing no harm’ to other people’s children.
I have some answers, which space does not provide me to speak to them here. But my goal is to ‘rile you up’ and give fodder for conversations because I really do not believe that we care about doing no harm to children. And until we do, nothing we put our hands to will prosper long-term. Nothing.
This moves me from saddened to angry. I want to call it righteous indignation but that’s a really heavy term. Yet it’s what I think we all should feel about all the reasons I’ve given for why I believe that we don’t care about children. One issue is that death is not an immediate outcome of non-compliance in any of the instances I’ve mentioned above. One could argue that there isn’t a physical death…but death of potential, possibilities, and in some cases physical death in the long-term is a likely outcome. (Some project prison capacity needs using 4th grade reading scores…just saying.)
As I write, I sense Matthew 17:17-21 as having bearing,
Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him hither to me. And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour. Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, why could not we cast him out? And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.
The answer then being 2 Chronicles 7:14,
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
