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Classroom tales: A diary

December 1, 2011

If I Forget You … Keeping the Classroom at the Center

by Ruben Brosbe, at 2:53 pm

Last week, during a break from my graduate school education policy classes, I had the opportunity to visit my old school and spend some time with my students from the last two years of my teaching. It was a great day. The excitement and joy of the kids were truly overwhelming.

At the end of the day one of my students, a heartbreakingly adorable girl whose thick Spanish accent is slowly lightening up, told me that one of her former classmates is “mean now.” We talked briefly about this before we had to go our separate ways. Although it was a small moment in the course of the day, it sticks out in my mind now as a reminder of the profoundly multifaceted world of children.

It stands out now in stark contrast to the relatively simple, safe environment of my college classrooms. This week in my class on teacher quality we simulated a panel on teacher pay structure for the Rochester City School District. We grappled with the intricacies of teacher pay and the concerns of different stakeholders as we weighed different benefits and costs. And yet the exercise felt incredibly uncomplicated compared to the ecosystem I used to share with 25-30 children. This disconnect is one I am constantly aware of and working to bridge as I prepare for my transition from the theory of education reform to its practice.

Earlier in the day during that same visit to P.S. 310 I received a note from one of my old students. It was a short thank-you note, but I was deeply moved by the innocence and sincerity of its tone. For some reason as I read the note my mind flashed to a phrase from a Hebrew psalm, “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill!” Those words, “If I forget you,” were unshakable. Just as Jerusalem is at the heart of the Jewish faith, so must the classroom and the kids within it remain central to my work in education. If I forget that, I need to find a new line of work.

Solving the big problems of education is certainly difficult. I am grateful to have the time and space away from teaching this year to study, think and discuss the questions of how to build a better system. At the same time, I am consistently thinking about the distance between my work at Harvard and the work I did in the classroom. The classroom is where the solving of the big problems will eventually take place, and as my short visit reminded me, there are countless variables that are often hard to remember from afar.

In several of my courses we have discussed the concept of the instructional core. Essentially it is the idea that at the center of the framework for all successful education systems is a successful relationship between teachers and students. While the ideas for education reform might sometimes originate in universities or district offices, this idea can’t be ignored. The teacher-student interaction is remarkably complex, but it is the nexus of educational transformation. It’s vital education leaders never forget that.

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  • guest

    Go away.  

  • Clay

    The sacred dynamic of the teacher/student relationship is not a notion created by your Ed deform buddies, classroom teachers have been aware of it for hundreds of years.

  • Michael Fiorillo

    “… the classroom and the kids within it remain central to my work in education.”

    Really? Is that why you left the classroom after a stint in which you couldn’t receive the tenure that ed deformers claim is too easy to get? 

    Having fled – prior to which you dishonestly pumped the anti-teacher and anti-union program of the hedge fund and Microsoft Foundation-funded E$E – you (hopelessly) try to maintain your credibility with the usual fatuous and patronizing ed deformer gushing about the “adorable” kids, before ending with vapid cliches about “the nexus of educational transformation.” 

    Your last sentence implies that you consider yourself an “educational leader.” How deluded, as you have repeatedly shown yourself to be an empty vehicle for the transmission of received opinions. But fear not, as that is certain to get you far in the world of corporate ed deform, where marionettes such as yourself are chosen because they can’t or won’t perceive the strings that govern their actions.

  • Old Timer

    Ruben, all the NYC teachers “will not forget you” if and when you come back to our town. How could we ever forget your connections with E$E and how you conspired to dismantle the hard earned rights of teachers in the UFT. Maybe if you shave the beard and change your name you may one day walk the halls of a public school in NYC unnoticed. Until then, please stay in the safety of the ivory towers that you currently call home. I have nothing against you as a person, but when you pledge loyalty to a group like E$E, which seeks to destroy my livelihood, I and other life-long teachers take notice.

  • ASTRAKA

    Young man,
    Since you are at Harvard ask someone versed in the classics to explain the following to you.

    ” Μη προτρεχέτω η γλώττα της διανοίας”

  • 40yearteacher

    We will never forget your past!!!!

  • Proteach

    I’ve been reading Ruben’s posting for some time and I’m going to act as an unsolicited armchair psychologist.  Ruben
    should serve as a case study in the transformation of “young liberal
    guilt hearted I am going to make a difference and close to the
    achievement gap” to more self-aware educator who realizes that poverty
    and environment is an obstacle and the idea of “superman” teacher is
    misleading and deceptive.

    From
    what I gather in reading Ruben’s latest series of post is the awakening
    of a young man who realizes he’s been had and hoodwinked by the educrat
    establishment.  He came in bright-eyed following the
    latest buzz words thinking he would change the world and now is coming to
    the realization that it’s not that simple.  He followed E$E thinking it would advance it career and it did not.  He got out slimed by the even slimier duo of Sidney and Evan.

    Here’s
    the unfortunate thing, which Ruben pretty much says… the educational
    tide supports the charlatans and self-promoters like Steve Brill,
    Michelle Rhee who camouflage their own career ambitions with terms like
    “children first” and “data driven”.  Most of the newly minted educrats are principally interested in self-promotion, making $$, and being with the in crowd.  Think
    about it, it’s a lot more fun to be invited to participate in all these
    educational functions hosted by bigwigs than to be the lone dissenter.  I think Ruben sees this, Yet…

    Ruben is stuck in his position.  I
    think he now wants to make a difference but realizes any honest
    approach will isolate him from a career path of wealth and respect.  I
    get the sense he has greater humility and understands the limitations
    of charter schools and “quality teacher” solutions.  This wasn’t always the case.  I’m still not sure what led him to join the ed deformers crowd in the first place, but he seems to be moving away from that.  But,
    given that he is a highly educated, ambitious Ivy league graduate, I
    expect that he wants to make a decent living and have a career that is
    continually upward.  However, to do so, he needs to follow the ed deform bandwagon… So I wonder where Ruben goes

    It’s too bad Ruben allowed his hubris to get the best of him.  I don’t see him leaving education because he seems to conflate leaving a bad situation with personal failure.  I think he needs to justify the last five years of his work and would be embarrassed to leave now.  He should read about opportunity cost.     He
    should have jumped the ship from education once he realized the educrat
    deformers had no real interest in improving education.  I
    think he possesses tremendous analytical skills and insight and would
    have made a good corporate manager or business consultant.  Maybe he can still pull it off.  Otherwise he’ll have to sell his soul.  Ruben – feel free to respond.

  • Clay

    Hey Ruben, you know how I know you’re still a shill? You still refer to the education theorists that have never been classroom teachers (and in some instances never stepped foot into a public school) as “education reformers” instead of using that title to describe classroom teachers.

    Take that back to your Harvard professors!

  • Roger T.

    What ever happened to E4E?  I miss them.  It was so funny actually reading their stuff.  Oh darn, are they still around or did the donations run out or what?

  • Michael M. (parent still)

    Indeed, there are some amongst who sit by the rivers of NYC and weep, for what has become of the school system.

    But sometimes, it’s hard to tell the Babylonians from the Zion-ians

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