L earning, H ealing, and C hange: N otes on T eaching in T esting T imes
Rebecca Coolidge
Austin Macauley Publishers
30-11-2020
Learning, Healing, and Change: Notes on Teaching in Testing Times
About the Author
Rebecca Coolidge lives in San Francisco with her husband, two children, and dog. She divides her time between parenting, substitute teaching, working as a massage therapist, hiking, and playing jazz piano for fun. Ms. Coolidge taught the primary grades in public schools for 13 years.
Dedication
To my children who delight and inspire me every day: Madeline Rose (9), and Josephine Miranda (7). You have taught me so much about connection, joy, and what matters in this life. To their father, my husband, whose love and wisdom inspire me daily. To my mother, who has always encouraged creativity and passion. And to my late father, John Stanhope Coolidge (1926 2012), who passed on a deep reverence for the infinitely nuanced power of the word.
Copyright Information
Rebecca Coolidge (2020)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Austin Macauley is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity. In this spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our readers; however, the story, the experiences, and the words are the authors alone.
Ordering Information
Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.
Publishers Cataloging-in-Publication data
Coolidge,Rebecca
Learning, Healing, and Change: Notes on Teaching in Testing Times
ISBN 9781643783505 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781643783512 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781645367536 (ePub e-book)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020919623
www.austinmacauley.com/us
First Published (2020)
Austin Macauley Publishers LLC
40 Wall Street, 28th Floor
New York, NY 1000
USA
mail-usa@austinmacauley.com
+1(646)5125767
Acknowledgement
I want to thank, first of all, my loving and wise husband, John, who made this project possible by providing invaluable moral support, kid coverage to allow me time to write, and all sorts of the fine-tuned editing and technical assistance that he is famous for. I thank Jennifer Morgan, Mark Graham, Carolyn Coolidge, Richard Levien, and Sue Blair, who took time from very busy lives to offer detailed feedback as well as advice and encouragement. I thank the good people at Austin Macauley who expressed faith in this project and helped me through the publishing process (after waiting a good six months while I made a few changes.) Last but not least, I thank all of my teachers who have helped shape me through tireless work and devotion.
Preface
While I was working on the final revision of this book in the spring of 2020, the Coronavirus pandemic put a sudden end to routines as we knew them. Our first year in a wonderful new school community ended abruptly, along with my first-year subbing around the city. When the school closures were announced in early March, we had just celebrated Maddies birthday a week early in order to accommodate the beginning of what was going to be an extremely busy first soccer season for both girls, and for us as well. Several weeks later, we are still struggling with our need for structure and routine on the one hand, and on the other, simply having too much to manage. With so much incomprehensible suffering going on, we know we are incredibly fortunate to be safe and healthy, and to have been spared many catastrophes.
As other disasters have done, the pandemic has magnified existing problems and conditions, including social inequalities. With all the variation of experience, still there is a sense that we are being called to slow down, somehowto step back and look at the Big Picture. When we reach out across cyberspace or around the neighborhood to support and connect with each other in our various kinds of suffering, we are dropping into a deeper level of humanity, putting our hearts and our real needs before our heads. It is as though someone accidentally hit the Restart button in the mind of the industrialized human, allowing us to question the sanity of our most stubbornly habitual beliefs. As with our physiological system after a big bodywork session, resetting ourselves involves stepping back and reassessing. What has changed? What was actually going on before (when we were perhaps a little distracted)? What changes should we keep? Are we done making them? All these questions help to make up the bigger one of how we resume normal life from here.
Educators have heroically scrambled to prepare and teach an extensive online curriculum, including regular class meetings, reading groups, office hours, homework assignments (kept very reasonable), recorded video lessons, weekly Parent-Teacher-Child conferences for every student, and a wide assortment of resources. It seems to me that they have been kept plenty busy fulfilling their duty to their supervisors supervisors to account for enough instructional minutes in every subject, while simultaneously doing the much more needed work of staying connected, guiding and reassuring students and parents alike (including in their new daunting role as tech support.)1
At the first weekly Zoom meetings held for us, overwhelmed classroom parents (some with a toddler climbing on their lap) only stared in stunned silence for minutes on end as the teacher gently repeated her invitation for questions. When we have completely forgotten about a call, or when I cannot cajole one or either of my children to join another Zoom meeting, our teachers have been steadfastly understanding and supportive. They keep encouraging us to do the things that work for us and to put the well-being of our children and family first.2 They share their own overwhelm with having to reinvent the wheel and their desire to stay connected in this search for a new balance and groove.
Along with health care workers, I think of teachers as being first responders even in the best of times. They reach out a helping hand to people often drowning in all kinds of problems, and this struggle takes its toll. Working as a sub this year was eye-opening and deepened my respect for the daily heroismpatience, grace, devotion, ingenuity and skillthat teachers (and administrators) routinely show in often chaotic situations. Why, in normal times, do we not challenge high-level politicians when they proclaim that there is no excuse for teachers who work in under-performing schools? How did it ever become okay to blame a broken system on the workers trying to function within it? I hope that we will learn to stand up to the institutionalized bullying of teachers and call it out for what it is: a below-the-belt attack on an already beleaguered American public.
