For the past few months many parents and guardians across our nation have been terrified by the notion that autism is an epidemic. Our media has reported multiple statistical evidences that this neural disorder has become wide spread. In fact, the term autism has evolved to become a spectrum disorder. This means a child can be a little autistic or very autistic. I am in fear that more drugs will be dispensed to our children in order to control a problem that has basically always existed. The problem is it now has a name.

First of all, I am not an expert on autism. I am only a teacher who has worked with young men and women for the past three decades. My average workload has been approximately 70 students so I’ve worked with about 2100 students during my career. To be clear, I don’t like the reality our “special education” student population is increasing because of new definitions like, “Autism Spectrum Disorders”. I also dislike how more of our children are being prescribed neural stimulators they will have to rely on for the rest of their lives.

Broadly, Autism Spectrum is a set of developmental delays and disorders that affects social and communication skills. The problem is everyone is not the same and do not develop in the same way. Everyone shouldn’t be the same and have never been in our society. We leave this level of society to more controlled areas of the world like China.

Official diagnoses in the autism spectrum include: autistic disorder, pervasive developmental disorder, Asperger syndrome, childhood disintegration disorder, and Rett Syndrome. By the way, pervasive developmental disorder means exactly the same thing as autistic developmental disorder. I assume they changed the term “autistic” to pervasive developmental disorder in order to be able to conclusively state there are many forms of autism.

Asperger Syndrome now describes individuals with the highest-functioning of the autism spectrum. Apergers is often diagnosed in teens and young adults. Basically this syndrome allows the person to develop normal spoken language but they have a difficult time with social communication. Not long ago this condition was described in terms of personality types. Some children are introverted in that they enjoy their own personal time while others are more extroverted and enjoy more social activities. These personalities have always existed without the need to place a label and possibly a prescribed drug to alleviate it. Sometimes Asperger Syndrome is nicknamed, “the geek syndrome” or “little professor syndrome” because children with Aspergers are usually intelligent and quirky. In a nation where intelligence is losing ground I see no reason to label the more intelligent of our children with any kind of disorder.

There is a type of Autism Spectrum Disorder that is not an official diagnosis. It is titled, “Mild Autism”. I have no clue as to why it even exists. It is said to describe individuals who have strong verbal skills and few behavioral issues. They simply have some problems with social communication. I’ve had many instances in my life where my capacity to communicate has been weak. I wonder if I lived in today’s diagnostic world, I would have been classified as autistic. A person with mild autism may also have problems with loud noise and bright lights. OK, maybe I should have been diagnosed.

There is also a high functioning autism syndrome sometimes called FHA. It is very difficult to distinguish a person with FHA from a person with Aspergers. Officially, it is said that a person with FHA have speech delays. This syndrome is also defined by social awareness and personality characteristics. The more I read about these syndromes the more I recognize the concept of growing up.

Believe it or not there is also a program PDD-NOS, which means, “Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified”. This describes people who don’t fully fit the criteria for other diagnoses. Does this cover people who were never considered autistic but because of the present medical system has to be called something? Most parents, therapists, and teachers do not prefer to use this term because it simply makes no sense.

What is the definition of, “Severe Autism Disorder”? This can be called profound autism, low functioning autism, or classic autism. I believe the best definition of this type of syndrome is what autism has always been considered. This autism is non-verbal and intellectually disabling.

Rett Syndrome is a genetic disorder that affects only girls. This can be diagnosed medically. Young female children develop severe symptoms including problematic social communication. Rett Syndrome can also impair girls’ ability to use their hands usefully.

The basic question is whether the new expansion of the definition of autism is a psychological disability or is it simply a personality type? Too many drugs are being dispensed to our population to cure too many things. As parents we have to defend our children by questioning any chemical or social means to make our children become a norm defined by people who don’t know who our children are.

Jim Fabiano is a teacher and writer living in York, Maine

If you are the parents or guardians of a young men or woman who are about to graduate high school and observe they are displaying attitudes and personalities they’ve never displayed before, there is a traditional reason for this. You see, they are about to embark on one of our society’s last rite of passage. This makes them nervous, introspective, and seems to be in a world by themselves. I know this because for the past three decades I’ve suffered through this change of heart with thousands of my students.
I don’t understand why December 31, marks the end of something. I understand the day is the end of the calendar year but it isn’t the ending of anything. The month of June represents a rite of passage for many of our children. This is the time when our secondary students graduate from high school. It is also a time when many of our children graduate from their post-secondary education experience. But, high school graduation represents one of our society’s last rite of passage.
People throughout the world have heightened emotions during times of major life changes. Many of our children have lived in the same town for their entire lives. They have gone to the same school district with the same peers for the past thirteen years of their lives. Some of these people have known their friends since daycare. In this time they knew exactly what they would be doing after they left school for the summer vacation. They knew they would be in the same school, with the same peers, and with the same teachers. Graduating from high school will be a major change. This stressful evolution may be physiological and social in nature. Most cultures consider the important transitions to be birth, the onset of puberty, marriage, life threatening illness or injury, and finally death. Graduation from school is a major transition in our modern societies.
During the early 20th century, the Belgian anthropologist, Arnold Van Gennep, observed that all cultures have prescribed ways for an individual and society to deal with these emotion charged situations. They have ritual ceremonies intended to mark the transition from one phase of life to another. Typical rites of passage are baptisms, bar mitzvahs and confirmations, weddings, retirement parties, and funerals. When one considers high school graduation one would be pressed to find a more important rite of passage.
Even college graduations are not as stressed as high school graduations. One goes to college only 4 or 5 years of their lives. Usually in the final few years they are sent out to work studies or abroad in order to motivate and give them experience in the career they are working toward. Unlike college graduation, high school graduation represents a more intense change. I see the stress in all of my students when June approaches. They actually seem afraid. I tell them to take this fear of their future as a reward for their hard work and perseverance. I tell them to take this time of their lives as one great adventure that will lead to more. Most don’t listen to me because they understand they are going through this change and I, like all of their adult associates have long ago gone through what they are going through now.
In most schools graduation has become a week long process with senior outings, banquets, award ceremonies, and of course the day of commencement. When one is a freshman most students state they are counting the days when they will be able to participate in these activities. But, the closer they come to their graduation date the more anxious they are with this reality.
I’ve watched many students become overly emotional during these times. My advice to the parents and guardians of these young men and women is to let them. Try and become a part of it in order to show them this is a normal response to an important time in their lives. Soon all the parents of senior students of all our high schools on the seacoasts of Maine and New Hampshire will experience of what many consider one of the last of our society’s rite of passage

As an educator all I seem to hear about is how our system of education is failing our students and how places like Singapore and China should become the models for our public school system. There was a time when the education system of our nation was considered the best in the world. This was a time when the success of our children was more important than achievement on a standardized test.

The real challenges and opportunities of education have changed little. Almost 120 years ago Charles I. Hutchins was the Supervisor of Schools in York, Maine during the school year ending February 21, 1893. Mr. Hutchins reports that, “As in years past, so in the present, the results have been varied. While some schools have shown a good degree of interest and enthusiasm and have made rapid progress, others have little more than held their own.”

Mr. Hutchins did not like his students to be absent from school. He states this in his report by explaining that, “To my mind this irregular method of attending is the greatest evil with which our school system has to contend. Children on the slightest pretext or without any excuse whatever are allowed to absent themselves from school at their own sweet-will.”

He goes on blame the parents for this absenteeism. “A trifling snow, or a cold morning, is enough to keep children from school, though the day is generally passed in out-of-doors play, this enduring double the exposure they would have suffered on their way to and from school. Very few parents at the present day, do not own a team, and very few there are who could not, if so disposed, take their children in bad weather, to and from school and also help their less fortunate neighbors in the same way.”

Mr. Hutchins completes his condemnation of the parents who do not send their children to school by asking, “Why are parents so blind to the lasting interests of their children and why so unwilling to put forth any exertion to help them to an education?”

Reading through the history of our public schools I see little interest in how well the students of other countries educate their children. The people of the town of which the children live are interested and are held responsible for their child’s education. Why can’t we exert that interest today? Why do our schools have to be held to standards that have little to do with their schools or families?

Decades ago a plan entitled, “School Improvement Program” was introduced. Basically it consisted of a map that would make each school responsible for its product. The school became a kind of plant in which the administration and teachers became accountable to the community. There were no standardized tests that were produced some place in India. There was simply a report on how well the students did when they left their school.

What a remarkably simple idea and I know it wouldn’t cost our communities a lot of money. Having the community control their own schools would allow the populace to produce its own curricula. For example a rural community would be able to offer courses in organic farming and agrarian economics. A more urban school could offer courses that would help them prepare for life in an urban environment. The only standards to be followed would be the ones the community deemed important. It was obvious Mr. Hutchins thought absenteeism a major problem in his schools.

Going back to the successes of Singapore and China; when have these nations produced a personality that changed civilization? I am talking about the Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Stephen Hawking, or maybe your son or daughter. The best test takers are never the best innovators. These students learn to regurgitate what the state tells them to learn. Remember back in the Dark Ages when the Vatican dictated what would be taught in the schools. If their system of standardized education was still in place we would all fear a flat Earth.

Finally, as an educator, I clearly understand one can’t motivate their students to succeed in a test. This is boring to both the student and the teacher. But, one can motivate a student into becoming innovative. This is where the magic of education lives.

Looking out beyond the stacks of books I have on my desk I view my students working throughout my classroom on a laboratory assignment. I smile because they are all on task and obviously competent. On my desk is a memo from my administration they are pursuing a new teaching framework entitled, “Common Core Standards”. This new system is replacing the, “No Child Left Behind” standards.

Since I’ve been teaching over three decades this is not the first change in the way the powers believe we should educate our students. I remember programs like “The Open Classroom” that eliminated all walls between classes. Since I am not known for my quiet nature I literally taught chemistry to the entire school. Multiple intelligence doctrines ran through the organization of our classrooms even though this philosophy was never meant to be used in education. I also remember having all of my classes mixed in order to have all levels of instruction removed. After a few years of failure this system was ignored.

Given this is probably my last administrative change in the way I am told to teach my students I was curious about what they meant by common core standards. The Common Core State Standards Initiative, (CCSST) “is a state-led effort coordinated by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). The standards were developed in collaboration with teachers, school administrators, and experts, to provide a clear and consistent framework to prepare our children for college and the workforce.” This sounds promising but so did the NCLB program. By the way I just made up the term, CCSST.

“The standards are informed by the highest, most effective models from states across the country and countries around the world, and provide teachers and parents with a common understanding of what students are expected to learn.” Does this mean students in New Hampshire should learn and understand the same topics that people in Nigeria learn? Does this mean all of my students are exactly alike in their dreams and expectations? Does this mean all students share the same interests and if they don’t should they be forced to learn what the world demands they learn? Consistent standards will provide appropriate benchmarks for all students, regardless of where they live.

I wonder where these processes came from and how long they’ve been around. Digging a bit I discovered the new standards were developed about the time the No Child Left behind Program was being left behind. “The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a state-led effort, launched more than a year ago by state leaders, including governors and state commissioners of education from 48 states, 2 territories and the District of Columbia, through their membership in the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO).” I sincerely wonder if any classroom teacher was involved. I also wonder that if there were teachers involved; how much time they spent in any classroom. At my age I wonder about a lot of things.

I am told the process used to write the standards ensured they were informed by: The experience of teachers, content experts, states and leading thinkers; and feedback from the general public. I know I was never asked and know of any teacher who was asked or know of any parent of any student that was ever asked. Since the last New Hampshire State conference on common core standards was filled with a majority of administrators it is obvious another mistake is being made in that they don’t involve the people who will become the program.

OK, as a classroom teacher I clearly understand we have to change the way we educate our children. As a long time teacher I also understand my students learn at differing speeds and at different levels. I also know students from urban settings have different values, hopes, and dreams than students from rural parts of our nation. I am just wondering if, in my career, administrators and our education leaders will come to the same conclusion.

One last thing; this program is going to cost a lot of money and probably accomplish very little. But, what new education program doesn’t.

During the next few weeks many towns across our nation will be deciding on how our schools will be funded. Some towns will be deciding if they should build a new school. This is not a happy time for teachers. Many in the communities blame teachers for just about everything. I am not saying most in the communities don’t support what we as teachers are trying to do but the few who don’t hurt the most. During these times I wonder how teachers and their profession became the ‘scapegoats’ of our society.

During this time of year I see many teachers start to wonder why they decided to become teachers in the first place. The new ones wonder the most because they are just starting their careers. The older ones use this stressful time to remember why we decided to be what we are.

I ask my young colleagues why we got into teaching in the first place. My question usually produces silence. The silence doesn’t last long because it is replaced by a unified display of the, who the hell made you king of arrogance, look.

“No, I mean it. Does anyone remember the philosophy that made us all take the vows of celibacy, servitude, and of course poverty? “Well, a young history teacher whose size outweighs his experience asked me to remind them of what their philosophy was. In other words, he took me to task. Being the storyteller I am, I told the group I would use a metaphor to describe what teaching is to all of us.

I told them the beginning of each year was like taking a group of young men and women to the base of a mountain. Always observing my students, I see they are afraid and uncomfortable with what they were expected to do. I tell them for the next 186 days I will show them how to climb the cliffs and reach the plateau that was above the clouds and seemingly out of reach.

We then start the climb by having me show them how to put one foot in front of the other. How to use their hands, legs, and more importantly their minds to reach the next stone. All my kids start to fall. I tell them that it’s OK to fall, to make a mistake, because this is how we all learn and get better at what we are trying to do. Some of my kids give up and simply fall down to the bottom of the mountain. I try and encourage them to continue but they simply do not want to take the chance to fail. I feel bad yet I realize I can’t help everyone. I can only try.

Looking around my small group of young colleagues I notice everyone is listening. I smile, take another sip of coffee, and continue.

Half way up the mountain I see my kids are beginning to build up a confidence in themselves. They help each other climb to the next level. Every now and then a child falls but the farther we climb up the mountain fewer children make the decision not to continue. It is now no longer a case of me showing them how to climb. They work with each other and find easier and better ways of achieving success. Every now and then I fall. I find my students helping me now. Students become teachers. We all become one in the knowledge we need each other to continue and thus succeed.

We finally reach the plateau and are dumbfounded by what we see. We observe the colors of life; the greens of their futures, the reds and oranges of their passion, and the blues of their dreams. The air is new and clear. There are no clouds on the plateau, just an image that everything; anything is do-able and achievable. I walk over to the edge where the view is even more dramatic and beautiful. I tell them to come to the edge with me. They hesitate and tell me they are still afraid. I chastise them; I teach them once more and tell them they earned looking out at their futures. It is because of their hard work and perseverance they have become competent in everything they attempt to do.

They come to the edge of the plateau.

I push them off.

And I watch them fly.

The group surrounding me stays silent for the next few minutes. A young English teacher tells me I should write down my thoughts. I just smiled and said I probably will. I always do. The conversation then turned very positive. It became filled with hopes and visions of a profession they should be very proud of.

Webster defines loyalty as: a true and faithful to promise or duty. This term is used to describe love of country, love of family, and is the cornerstone of our society. Men and women spend their entire lives being loyal to professions that not only include business and the act of supporting their families but also loyalty to their communities and neighbors. In the past this loyalty was rewarded by pensions and medical insurance that was promised toward the end of their professional lives. These promises took the place of lower wages earned that could have been elevated if public sector individuals went into private fields. Can you imagine what our society would be like without the loyalty of public sector employees?
Lets’ begin with policeman. How many of us would want to take a job that entails the possibility of being badly injured or killed. I am not being dramatic here. Any traffic stop or an investigation of a disturbance in any of our communities could lead to the death of a policeman. I wonder how many would volunteer to work the abstract hours many of our police officers work. Many have families but also feel the stress of having an extremely stressful job. Sometimes this stress destroys their family but because they feel loyal to their community and want to insure their neighbors are safe this possibility is accepted.
Thank God, they all do it and in an exceptionally professional manner simply to make their community a better place to live. All they ask is this same community honor the pledge of both a pension and a means of taking care of themselves and their family after their age no longer allows them to successfully complete their tasks.
Our firefighters also have odd schedules in order to protect their communities from both natural and un-natural disasters. I wonder how many of us would run into a burning building understanding the possibility of losing their life and the future of their family. I wonder how many of us would rush to car accidents with the knowledge that what they see and have to help would make most of our stomachs turn inside out.
Thank God, they all do it and in an exceptionally professional manner simply to make their community a better place to live. All they ask is this same community honor the pledge of both a pension and a means of taking care of themselves and their family after their age no longer allows them to successfully complete their tasks.
How could we offer our children an opportunity to live a better life if it were not for their teachers? Many of the wealthy in our society think the Jeffersonian concept of public education a foolish one. Why should the masses be educated? Is it a right for the wealthy to enjoy the better life and the legacy of the not-so-rich to take care of and support the wealthy? Teachers take vows of chastity, obedience, and poverty because they were also promised to be taken care of when it was time for them to step down in order to allow the young to take over their positions.
Thank God, they all do it and in an exceptionally professional manner simply to make their community a better place to live. All they ask is this same community honor the pledge of both a pension and a means of taking care of themselves and their family after their age no longer allows them to successfully complete their tasks.

 We are now living in difficult economic situations. I don’t know of a policeman, fire fighter, or teacher who is responsible for theses conditions. Yet, all across our nation communities; those who were professionally served by their public workers, are being blamed for the economic downturn. I read articles displaying how public employees are literally raping their communities because of exaggerated pension programs. If you look closely at these lists it will become obvious there are exponentially low numbers of public employees taking advantage of their pension programs.
Many communities are now putting pressure on public employees who have years of experience successfully doing their jobs. People of power want these people to retire before they are ready because they are paid according to their experience. I wonder if these same people realize how many years of sacrifice these public employees lived through in order to have built up this experience. I also wonder if these same people understand how effective a veteran police, fire, and teaching staff are to their communities. I wonder if any of the people in power would rely on a heart surgeon who has decades of experience instead of putting their lives into the hands of a surgeon who has little experience but read the book well. The people in power should feel the same way about their communities.
Families, communities, and whole nations survive because of a clear understanding of the concept of loyalty. If this practice is dismissed because of difficult economic conditions the potential of recovering will be forever lost.

Jim Fabiano is a teacher and writer living in York, Maine. You can E-mail Jim at:
James.fabian060@gmail.com

The buses arrive. In come numerous students ranging from age 12 to 21. Their entrance is noisier than a Fenway Park crowd. They are young and youth by definition is synonymous with energy and vitality. The question is how we are educating our children. The programs of public education remind me of Jacques Brel’s anthology of music, Jacques Brell is Alive and Well and Living in Paris”:

Carnivals and cotton candy
Carousels and calliopes
Fortune-tellers in glass cases
We will always remember these
Merry-go-rounds quickly turning
Quickly turning for you and me……

Thirty years ago I remember a means of saving public education was a strategy that eliminated the walls between the classrooms of a school. In fact, whole buildings were built in order to emulate the “open classroom concept”. Within weeks teachers put book cases between their teaching spaces in an effort to undo what many experts thought was brilliant.

And the whole world madly turning
Turning, turning ’till you can’t see

I believe the, “No Child Left Behind”; program had the most effect on my career as a teacher. Whole local districts and states were no longer given the responsibility of educating their own children. The federal government took charge and put major penalties on any school district that dared to not follow their lead.

We’re on a carousel
A crazy carousel
And now we go around
Again we go around
And now we spin around
We’re high above the ground

Differentiated Learning and Multiple Intelligence programs reared their heads forcing teachers to teach all levels of students at the same time within the same classroom. Howard Gardner of Harvard University, who developed the program, never intended it solely for public education. The only people who thought this was possible were the people who never taught.

And down again around
And up again around
So high above the ground
We feel we’ve got to yell
We’re on a carousel

Technology then took hold of the way we educate our children by demanding the teacher get away from teaching their student through their knowledge and use computer technologies that flooded the market. The concept of a teacher being a ‘sage on a stage’ was replaced by an LCD transmitted image of a computer screen. The idea of having teachers display what they are passionate about to young men and women searching for something they can be passionate about is being digitally replaced.

A crazy carousel
We’re on a ferris wheel
A crazy ferris wheel
A wheel within a wheel
And suddenly we feel
The stars begin to reel

NCLB has now failed and will probably go the way of the open classroom. In its place a new catchy-titled program is being forced into public education replacing century old programs that produced innovation and defined our society since the advent of our nation. “21st Century Learning” with its school wide rubrics, Virtual High School, VLACS, and ALECKS systems hope to one day eliminate the necessity of teachers. The idea of placing our children with individual computers in large auditoriums being monitored by non-teachers is not far from reality. I guess what goes around comes around.

And down again around
And up again around
And up again around
So high above the ground
We feel we’ve got to yell
We’re on a carousel
A crazy carousel

The day ends like it began with students displaying the same amounts of energy they showed when they arrived. Some realities of public education will hopefully never change. I remember when one of my students told me that what I taught her about biological relationships between young men and women made a decision she had to make easier. As she was leaving my room she turned and thanked me for being a teacher; her teacher.

Carnivals and cotton candy
Carousels and calliopes
Fortune-tellers in glass cases
We will always remember these
Merry-go-rounds quickly turning
Quickly turning for you and me

I knew every one of those people. I didn’t know their faces or their names but I knew them all. They were husbands and wives working to make their families comfortable. They were children whose hard work and perseverance gave them the opportunities they once had. They were grandparents who were just about ready to enter a new stage of their lives doing something they had worked to be able to do. I still know them.

I am sitting at the same desk I sat at on that horrific day ten years ago. The young men and women of my classroom are different now but they are also the same in that they are striving to become as prepared as possible for their futures; futures that are not as clear as they were a short decade ago.

Looking up at the same television set I remember watching images of brave men and women with unfamiliar faces running toward those giant towers to help; to do what they must have known was impossible.

I remember my students asking me if we were at War. I didn’t know how to answer because, yes, we were at war now…but not a war we had ever seen before. A war with an enemy we are still struggling to define and understand. A war with an enemy that won’t fight by any rules we understand. A war we have to win just to go back to a simpler time that probably can’t exist.

I remember one of my students muttering the words ‘Independence Day,’ a movie about aliens invading earth and destroying our national landmarks, because that’s how unreal it seemed.

I smile as I remember back to before that day when my biggest problem was if my students were getting what I was trying to teach them. A time when words like Taliban or Bin Laden sounded like something I would use to clean my toilet.

I realize those times are gone. They have been replaced by a constant fear that what happened on September 11 could happen again. They are replaced by a knowledge that the most powerful nation on earth is susceptible to people who live in caves and sincerely believe that to die by killing innocent people would give them an eternity in heaven.

In the decade since September 11 many things have changed. The Constitution of my nation has been put in jeopardy because of a need for national security. Economically we, as a nation, are much weaker. The corporate titans of the booming times turned out to have feet of clay. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people have lost their life savings to crooks in thousand dollar suits and multi-million dollar mansions.

Some people want to make September 11 a national holiday, which would be a terrible mistake. We don’t need a holiday to remember what happened, just like my parents don’t need a holiday to remember what happened at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. For the rest of our lives we will never be able to forget.

I can’t enjoy the media blitz that is currently underway, forcing us to re-live the shock of what happened only a decade ago. I would much rather see images of our nation rebuilding itself, picking itself up from this catastrophe and moving forward.

I take interest in the plans for the southern tip of Manhattan and I follow their discussions. I want to see something magnificent rise up from this act of hatred against us to demonstrate the strength of our national spirit and resolve. To show the whole world that we, as a nation, are undiminished by what’s been done to us, that we will never be defeated by acts such as this.

My work has always been to build for the future, usually by building young minds. I won’t forget the past but I am ready to move forward now. I need to move forward. It matters more to me know where we go from here than where we’ve already left.

With most political discussion evolving around our national debt and the debt ceiling, President Obama still hammers away at a message of stimulating innovation in education in order to keep the United States competitive in the global economy. “This is our generation’s Sputnik moment,” Obama said, referring to the 1960s space race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. “But today”, Obama continued, “rather than federal spending for outer space, the focus should be on “biomedical research, information technology, and especially clean energy technology,” emphasizing that they “will strengthen our security, protect our planet, and create countless new jobs for our people.”

Webster defines innovation as being, “the introduction of something new or a new idea, method, or device.” With today’s society it is obvious we can’t continue our same failed concepts especially in the education of our children. The question is how can we bring innovation back into our children’s minds? Not too many years ago most young men and women dreamed of being the first to land on a distant planet or be the scientist or physician to finally break through the mystery of cancer. In the past these were exciting dreams whose only hope of realization was earning an exceptional education or being motivated by a remarkable teacher.

We need to go back to those times when teachers motivated their students to their dreams and not to show success on a standardized test. Maybe everyone forgot the definition of motivation. Going back to my beat up old Webster’s Dictionary, yes they do still exist, motivation is defined as, “whatever drives you to do something. You can motivate yourself by setting goals and rewarding yourself and even your society when you meet them.”

For the past decade public education has gone away from the simple act of having a teacher motivate their student to do great things. Public schools and administrators have been given a set of standards to use in order to educate their students. These standards are then tested using standardized tests that have nothing to do with innovation or motivation.

But, have no fear, a report released today by the National Research Council presents a new framework for K-12 science education that identifies the key scientific ideas and practices all students should learn by the end of high school. The framework will serve as the foundation for new K-12 science education standards, to replace those issued more than a decade ago. These new standards will set rigorous learning goals that represent a common expectation for all students. They also will be limited in number to reflect the framework’s focus on a small set of core ideas and practices, and should include guidance about what does and does not need to be taught.

In other words, schools and teachers will be told what can and can’t be taught. If a student is motivated to learn about a subject that is not part of these standards then he or she will be told their dreams and expectations simply aren’t important. Once again public education is being told to have all students become proficient in both objective and subjective sciences even though it is common knowledge all students can’t be good in everything but can become exceptional in what they are being motivated to learn. How can innovation become a reality when one is told to learn something that is already known?

The concept of teaching to standards is a failed concept. All one has to do to demonstrate this is to look at what the, “No Child Left Behind Program” did to our children. Our public education system did not get better but rather showed little to no improvement. Many states across our nation are now rejecting a program that was destined to fail before it began. We now have a new program in the horizon that promises better results even though it will once again fill our student’s buckets with facts and data instead of filling them with fire.

I remember he actually scared me a lot. Thirty or so years ago I met my first department chairperson. Back then it was always a department chairman but being forced to be politically correct I have to admit he was a person. I remember him being old and I also remember how he didn’t trust me.

Why won’t the old talk to us? Why is it so hard for them to explain their years of experience to those of us who try not to make the mistakes of those who lived before us? Why is it so difficult for them to look into our eyes and explain how they got to become so old? To paraphrase Harry Truman, “There is nothing new in this world. Only the times that are not remembered.” We can’t remember these times unless the people who lived through them will explain them to us.

After a few months he became my mentor. I think he did this because he knew I had the fire in my gut to be a good teacher. It could also be because few of the other teachers wanted to talk with him. You see he was a curmudgeon and in his time he was considered a dinosaur of education. He didn’t believe in the new found concepts of open classrooms and heterogeneous classes. He understood all children should be given the same opportunity to succeed but also knew everyone will not succeed unless you lower your standards to make them succeed. This is something he would never do.

Needless to say he was overwhelmed by the ever-growing administrations and their initiatives that sounded good by name but had little substance to them. At his retirement he gave me a hug and told me to continue the good fight because he knew I cared about my students and their futures. He also knew I couldn’t care less about policies that made the policy makers look good instead of making our students succeed more.

Thirty years passed before I could figure out how to slow time down. Thousands of students passed through my classes. All of them did very well because they worked to their capacity. I never had a bad student. In fact, I wouldn’t know how to define or even recognize one. But, policies changed that placed the concept of Data over my student’s well-being. The concepts of multiple intelligence and individualized education pushed out the concept of a classroom teacher being a “sage” on a stage. I am actually quite proud of that description.

These programs have now been usurped by the concept of “school-wide rubrics” that demand all children be assessed the same way. Now that its common knowledge the “NCLB” program has failed; more initiatives are being created to fill the void. The only problem is these new programs need more administration and administrators. I am saddened by the fact we are losing more art, music, health, and unified arts teachers every year and in their place are the curriculum coordinators whose responsibility is to coordinate numbers instead of children.

A few days ago I was told I intimidated many new teachers. I guess they were scared of me even though I thought I helped them through many difficult times. I had been a mentor to many of them because I knew they had the fire in their guts to be great teachers. I tell them to be careful and not become friends to their students. Their students have all the friends they need but they have few teachers. My administrators told me I was a curmudgeon who wasn’t a team player doing what I was told to do even though I knew it would hurt my students.

Today I am being overwhelmed by the title wave of new initiatives that have little to do with the education of my students. Even though many of my responsibilities have been taken away I know I can still make difference for my students. But, sooner than later I understand I will be forced to retire and be simply thrown away.

Jim Fabiano is a teacher and writer who teaches in New Hampshire and lives in York, Maine. You can contact Jim at: james.fabiano60@gmail.com