Mom's letter

Thank you Arne Duncan. I respect and honor that you want to do the best for children. So do I. To me that also means doing the best for teachers. May I give you a kaleidoscopic view of my thoughts on the issue of the pay of teachers depending on the scores their students make on tests. I taught in primary grades in Tucson, Arizona for 26 years. I am retired and at 87 I am still teaching piano lessons. I love teaching. I love children. Here is a letter I wrote to children.

Dear Child,

I know you! I have lived with children like you for twenty-six years. I know
you have some sense of your power. I wish I knew how to help you see just how powerful you are.
I know you sometimes feel as if you have no choices in school or at home. There
so many "shoulds" and "must learns" that you have felt that saying "no" to learning was your only
way of having any power.
Your teacher can't make you learn no matter how much she wants to, or how
hard she works. You are the chooser. You can say, "No, I want to show you I am strong. I
can say no." It's true, you can. But it is powerful to choose to say "yes", too, and to make a
choice to learn even if it feels weak and confusing. It just takes practice, like anything else.
Practice is being willing to keep trying even when you miss the basket in basketball or throw a wild
pitch in baseball. It begins to be exciting as you work at it and get better. On the day when you
can say "yes" as well as "no" you will find that you have truly awesome power. I look forward to
that day. love,
Mrs. Pomeroy

Your story about the children on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana is heart breaking, both the story of the hopelessness of the students and the 70% unemployment of the adults. The "failure" of the schools in poverty areas falls in the same category. Surely these are examples of societal failures and must be addressed on many levels. Maslow postulates that persons whose basic needs aren't met cannot be fully functional persons. Basic needs must be met first. Is this the role of schools? I want these needs to be taken care of.

I taught in a school where often there were no blue-eyed children in my class. I remember a beautiful little girl who didn't know her hair was brown, her sweater was red, or her pants were purple. I had her pick red things out of a basket filled with many different colored objects, then I tied a piece of red yarn around her wrist and asked her to find out how many children knew "red." She found a blank cereal box top and a red crayon and drew red circles in an array three across and four down to display the results of her survey. I had only thought of her being reinforced in her recognition of the color red. She was so bright.

The July/August issue of the magazine ODE had an article on The Academy for the Love of Learning based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The academy offers teachers training to move beyond the culture of outcomes such as test scores, to a culture of a passion for learning, honesty, and growth. An inspiring article and helps me remember that teacher training colleges are looking to find better methods courses.

I wonder what you think when someone mentions music, art, poetry, creativity, critical thinking, social skills, and other things that tests do not measure. These things that are of primary importance to our quality of life.

In the August 30, 2010 issue of The Christian Science Monitor the article about you, Arne Duncan, tells of your experience with the Ariel Education Initiative in Chicago. I loved the part that told about sixth graders in Shakespeare Elementary who were promised affordable college if they graduated from high school! I'm excited that the student is encouraged to make the effort. How could we offer affordable college to everyone?

In graduate school I was in a two credit course in Current Issues in Education. Each week we were to hand in a paper, annotated as to sources, with our arguments pro and con on a certain issue. He assigned us to debate pro or con on the debate after class started. One week we students were in class a few minutes before Dr. Daniel Davies arrived. We were complaining eloquently about the amount of work we had to do, and that it was too much to expect for a two credit class. We were all in agreement. We were primed to complain in detail to our teacher. I can still see Dr. Davies walking in waving a handful of papers at us and exclaiming as he walked. "I can't believe how good your papers are. You work so hard, and write so well about each side of the current problem under consideration. You have done this week after week. I think you are the best class I have ever taught." He spoke from his heart and we believed him. We felt appreciated and proud and said not a word, not one word, about how burdened we were with overwork. We all smiled and kept on working an talked about how Dr. Davies was one of the best teachers we ever had. He is a model of a good teacher. I acknowledge that attendance in his class was not compulsory.

I haven't mentioned that I have two grandsons just out of business school who make way more money than two of my daughters who have been teaching for 30 years and love teaching. Every year they say, "I can't believe how wonderful this class is." Is their salary a symbol of how much teachers are valued? They deserve more. I felt valued and respected as a teacher and loved it so much I hoped nobody would find out how little I would be willing to do it for. Excuse me, nea. I just don't want to be thinking of how high a score any child is going to get on a test when I am teaching her. So, all of my passion isn't on salary after all. This is just now occurring to me. It is on excellence in teaching that would be diminished if a teacher must be measured by test scores. This limits the scope of teaching.

I want schools to be a place where teachers and students are learning and growing with all kinds of life skills, intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual skills that help us all experience the beauty and wisdom in ourselves and each other.

Also to remember Edison, Bill Gates, and my gardener who works and lives so joyously.

Shall we dance?

Respectfully submitted, Bernice Pomeroy
PO Box 76
Patagonia, AZ 84624