Jeff Bliss got our attention when he shared his frustration with his teacher, classmates, and the world about his learning environment.
The now viral video captures a room of students, some with their heads down, some with a facepalm, some staring into space, all silently sitting at their empty desks seemingly disconnected not only from each other, but also from their behind-a-desk-fortress teacher.
That is until Jeff Bliss got up and spoke:
Jeff Bliss: [I’m tired of] hearing this freakin’ lady go off on kids because they don’t get this crap. If you can just get up and teach them instead of handing them a freakin’ packet, yo. There are kids in here who don’t learn like that, they need to learn face-to-face. You’re just getting mad because I’m pointing out the obvious.
Here’s the roundup of what's been popular on The Innovative Educator blog this week. Below you’ll see the top weekly posts along with the number of pageviews. I hope there's something that looks of interest to you. If it does, check it out. If you’re inspired, share it with others and/or leave a comment.
It turns out my support of student activist Jeff Bliss caused at least one teacher to announce on his blog that he wants to quit Tweeting and blogging.
Friends bombarded me with the post, accompanied by comments like, “This is great. We don’t need someone like that representing our profession.” Or, “Wow. He must really be threatened by students being heard. I think that’s a good sign.”
I represent, apparently,all that makes him want to quit. The problem however, is that what he expresses in his blog is a poorly articulated, almost despondent rant. The discouragement that he is feeling is completely understandable; he sees Bliss’s attack as one more on the pile laid upon teachers whose hands and voices are tied tighter every day. But what he expresses can have a dampening effect on those trying to amplify the voices that matter.
This is about more than one frustrated student’s angry words, and the shouts of praise and derision that followed. This is about whether a voice representing one view can marginalize or even erase another.
At the behest of politicians, educators nationwide have been told to view students as statistics, not as individuals, and to view the purpose of the educational enterprise as raising test scores rather than developing capable minds[1].
While I was taking a survey today about Response to Intervention (RTI) I began to reflect about how RTI and Data-Driven Instruction have affected my school. In the past few years, I have noticed teachers becoming overwhelmingly stressed about Standardized State Tests. Teachers feel like they don't have enough time to lesson-plan in order to appropriately meet the needs of their students. Moreover, teachers feel that the precious planning-time in which they do get is being wasted during team meetings and other scheduled events. Teachers are becoming depressed because they are feeling like they are doing their students a disservice by "teaching to the tests" and there isn't anything that they can do about it. This unfortunately creates an extremely negative atmosphere that is contagious to all valued stake-holders in a school system.
By now, you've probably seen the video of high school student Jeff Bliss demanding an end to what he calls "packet teaching." Instead he puts out a call to action for teachers to work to touch the hearts of kids to open their minds. The interaction was ignited when his teacher told him to stop his bitching about the test and kicked him out of class. A student flipped open the cell phone, caught his reaction on tape, and published it. It hit a chord with many and went viral, being viewed by millions around the globe.
As Jeff shared his frustration, his teacher saw no value in his wisdom and told him that he was wasting her time. When he responds, she apathetically silences him, tells him again to leave and informs him he is not welcome back.
What surprised me more than this teacher's dismissal of a young man so passionate about the education of himself and others, was that there were so many people who thought Jeff Bliss was the one being disrespectful.
Wait! What????
As I recently expressed during a weekly Student Voice chat on Twitter, here's my thinking about how we should view students.
My best teachers were students #stuvoice
— Lisa Nielsen (@InnovativeEdu) May 7, 2013
When a teacher tells a young man frustrated about being robbed of his education that he should stop bitching and stop wasting her time, how on earth can we be focused on the student being the one that is showing disrespect?
Our school system is here to support children in learning. Most of us are aware that very few students learn well with "packet teaching," yet it remains.
Criticism of Jeff Bliss in social media and the mainstream press indicate he could have gone about this a different way.
They say he should have addressed her privately.
This makes NO sense. It was the teacher who called him out and kicked him out publicly in front of the class.
They say he should have gone to the principal or school board.
I'm sure he will, but at the time, he was responding to the woman who told him to stop bitching and kicked him out of class for voicing his frustration.
They say he should know the politics of education and know this is the fault of those beyond the teacher.
It is not the job of students to know the politics of education. It is their right to learn and to observe their freedom of speech when this right is being withheld.
They say he robbed his classmates of an education by disrupting the class.
No. No. No. Students speaking to their teachers about how they learn best is not robbing anyone of an education. It is an opportunity for everyone to put down the packet, talk, think, and discuss how they can best learn. Students can fill in bubbles anytime, anywhere. A class is a place for interaction and discussion.
They say he shouldn't have addressed the teacher because she was just doing what she was told.
We should not silence students who are telling their teachers they can't learn they way they teach. Students should be able to speak with their teachers and teachers should listen. When they do they will find there is something valuable they can learn.
I commend Jeff Bliss for standing up for himself and all the other students who deserve a beyond-the-packet education.
Our children are not our future. They are the voices we need TODAY. Our job is to listen and support them. When they say they can't learn the way we are teaching (or not teaching in this case) we must hear them and do what we can to ensure they receive the education they deserve. When we do that we will have citizens who are not just good at sitting down and filling in packets but standing up and filling our world with those who are empowered with embrace their right to change the world.
You can like Jeff Bliss's Facebook Page here and follow him on Twitter here.
Oh, wait. Before you go, check out this great remix of Jeff Bliss's inspirational words.
Here’s the roundup of what's been popular on The Innovative Educator blog this week. Below you’ll see the top weekly posts along with the number of pageviews. I hope there's something that looks of interest to you. If it does, check it out. If you’re inspired, share it with others and/or leave a comment.
