Frank Thoms, Teacher in the Rye

I have been away from the classroom for many years, away from contemporary challenges ranging from issues of equity to those of gender identity.

I am offering to bring my past into your classrooms to help those of you who are teachers build toward a better future. Policies from national, state and local forces tie your hands. We, too, had our share of outside pressures, but they were not as oppressive. Most of our parents were supportive. By offering ideas from my creative years in the classroom, I am inviting you to understand that your classroom belongs to you. Tradition tells you that.

I, and some of my colleagues, acted as agents creating our own curricula even when administrators and supervisors ‘directed’ us otherwise. I am suggesting that you choose a similar path. It may well take greater courage, but if you engage colleagues to join you, you might well be able to make your classrooms your own. When you do, you will have greater possibility to educate, to offer your students agency, and not have them become vulnerable to others’ biddings.

The classroom is the teacher’s domain since public schools were established. It may feel less so when you feel pressured to teach a required curriculum in a specified amount of time and respond to preparation for outside testing, both of these oxymoronic to an education. Remember that your room belongs to you. Your presence with your students is yours alone. You can build on that.