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Good morning class.
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First of all, just an honor.
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Thank you for having me, I
appreciate this.
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A couple of years ago, I had the honor
of attending a panel,
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a conference at The Science Leadership
Academy in Philadelphia.
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A black male educator by the name of
Derek Mccoy,
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was asked a question around
sustainability,
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and what are the things that constantly
keep him sustained as he's working.
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And without missing a beat, the first
thing he said was,
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"Have you read Jose Vilson's blog?
His posts just keep me going."
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"Excuse me?" I was shocked, I didn't know
what to do.
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I was just there at the panel, I didn't
even know he was there,
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and I hadn't met him. It was the first
time I'd met him.
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It's thousands and thousands of miles
away, and here is saying,
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I've inspired him by my posts
and through my blog.
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And so, when I talk about teacher voice
out there,
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I'm always thinking about
what it means to actually be a teacher,
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a full-time teacher.
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I'm a full-time math teacher in Washington
Heights, New York,
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and I'm proud to represent that.
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And I also know because of this,
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I need to be very thoughtful about
the things I say and do out there.
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Because there's a lot of people who say,
"Well, teachers shouldn't be speaking up.
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There's no reason for them to talk when
we can do all the talking."
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"Um, excuse me? Okay, so then we have some
work to do."
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Teacher voice.
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The individual and collective expression
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of meaningful professional opinion based
on classroom experience and expertise.
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Now, these are the four guiding principles
when I talk about teacher voice
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there are four pieces that I always
concentrate on,
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when I'm talking about teacher voice.
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The first is the individual element.
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When people say, "The way you create true
change is by starting with the individual"
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our identities, our cultures, our ways of
being,
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inform our pedagogies and the cultures
that are in our own classrooms
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and so we have to constantly be thoughtful
about the ways we interact with our kids,
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in order for us to be the best
practitioners as possible,
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and in order for us to have a real teacher
voice about this work.
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And also, please keep in mind,
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we don't always have to be the best
speaker in the classroom,
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because we ought to be the best listeners.
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Now, the second element is this collective
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because I can't think about my own
profession,
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without thinking about the person that is
outsdie of my walls,
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not just the person next door, but
across the hallway
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and perhaps across the city, across the
state, across the country, right?
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And you think about this.
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If you're a good teacher,
you know who you are.
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Even when you don't speak
the same language,
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or you don't always have
the same cultures,
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there are touchpoints about
all of our experiences
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that allow us to be good teachers
for each other and for ourselves.
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There are things that we know about
the teaching profession,
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that we know what that's like.
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And so when I ask you for collective,
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I'm also thinking about not just everybody
who's across the country,
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and even across the world,
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but across institutions too.
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So including our prisons and our museums,
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there are educators there too.
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We need to think about all of these
educators.
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And then, again, when we come together,
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whether we're celebrating our
best and most accomplished teachers,
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or we're protesting together in any
number of states,
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when our voices when they come together,
they often get to be the loudest.
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The third element is experience.
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And when I talk about experience, it
means that our stories matter too.
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When you think about research, policy,
practice,
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you best believe that a teacher
better be somewhere in there.
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You can't just sanitize us, you have
to be able to include us.
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And then, when we're not included, we
have to be able to fight back.
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What you see in front of you,
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two years ago, I was given a teacher
performance rating of developing.
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My teacher practices were "effective,"
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but unfortunately the data that had
come out was "ineffective,"
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so somewhere in the
middle was "developing."
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And of course, mind you,
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four-fifths of my students' data had
mysteriously disappeared,
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and it just confounded me, I just didn't
know what was going on.
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But even still,
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it kind of hurt to think about the fact
that I had put in so much work
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and yet the assessments that were chosen
were not reflective of the people we were
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and the work that had been done
in our classroom.
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And that's where expertise comes in.
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Because there are things that
we know about our students.
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There are things we think about
our students on the daily.
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We know how to not just write lesson plans
and do-now's and closings.
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We also know how to create communities
in our own classrooms.
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We know how to get kids to ask questions
and to teach us, right?
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Cause that's an important part
of the listening piece.
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We know, we know, and it's okay
to say that we know.
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That's an important part of all this work.
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Because everytime I'm talking about
whatever it is I'm talking about
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I always think back to my kids.
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I'm always thoughtful about the kids who I
have in my classroom.
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Children of immigrants,
children of workers,
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children of parents who've entrusted me
on a daily basis, and for years now,
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to make sure that their kids are
well-educated
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and well-prepared for the world
we live in. Human beings, right?
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The picture you see here by the way
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is a picture of my students with the
statue of Theodore Roosevelt
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at the American Museum
of Natural History.
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Now, at first I didn't really want to take
the picture.
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But when I thought about it,
I said to myself,
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Well? Imagine if Teddy was having to sit
next to people, immigrants,
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who wouldn't want to assimilate
into this country?
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Imagine having a teacher who believed
in students.
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So when I tell you that a teacher who
believes in students
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is core to our democracy,
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this is the picture I'm talking about.
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I think about all the teachers
who are passionate about this,
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who've sacrificed their livelihoods,
who've sacrificed their lives
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to make sure that our students feel social
justice within their classrooms,
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their neighborhoods, who've been
out there on a daily basis,
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who've visited the churches, gone to
parent meetings, who know what it's like
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to be directly effected by so many
of the policies that don't work for us.
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I work for them because they
keep me on their toes.
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They are the best educators.
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And speaking of which, the best
educator in our house
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also happens to be not just
in the audience
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but also, the best mother she could
possibly be to our son, Alejandro.
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And when I think about Luca, when I think
about Alejandro,
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they teach me lessons everyday.
They teach me constant lessons.
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And so I'm always thinking about,
"Oh my gosh,
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How'm I gonna be a better teacher, when
they're already so much better than I am
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at whatever it is that I'm trying to do.
But they keep me grounded
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even when my voice shakes.
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I think about the thousands
and thousands of students
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who I've had the pleasure,
the honor of teaching
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over thirteen-going-on-fourteen years now.
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A career that has spanned so
many lifetimes it feels like.
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And whenever I look at these students,
I'm always like,
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"Oh my gosh, I've taught you!"
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So many of my kids have gone to so
many different places.
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And even when they don't go to places
that I necessarily am happy about?
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I know that I've done everything I
possibly could in my being
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to make sure that they felt like human
beings in my classroom.
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And that is the work.
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And it keeps me up at times.
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I know that when I go to my desk,
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and I wake up, and I think about failing
and winning and failing and winning,
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I also know that I've created lesson
plans that can engage my kids
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and bring them in, and I say good morning.
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And when parents come in, I'm always like,
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(phrase in another language)
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Which means, I'm at your service, I'm here
for you, I'm here to teach kids.
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How welcoming is that?
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These are the things that
keep me up at night,
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these are the things that keep me
up early in the morning as well.
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This is the love work.
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This is the thing we're
constantly striving for,
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So when I say Teacher Voice, it's not
just about being the loudest.
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It's about using our actions and
aligning them to the work we're doing
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and that we say we're doing.
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We want our kids to be reflected in
curriculum,
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in our practices, in our pedagogy,
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and we want them to feel like
they have a belonging somewhere.
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What is it like to feel like you
have a home?
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Not just your actual home.
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For so many of our kids,
they may not have one.
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What is it like to actually create that
and have the power to be able to do that?
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I don't know, but I know
what I know.
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And furthermore, I also know, that I'm
willing to do this forever and ever.
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I'm so passionate about this, I gotta keep
going.
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Are you gonna join me?