Getting Mad at Oprah...Again

So I read this article on a teacher who wrote a rather angry letter to Oprah. It was in response to an episode that aired fairly recently, I suppose. I must confess, I don't really watch Oprah anymore – I don't really like her. (Yeah, there, I said it: I don't like Oprah. Yeah, I said again. Whaddayagonnadoaboutit???)


Anyway, it's easy to sort of get an idea of what the episode was about from the letter itself:

..o..

"Dear Oprah,

I teach. Given, I teach at university level, but I’ve been teaching for several years — about 20, to be exact. And I’ve seen the changes that No Child Left Behind — and your beloved testing — have made in my students. None of the changes are good: students want to be spoon-fed (they are in testing environments); students want to do only what will get them high grades. The list is long and sad.

I also direct a non-profit federally funded professional development grant for teachers, pre-k to university, the Oklahoma State University Writing Project. It’s the local site of the National Writing Project, an amazing partnership among research universities, classroom teachers, and schools. Not to mention the inclusion of parents and students. All of these voices are absent in the current national conversation.

Oprah, let me tell you about Oklahoma teachers and their classrooms. Many of my friends and colleagues at the high school level have more than 170-200 students in their classrooms. Do you think a student is worth 10 minutes a week from his/ her teacher? Outside of the classroom? Do you think a “good” teacher should spend that much time on weekly grading — 10 minutes a student? Please do the math: that would mean another 83+ hours weekly, Oprah — outside of classroom. IF each student receives 10 minutes of attention on his or her work outside the classroom.

“Don’t they have plan periods?” I hear people ask. No, many don’t. “Plan periods” went the way of smaller classrooms — there are too many school duties: hall monitors, cafeteria duty, mandated professional development that has nothing to do with the school’s demographics. And even if they did, that’s less than five hours weekly…

And yes, good teachers work a lot of outside hours. Unfortunately, in Oklahoma (where our average teacher salary ranks 47th in the country), many teachers need to take part-time jobs. Does this impact their teaching? Certainly. It also impacts the ability for a single mother of two or three children to put food on the table and pay the rent. Do you want teachers to spend more time on students? Lower classroom size — hire more teachers. And pay them competitive salaries — competitive with other career paths requiring a minimum of a bachelor?s degree. Even nurses (another under-rated career) make more than teachers do.

You don’t want teachers to have tenure? Then figure out a way that a principal in a small town (like, say, Skiatook, Okla.) will be unable to fire teachers s/he doesn’t like. Not because the teacher is ‘bad,’ but because the teacher attends the wrong church. Or maybe doesn’t attend church at all. Small towns — and big ones, as well — have politics, Oprah. And surprise: they affect every decision in a school, even to the detriment of teachers.

Tenure doesn’t keep bad teachers in the system — there are ways, as others have noted, to fire teachers. Your guest, Michele Rhee, notes that she fired hundreds. Many had tenure. And many probably weren’t bad teachers, unfortunately. Ms. Rhee, who once thought it was okay to tape students’ mouths shut?? She’s now in charge of evaluating schools? Let me tell you, Oprah, I teach pre-service teachers, in addition to my job directing a NWP site. Not ONE of my students would think that’s okay.

You can’t fire a doctor without just cause, Oprah — there’s a system. Is that ‘tenure’? Or trying to be sure that in this ostensible democracy, we have the right to confront our ‘accuser,’ and hear what is being said about us. Each year in Tulsa, Okla., new teachers don’t make the grade. Even in the third year of teaching, we let teachers who don’t work out go. Unfortunately, we lose an enormous number of teachers — good ones — who can’t deal with the incredibly complicated paperwork, the overtime demands, the lack of time to do what they went to school for: teach.

I wish someone who knew even a little bit about real classrooms, the heart-breaking challenges teachers face daily (teachers spend an average of $400 annually, out of their own meager salaries, to equip their rooms), had a national forum. I wish one of your guests was a real teacher. John Legend? Really? Come on, Oprah, I don’t try to tell John Legend how to make music; he’s going to tell me about teaching? Or perhaps you’re stereotyping? Instead of John Legend, why don’t you have Pedro Noguera, who wrote a stunning book discussing the problems black males face in the system (The Trouble with Black Boys)? Or Mike Rose, who’s worked for decades with working class, side-lined students and schools of America? Or Diane Ravitch, who recanted her support of NCLB because it not only doesn’t work, it harms students?? And Race to the Top is simply an Obama-ised NCLB, I’m sorry to say.

Why don’t you, with your great forum for change, invite real classroom teachers to talk about what it’s like to teach homeless students with no resources (students or teachers)? Why don’t you ask my son, who recently graduated with a Master’s of Arts in teaching, what it’s like to teach students living in foster homes for drug abuse, rape — both victims and perpetrators — violence, assault? Why don’t you ask him how he struggles to be a “good” teacher? And wonders — daily — what that even means in the context where he finds himself?

If you want to change education, Oprah, don’t make the mistake everyone else has. Ask teachers. Would you have a conversation about the national state of medicine and health care without asking for the input of doctors, nurses and patients? And yet we have left parents, teachers and students completely out of this critical talk.

If you want real change, invite real teachers to your show, Oprah. The irony is that the conversation seems to valourise teachers, saying that “good” teachers can change things for kids. So can smaller classrooms, food, adequate resources, the freedom to teach according to a child’s needs. But then, that’s not what the “experts” are saying, is it? Unfortunately, the “experts” have no real experience with students. Or teaching. Or classrooms. They only know how to tell the teachers in the trenches what to do?

Wondering how in the world education came to this pass,
Britton Gildersleeve"

 ..o..

Hah! Suck it, Oprah. I wanted to repost this because it reminded me of another entry I wrote years ago, when I got angry at Oprah over her stand on education. Again.

..o..

The Night I Got Mad At Oprah
(Originally posted here last Nov. 1, 2006)

So I was watching yet another episode of Oprah and instead of being reduced to tears because of touching moments, I am mad.

Her special report was on the deteriorating state of US Education. As should be, she underscored the gravity of the number of high school drop outs, etcetera. Having been a teacher for 3 years and having decided on continuing to do so till I am able, I totally get it. I. Get. It.

What I am livid about are the following:

Oprah said that based on some study or another, the US now places 24th in terms of Math aptitude. Shocking. What she said after, however, disturbed me (and it still does.) She said that "poorer" nations are now doing better. It's not so much that she was stating details that could have easily been supported by facts. It was her whole attitude about it. As if those "poorer" nations had no right to be better than the US.

She then said that the position that America has a as a world leader is now being threatened by the fact that its children are basically getting dumber (my paraphrasing, not her words).

So!?!?!?!

What about nations that do not have the ability to place in any positive global standard because of the debt they have with these alleged power nations? What about the million of children ELSEWHERE, in the rest of the world (read: MAJORITY of the WORLD) who are not given the right to free quality education?

So what if these "poorer" nations are doing better? Instead of talking about how badly that puts America in WHATEVER list it leads in, how about giving due kudos to these nations who have recognized that the greatest weapon they have against the tyranny of poverty is education?

Listen up. The problem, America, is that you have grown too complacent and arrogant. You are raising children used to comfort, who feel as if they don't need to work to have luxury. While this is what is ideal, you are, in a nutshell, raising a nation of spoiled brats.

Us "poor nations" know we have to work hard. Sure, there are all sorts of things that continue to bog us down: corruption and greed and hatred and envy. But we work. And you know what the good thing about being used to being at the bottom is? When somebody overtakes us, we can congratulate them and know we just need to keep working to be better. Not begrudge others of hard-earned success.

Shame, shame, shame on you.

And yes, I do realize the irony of the fact that I will be going there in about a month to study EDUCATION there. Yeah. See how this poor Filipino will break all your learning curves. See how this poor Filipino will show you all what learning is for. (I wrote this a few weeks before leaving for the States to get my Master's Degree. -KN)

You go focus on your problem, because that is valid. But don't go harping on it just because it makes you look bad. It makes you look bad because others are beginning to look better.

WHAT KIND OF STANDARD IS THAT?

Greatness is not relative. You either are or you aren't.

..o..

Geez, Oprah. Get a clue.


So, yeah. There. Sorry. I just hate it when people have all sorts of opinions about education in general when, really, they have no real experience with education, they are incredibly insular, and they make no effort to represent the other side of the story.


She has her own show...nay, her own little media world. She could at least use one of these platforms to promote a more well-rounded conversation about this.


Guh.