American English File 4 Teacher Book

[Lane Stefano]

Whilenot every teacher from the mainland will have Asian and Pacific Islander students or work closely with Asian Americans from Hawaii, our experiences and perspectives are part of the American story. When you tell our stories, I want you to tell them with fidelity. I want you to remember that there are humans behind these stories. First, however, I need a chance to speak.

The decade I spent studying and living on the mainland made me realize just how different our perspectives are, and the differences between our communication styles. Whereas those raised with a Western cultural ethos are more independent, outspoken and desirous that their voices be heard, I was raised with a completely different cultural ethos, one that puts a premium on self-effacing humility. I was taught to defer to others and to let everyone else speak before speaking myself. Honestly, just talking about myself in general makes me uncomfortable sometimes. It feels like bragging, and bragging is one of the most grievous social sins you can commit in my culture.

While neither communication style is objectively better or worse than the other, my world is one in which my ways of sharing and being heard are very much at odds with the dominant culture of the West, leaving me outnumbered and in the minority. When there is an unconscious expectation that the voices of those who look like you are the only ones that are heard and prioritized, everything and everyone else becomes an outlier and an anomaly.

In this kind of environment, I feel safe to speak up. Then again, given that I spend most of my time in predominantly white spaces with teachers from the mainland, these spaces are usually the exception, and far from the norm.

As a teacher, I wear multiple hats: not only in my classroom with my students but also as a public figure. As the 2023 Hawaii State Teacher of the Year, I am the human face of my school and community. I have had the opportunity to participate in professional gatherings with teacher leaders from across the country, and I feel the weight of the responsibility to bring our perspective to the table. Our cultural perspective as educators born and raised in Hawaii is a singularly significant one, and our perspective as Asian American teachers is one that can enrich the national conversation on race, ethnicity and identity for all of our students.

This story is part of an EdSurge series chronicling diverse educator experiences. These stories are made publicly available with support from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. EdSurge maintains editorial control over all content. (Read our ethics statement here.) This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

Funding for the 2022 State of the American Teacher survey was provided by the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and gifts from RAND supporters and income from operations. Funding for the teacher interviews was provided by the National Education Association and gifts from RAND supporters and income from operations. Funding for the State of the American Principal survey was provided by The Wallace Foundation. Funding for the American Life Panel survey was provided by the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association.

RAND is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous. RAND is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and committed to the public interest.

On the trip, I met teachers, principals, superintendents, and professors from all across America who are passionate about improving education for the better. The level of discourse was invigorating for me, a relatively young and inexperienced teacher. I was able to hear about perspectives from all different kinds of education, from huge urban schools, to elite private schools, to rural, small schools. This was enlightening because I began to realize that no matter the type of school, many American educators were experiencing many of the same issues that I was facing.

Trust

As we visited Finnish schools and met with Finnish educators, I saw some stark differences between their system and the American system. It must be noted that Finland is much smaller and more homogenous than the United States, and due to their social safety net, they do not have as much poverty. This, however, does not mean that American teachers should disregard any lessons we can learn from the Finns.

In my teaching experience, the state has very specific, detailed standards that are measured by the state end-of-course exam, which begets a system of implicit distrust. The standards and exams imply that the state does not trust districts to do an adequate job educating students and relies on the state test to ensure compliance. The district then provides mandatory benchmarks, implying that they do not trust that the students will have success on the state exam or that the principals can run their schools adequately. This results in the teachers being hounded by their principals over data analysis from the benchmarks.

The Whole Child

The Finnish educational system focuses much more on the non-cognitive skills of their students, as opposed to the content knowledge. The attitude of America is much more competitive than Finland, and this is deeply ingrained in our culture. Teaching in Finland is not about creating the best students with the best SAT scores who know the most about history, physics, or algebra. It is about creating globally competent, critical thinkers who are ready to be successful in their post-graduation life. In my mind, the Finns grow their children as if they were plants in a garden. In order to produce well-rounded students, they focus on many disciplines that will help them become well-rounded adults.

Folklore is a mandatory class every year, because the Finns want their students to have imaginative thinking and a sense of national cultural identity. They have cooking class every year (for all students), because being able to cook and knowing about nutrition is essential to a happy, healthy adult life.

Challenges

While the Finns have gotten a great deal of what they do right, it made me feel relieved to see that American schools are not behind in all aspects of education. In the U.S., there has been an increasing investment of time and money to prepare our students for the global market by teaching them how to use technology. Here, teachers go to trainings to learn the most innovative new ways to use laptops, discussion boards, and digital learning to engage their students. At my school, in which 93 percent of students receive free or reduced-price lunch, every student is issued a laptop. Teachers post e-books, the students do research, and they use digital tools to create interesting products for projects.

Overall, my trip abroad was an enlightening experience. I can honestly say it changed my outlook on my profession, and this school year has been exponentially less stressful for me. Not because my school changed or my students are smarter, but because I have changed. I rearranged my classroom to foster more cooperative learning and organic communication. I added more art and music to the environment of my classroom and in my lessons, which make the day more enjoyable for teacher and student alike.

American Teacher uses a large collection of teacher testimonies and contrasts the demands of the teaching profession alongside interviews with education experts and education reform news from around the country. There are four principal characters in the film whose lives and careers are closely portrayed over the course of several years. Alongside the stories of these four characters is interwoven a mixture of interviews with teachers, students, families, and education leaders, as well as animation conveying startling facts surrounding the teaching profession.[2]

The film is a compilation of over three years of collecting footage from hundreds of teachers across the country.[3] Outside of the main characters, the film also features vignettes and interviews with many other public school teachers as well. American Teacher also features interviews with US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Deputy Secretary of Education Brad Jupp, the founder of The Equity Project Charter School Zeke Vanderhoek, Stanford Professor of Education Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond, Stanford economist Eric Hanushek, and several regional and national teachers of the year.[4][5] The film is produced by Ninive Calegari, Dave Eggers, is produced and directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Vanessa Roth, and co-directed and edited by filmmaker Brian McGinn. The film is narrated by actor Matt Damon with music composed by San Francisco musician Thao Nguyen.[6]

The film American Teacher held its premiere screening on May 3, 2011 at the 54th Annual San Francisco International Film Festival to a sold-out audience. It was followed by an additional screening in San Francisco on May 5, another sold-out preview screening in Los Angeles on May 6 at the Creative Artists Agency as well as a Washington D.C. preview screening at the Jack Morton Auditiorium on May 24. American Teacher has also received the silver award in the documentary category of the 34th Annual Philadelphia International Film Festival.[7] The film was theatrically released in major United States cities in September 2011.[8]

"Teachers deserve a raise. Our nation's teachers have been underpaid, overworked, and deprived of resources for too long. That's why I'm filing the American Teacher Act today, to give our nation's teachers the raise they have earned and deserve," said Congresswoman Wilson. "Teachers are the backbone of our education system and economy, playing a foundational role in the development of our children. For seven hours a day, they help shape and inspire young minds as well as nurture students academically and socially. As the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a standstill, teachers continued to play a critical role in our recovery, underscoring their indispensability. I am proud to introduce the American Teacher Act, a critical first step in the fight to support a livable, competitive wage for America's educators."

3a8082e126