As we worked on this issue over the summer, it seemed like every day brought a new headline about how terrible things are in U.S. schools. Test scores are down, parents are angry, youth mental health is at a crisis point, teachers are quitting. The idea of publishing an issue about good news in schools seemed preposterous, possibly even irresponsible. Are we turning a blind eye to real problems? Perhaps that’s what some of you are thinking as you pick up this issue.
This issue won’t provide a grand counternarrative to those daunting headlines. We’re not here to tell you that the problems aren’t real. There are no big findings in this issue indicating that scores are rising, parents have stopped protesting, the kids are all right, and schools are fully staffed.
The PDK Poll provides some encouragement with the findings that the public wants teachers to have more say over curricula than state legislatures and that a majority of Americans would support increasing teacher salaries, even if that means higher property taxes. But most of the good news in this issue is about individual teachers, schools, and districts tackling problems and succeeding. They aren’t making change on a grand scale, but they are changing students’ lives. And sharing their stories might inspire other teachers, administrators, and district leaders to try something new to solve a problem. Or maybe their stories will help other educators recognize the successes already happening around them.
That’s what happened for Rebecka Peterson, the 2023 National Teacher of the Year. She was ready to quit in her first year as a teacher, but in her Kappan interview, she shares how she started looking for one good thing every day and writing it down. That practice, shared with other teachers, helped her keep going. Over time, she didn’t have to search for good things. She saw the good things happening as they happened. And then she felt empowered to try to make them happen.
In their book, The Power of Bad: How the Negativity Effect Rules Us and How We Can Rule It, Roy Baumeister and John Tierney explain why and how people tend to let negative information overrule the positive. In an interview related to the book (Suttie, 2020), Tierney explains that the media elevate negative stories because these stories tend to affect everyone and therefore capture the most attention. But positive stories tend to be more idiosyncratic, focused on niche interests. We have to seek out the good things, just as Peterson did when she was a new teacher. Our brains are wired to notice the bad. We must train ourselves to see the good and then to create the good.
One place I’ve seen the good in education was at the 2023 Educators Rising conference this summer in Orlando. The nearly 2,000 students, from middle school to college, who attended the conference are looking forward to careers in education and have started learning skills and dispositions that will help them in their own classrooms. In competitions and from the main stage, they shared stories of teachers who’ve helped them as they’ve grappled with difficult situations. The tears were abundant. These young people have seen what’s going well in schools, and they want to be part of it. In fact, at the first-ever delegate meeting, they decided that showing the good in education should be one of the Educators Rising focus areas for the next three years.
Let’s take a lesson from our students. Even as we acknowledge the difficulties, let’s remember to seek and share the bright spots around us.
Reference
Suttie, J. (2020, January 13). How to overcome your brain’s fixation on bad things. Greater Good Magazine.
This article appears in the September 2023 issue of Kappan, Vol. 105, No. 1, p. 4.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Teresa Preston
Teresa Preston is an editorial consultant and the former editor-in-chief of Phi Delta Kappan and director of publications for PDK International, Arlington, VA.
Visit their website at: https://prestoneditorial.com/
