Join me this Friday 11/07/25 on 103.5 FM New Haven, Readman: Truth to Power Hour, where my guest shall be none other than Dr. Bryan Riply, English Professor, Director of the Connecticut Writing Project at Fairfield University.
Two teachers talking real writing
Since 2002, to 2025, there has been trillions of dollars spent on Failed Education Reforms and Mandates; billions that have been spent on “Fail Proof Curriculums”. During this time ~ while all this money has been spent on our public schools, hundreds of librarians, literacy specialists, special education teachers, teachers of art & music, para-professionals, and regular classroom teachers were let go and never replaced; class sizes have increased. Many of these new curriculums are so heavily scripted that teacher voices are silenced. These scripted programs come from publishing companies who do not trust teachers. These multi million dollar companies/publishers have sold the same lie for thirty years ~ teachers are the problem…
We all know it’s not teachers who get to choose their curriculums. Teachers have little or no say in the standards, the assessments, or the programs used in their schools.
Ed Reforms read like bad tasting, watered down, alphabet soup ~ food that fails to feed learning and teaching. The Silver Bullets we had pushed down our throats, like NCLB, RTTT, ESSA, RTI, and MTSS, have shut down the voices of teachers. The data is clear, not one of their mandates or reforms have delivered. In a reasonable world, leadership would reflect and question the failures. It appears in this High-Stakes Testing world, those in charge do the exact opposite ~ they just double down.
James Balwin knew, humans write to change their world. The purpose of writing is not to “score well” on some standardized test. It’s mind boggling to think of the Language Arts teacher opening their class with these words “remember students, we write to pass that standardized test”. No teacher has ever been heard saying “Gen Z’s ~ they are dying to write, just to pass their standardized exams”. To quote James Balwin “You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can't, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world... The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even but a millimeter the way people look at reality, then you can change it.”
All over this great country of ours, we have awesome teachers, who know and understand that everyone, especially young people, need a reason to write! One place of resistance to this silencing of teacher and student voices is America’s National Writing Projects. These projects focus less on writing skills, and more on helping students find reasons to write personally, socially, and culturally. Writing Project Directors understand that with authentic purpose come reasons to edit, revise and write more. Writing Project Directors help teachers understand that purpose driven writing improves writing, by asking teachers to write with purpose from the heart for yourself.
Tomorrow 0n Readman: Truth to Power Hour 103.5 FM New Haven, Be There, or, Be Square Dr. Jesse P. Turner Professor Emeritus Central Connecticut State University, Literacy, Elementary & Early Childhood Education
If you like to listen to the tune that inspired my morning walk it's the Dire Striates "Romeo and Juliet" > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxfjSnMN88U&t=3s <
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| Simple Truth: Writing Heals, Grows us, Empowers us! |
