Patches and Plaid?

If my day simply consisted of the work we did at the end of the day, where we set senior project dates, and the beginning of the day, where we did all of our chest-beating about why we do this work, today really would have been average. We got all the standard start-of-year amenities: coffee, pastries I shouldn't eat because I don't know how many points they were, lunch from our PTO, the chance to socialize with people I haven't seen since June. We got pats on the back for our standardized test scores, from 'P' and 'E' (our Executive Director), and a new, more organized vision of where our school needs to go to achieve great things.

These are things I have heard before, every year, in school districts and in my school, a charter school. As I said in my last entry, we do this dance every year and it always sounds good at the time, but this year I have come to realize that these things just sound the same.

This year, however, we had a guest speaker: the founding principal of our school, who has come back to serve on the Board of Directors. She was a consultant reviewing and studying charter schools all over the country, and she came in to share what she had found regarding how successful charter schools run.

According to her, successful charter schools:

• Successfully bear a strong culture through their students, faculty, and staff;
• Have one defining characteristic (or more) in practice in ALL classrooms;
• Are data-driven (and she acknowledged the overused nature of the term);
• Have a staff completely 'on the same page', with no renegade behavior that separates them from the school (she said: 'you can't be in private practice with public dollars');
• Reinforce a strong sense of belonging and pride in the school;
• Expect that students EXCEED expectations, as opposed to meeting them.

There were other observations about outstanding charter schools; I will admit that my pen was not active and I missed them. But, she did make one point, one observation that stuck with me more than all the rest, and one that I am still chewing on with great enthusiasm.

She said that all of the outstanding charter schools she visited wore uniforms, observing that they helped give students a tangible representation of the sense of pride, community, and accomplishment that went with their special charter school. It meant they belonged to something, to a community, greater than the sum of its parts, and had a chance to succeed in bleak places like Detroit or the hard, tough parts of New York City. She talked about how families near some of these schools were attracted at once by the uniforms alone. She mentioned that not adopting uniforms is a regret she had regarding our school's founding.

I remember looking around the room at that moment, judging the reaction of the rest of the staff. Here, we had a crew that I was sure would scoff, sigh, and shake their heads at this idea. Our staff stands up so frequently for student individualism and right to express; we tend to lump this under student 'voice'. But, at this moment, I saw some tilt their heads back and close their eyes, others slowly nodding in agreement. I found myself doing the same thing.

Now, I'm not saying that school uniforms are the one solution to the problems plaguing our schools, and I do think there are equity issues that come with such a requirement (especially if they are totally prescribed, or if families are required to buy them). The point is really irrelevant; I felt more refreshed by the out-of-the-blue nature of the idea (which, decades ago, would not have been true).

It was something that had me fired up. I wanted to talk to this woman, who had founded my school nine years ago. I wanted to shake her hand and ask for her time, and ask if she felt like the girls should get an option of wearing pants or skirts, or if she'd commission a special plaid to emphasize the uniqueness of the school, or if we would have weird patches or initiation ceremonies; I wanted to ask her what her vision for this idea would be. I wanted to engage in a conversation about education that WASN'T philosophical, one that rubbed against the grain that we are stuck in in so many schools, the grain of comfort and complacency.

I think that was the moment I was really looking for. I needed to find affirmation of our work in something completely unique, something that challenged what we had otherwise taken for granted. Teaching should be about pushing the envelope, about challenging the status quo, because the status quo is saying right now that not every student succeeds. This inspiring woman at the front of our common was saying that good schools DEMAND student success, rather than 'teach, test, and pray for the best'; the fact that they wore uniforms simply reinforced a community of learners and a culture devoted to success and achievement. (After all, she said, in the 'real world', you dress: for fun, for friends, for work, for school.)

My last thought, as I walked out the door at 3:15, was this: if one person who founded this school had the courage to get up and push our envelopes, why were the rest of us passing around cliches? Why is it that, when asked what words should greet our students every day, I saw everyday phrases like 'success starts here', or 'your journey to success starts here', or 'you CAN succeed today'? Why did it feel so strange, so taboo, to say 'you MUST succeed today', 'I DEMAND that you give your all today'?

What if we had the courage to tell our students that success is not a choice in our school? That it is who we are, part of our culture? How much different would the job be?

If success were a thread in our uniform, and it were required, would our students wear it? Would they walk in the door? Would they be proud to wear those patches, wear that plaid?

Would I?