In my heart, I am a teacher. Always have been. Always will be.
For 29 years, I taught in two small rural Mississippi schools.
At my last school, I was the only teacher of 8th grade reading and
English students. Lucky me! That is the grade level and two of
the three subject areas that Mississippi posts in its newspapers to
demonstrate NCLB compliance for accountability. It was not
just the school's aggregated scores that appeared in the paper – it
was MY students’ scores. As the lonely,only reading and
English teacher for my grade in my school, I could have
suffered from the geographic and professional isolation
that is so often part of a rural teacher’s life.
Fortunately, I was part of a National Writing Project local
site where I had access to a rich, professional learning
community. I was not alone.
At present, I am a Program Associate with the National
about living, teaching, and learning in a rural place to
advocate for other rural teachers, and students. My rural
colleagues face challenges that are common to the
education process everywhere, but they also face unique
challenges that are often invisible in discussions about
school reform and good teaching. Even with the
“rural preference” that is given in some Race to the
Top funding competitions, with few exceptions rural
schools find themselves in the margin of educational
policy. (The I3 competition is an example of how
little today’s policymakers seem to understand about
how innovation and reform happens in rural schools.
I marvel that New York City Schools received “rural
advantage points” in the I3 competition. But that
is another story.)
The National Writing Project, unlike some educational
agencies, does not leave rural teachers in the margins.
At the heart of NWP is the notion that“every person is
an accomplished writer, engaged learner, and active
participant in a digital, interconnected world.” NWP
intentionally promotes equitable opportunities for teachers
across geographic boundaries.Rural writing project teachers
have no need to compete against their urban colleagues.
Rather, they are invited into a professional community
that values their knowledge of the unique needs of rural
students as well as the educational concerns they hold in
common with urban teachers. Rural voices are integral
to the collective national conversations about teaching
and learning and are part of the data that inform
Many engaged in rural schooling have come to
believe that educational innovation and reform
will not come from investments in scripted programs,
more testing or competition for funding. Rather it will
come from investing in professional development
and leadership growth opportunities for “lonely, only”
teachers in small schools across America. This is what
the National Writing Project does best. It is one of the
few educational organizations today that understands
that a rural teacher may be the one - the one who
is the entire high school Science Department, the one
who teaches reading and English to an entire grade
level, the one with four preparations for four different
subjects, the one EL specialist who serves an
entire K-12 school – who may reform a school by
engaging in careful inquiry about her own classroom
practice and how it impacts student learning.
NWP matters.
NWP values the voices of teachers in the smallest
most remote parts of our nation, in the largest urban
centers, and places in between. Listen to their stories.
most remote parts of our nation, in the largest urban
centers, and places in between. Listen to their stories.
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