To teach or not to teach?

We traveled to College Park for our daughter's graduation from the College of Education at the University of Maryland. After five years of study--working nights as a waitress, summers as a camp counselor, and borrowing money--she had earned her degree in elementary education. Her dream is to teach and make a difference in her students' lives.

The day after graduation she asked us to visit the first-grade class where she had done her student teaching. This is a school in the middle of hundreds of high-rise tenement apartments for low-income families. Seventy-five percent of those attending this school were designated as "remedial students" and nearly all were minorities. Since these students couldn't pass the federally required tests, both students and school had been classified as "failing." There was little hope, without major funding and increased staff, of ever succeeding and removing that label. The principal was to be transferred because, according to the federal government's "No Child Left Behind" law, this was a "failing school" and, as principal, she was responsible.

Our daughter entered the classroom to shouts of joy: "Miss Rubinstein! Miss Rubinstein!" and students rushed over to her, grasped her hands, and led her into the room. Our daughter literally radiated with happiness to see "her kids" again.

Our son teaches high school social studies in Queens, New York. He is in a masters-in-education fellowship program and has been placed in an inner city school. He's had an intense time adjusting to students who require lots of guidance, need a great deal of work with basic skills, lack teaching materials, are threatened by testing, and have a wide range of academic and personal needs. After several months of teaching he said, "I had the students do evaluations about what they liked, didn't like, and how I should change my teaching. They had some nice comments! ... I was walking on the street and this student who I don't have in class came up to me and said, 'I really like the quotes you put on the board. Makes me think."'

Since George W. Bush suddenly cut funds for this fellowship program to recruit and train teachers so desperately needed in the New York City schools, my son now has to pay to earn his "fellowship" masters degree.

My son and daughter have just become teachers. They've earned their degrees, obtained their teaching credentials, and gone in debt in order to work with the young people who will determine all our futures. As one who spent thirty-two years teaching middle-school students, I am very proud of my daughter and son--and very concerned.

I taught through the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s and was fortunate enough to have worked at a very special public school--Roosevelt Junior High-Middle School in Eugene, Oregon--where the staff focused on students first. They devoted immense time, expertise, and energy to foster student success in the classroom and in life. For most students and teachers this program worked very well. During those years our students consistently achieved top academic marks in the state and, even more importantly, enjoyed coming to school. We had great parental support, and most teachers enjoyed the challenge and the hectic pace of teaching at Roosevelt.

As a teacher in this elective, ungraded curriculum program, I had the opportunity to teach classes in such unique subjects as Multicultural Mythology, Mystery Story, Wild and Tame (animal literature and the care of animals), Folktales and Storytelling (which incorporated basic speech skills), Advanced Writing, Sports History, and Through the Camera's Eye--American History Through Movies. For twenty-four years my students journeyed during the school day, three times a week during the term, to perform as the nationally known "Troupe of Tellers" for some three thousand students each year in elementary and secondary schools as well as for adult groups.

Other Roosevelt teachers engaged their students with classes in Shakespeare, space travel, zoology, computer math, cartooning, archery and bow making, and more. These classes incorporated basic skills: reading, writing, research, and presentations. These unique classes excited students and teachers alike. Learning, after all, should be fun--for both the pupil and the teacher--and lessons should encourage students to think and become life-long learners.

Each of Roosevelt's teacher-designed classes had to meet particular educational goals, evaluated by the administration. Students, with parent and teacher guidance, chose classes based on each student's skill level and needs as well as interests. A class could have a mix of sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade students. Teachers didn't just grade pupils but commented on each student's progress and needs. Instructors, along with administrators and, sometimes, general staff, worked together to solve individual concerns.

People came from across the United States to find out how the "Roosevelt Program" worked. They wanted to know how we accomplished this positive educational experience without large grants. They wanted to know why we had so few serious student behavior problems over the years and why our students did so well.

Unfortunately, there isn't much left of the "Roosevelt Program:' Budget cuts, changes in administration, teacher burnout, and, most of all, the mania for and expense of testing have devastated thirty-two years of successful education. Today in the United States 50 percent of those entering the teaching profession quit by the fifth year due to overcrowded classrooms, student behavior problems, lack of parental support, administrators lacking knowledge and skill, and teacher salaries that are inadequate for raising their own families.

So, I wonder--and worry. Will my two children, who have such love and care for kids and such potential as teachers, survive as educators beyond five years? Will they be allowed to educate as teachers can and should--and as our kids need?

For thirty-two years Robert Rubinstein taught in a unique middle school program in Eugene, Oregon. He has written four books and is an award-winning storyteller.