The title is not literal, of course.  Instead, this is a story about how, in Readington schools, as in many other public schools, we are steadily suffocating our good teachers and silencing the heart they had for teaching.  This is a lesson in how to kill off the motivation of the best and brightest teachers in our schools.

Controversial author and social commentator Charles Murray wrote an interesting passage about teachers while engaged in a larger topic in his 1988 book In pursuit of Happiness and Good Government.  It is worth quoting here:

"...One may reread the literature on intrinsic rewards and be reminded of all the ways that intrinsic rewards can be undermined, or one may look instead at what happens in any work situation when people who are indifferent to the content of the work--who are in it 'for the money'--are mixed with people who love it.  When one is in love, one does things that look foolish to an outsider.  A teacher who loves teaching is no different from the computer programmer who is wrapped up in a new program or the lawyer who is obsessed with preparing a case--they all voluntarily contribute far more hours to the job than any employer could demand. Teachers who love teaching invest themselves in the students, in the school, in their work, in the ways that make the difference between a happy, fulfilling work setting and a place where people punch in and punch out. "

Murray was making a point about teacher pay and how tying the wrong rewards to a profession like teaching may encourage participation by those in it for the wrong reasons.  Undermining the intrinsic rewards which are the reason good teachers teach leads to dangerous consequences when the "product" is real flesh and blood children.

Have a glass of wine with a good teacher after the school day and you will hear all about the unique struggles and triumphs of individual students.  You will hear how one student was overjoyed to discover he could write a pretty good story and read it out loud to the whole class.  You will hear how another was sad and withdrawn that day because of problems at home.  With a big enough bottle of wine you will hear the life story and academic history of twenty-some-odd students and how each of them will be guided by this good teacher for the rest of the year and beyond.

Good teachers teach because they love kids and they love to share their love of learning with young, developing minds.  Frederick Herzberg's motivator/hygiene theory stated that employees are motivated by factors of the work itself (satisfiers) and that other things like pay, and benefits and management policy (dissatisfiers) are merely hygiene issues.  The implication is that employees are best motivated to work and do well because they love what they do, but they can become dissatisfied when the hygiene factors overwhelm their environment. Is it possible that we be creating conditions which will overwhelm the intrinsic motivation good teachers find in teaching?

Consider the classroom environment for teachers in Readington, circa 2008:

• Under the new scheduling scheme, teachers in some lower grade levels who formerly taught both language arts and math to the same students are now asked to trade students with other teachers for one subject.
• With the district's unyielding push to integrate technology into the classroom, teachers are "encouraged" with a capital "E" to use new gadgets whether or not they find them useful every single minute of the day.  Teachers "modeling" the new gadgets are showered with attention, teachers who are not on the bandwagon...
• In each subject with an official program, such as Everyday Math, teachers have their lessons and even homework assignments scripted for them. Deviation is not especially encouraged no matter what the student mix in a classroom might be.
• Assessment strategies have been steadily moving away from individual teacher-student interaction and toward students filling in paper bubble sheets or clicking multiple choice computerized questions.
• Teaching is being forced toward the simplistic and formulaic.  For example, language arts teachers are required by circumstances to teach a standard, bland, uninspired five paragraph writing formula so that students will do well on state test writing prompts.  
• In most grades both state and district testing dominate the agenda and the schedule.  NJ ASK testing begins in March for some grade levels, but preparation for the tests begins months earlier.
• NWEA testing goes on multiple times during the school year and is used to evaluate children for group placement and to predict potential issues on state tests.  In practice this assessment vehicle limits choices for teachers and for students.
• Staff development, faculty meetings and other gatherings are more often than not about testing, or about using test scores to group students, or about how to use the data provided by computerized testing.
• In general, communication between administrators and teachers is heavily weighted toward discussions of third party data and toward discussions of more consistent use of packaged programs purchased or supported by the district.  Comparably little is about individual teacher innovation, personal growth, or support for unique student issues.
• Precious little contact exists between teachers of different grade levels or even within the same level, which detracts from a feeling of ownership of student learning (i.e. these are my students, here's what I know about each of them) and prevents a dialog between teachers about individual students or factors contributing to successful learning in each grade.

While some might see these environmental factors as overall signs of progress, others see subtle and not so subtle messages to teachers.  For example, many teachers in lower grades decided to specialize in that age group because they relish the idea of being responsible for the entire school day of each student.  They find intrinsic value in being entirely in charge of "their" kids.  Now, they are asked to send their kids to another teacher for at least one major subject and to forgo this cherished responsibility.

Some teachers find tech gadgets useful to a degree, but not all would fill their day with them.  Some teachers find comfort in a scripted lesson, but others would much rather have the flexibility to tailor their own lesson plans to the kids in their room or to try a lesson shared with another teacher in Nebraska via a website.  Some teachers have greater faith in their own professional judgment based on daily interactions with a child than in a short standardized test created by a group of programmers and normed to students far away from Readington.  Some teachers would rather spend staff development time learning from an expert or from other teachers in the trenches than learning the intricacies of the NWEA testing program.

When conversations with administrators are entirely focused on scores, or on the need to use a particular program or system exclusive of other strategies, the dialog becomes unidirectional and teacher input is made irrelevant.  Instead of seeking to innovate in the interests of individual students in their own classroom, teachers will naturally tend toward carbon copy lessons and perhaps agree just to teach the identical lessons everyday.  When students are handed off to other teachers in the same grade or to teachers in the next grade--with no time or substantial mechanism for communication between those professionals--ownership of student learning becomes a moot point.  No one is in charge and no one feels direct responsibility.  Both student successes and student struggles can go unrecognized.

In short, the direction of Readington schools, as in many other public school districts, is headed not toward greater teacher autonomy in their own classrooms but toward scripted programs and lessons and toward  standardized/computerized assessments.  It is headed way from things which support the view of a professional responsible for individual, flesh and blood children and toward things that require only a line worker to push the button and get the assembly line rolling.  The direction is away from the very things good teachers value.  The direction carries a distinct message to good teachers: your professional opinion is not valued, your control will be wrested from you, your task is to administer our scripted programs, this is just a job, not an adventure.

If that doesn't seem all that critical a problem, consider what Andreas Schleicher of the Organization for Economic Coopoeration and Development (OECD) said recently of Finnish schools:

"In most countries, education feels like a car factory. In Finland, the teachers are the entrepreneurs."

In the February 29, 2008 Wall Street Journal article where Schleicher was quoted, the Finns were profiled as having higher performing students than many other nations, including the United States.  Yet, the Finnish students get little homework compared to American students and they have little standardized testing.  The article also notes:

"In November, a U.S. delegation visited [Finnish schools], hoping to learn how Scandinavian educators used technology. Officials from the Education Department, the National Education Association and the American Association of School Librarians saw Finnish teachers with chalkboards instead of whiteboards, and lessons shown on overhead projectors instead of PowerPoint."

In Readington, rather than accept the mandates from state and federal sources as necessary evils and then protecting good teachers from the negative effects of the mandates, we are embracing the directives as the wave of the future.  Add to that the administrative techno-lust and obsession with data, and we have set up a fine system for undermining the very things which motivate good teachers to teach.  We are steadily killing our good teachers.

Author Thomas Ellis in a 1984 article on Motivating Teachers for Excellence summed up the research and understanding of the teaching profession:

"Recent studies have shown fairly conclusively that teachers are motivated more by intrinsic than by extrinsic rewards. Pastor and Erlandson (1982) conducted a survey which found that teachers perceive their needs and measure their job satisfaction by factors such as participation in decision-making, use of valued skills, freedom and independence, challenge, expression of creativity, and opportunity for learning. They concluded that high internal motivation, work satisfaction, and high-quality performance depend on three 'critical psychological states': experienced meaningfulness, responsibility for outcomes, and knowledge of results. "

By failing to defend the means for teachers to rely on their own decision making, the ability for them to be creative and the ability for them to feel responsible for student learning, we are killing off what we should be valuing.  What is left are frustrated teachers, or teachers who are teaching for the wrong reasons.  Would we rather our kids be taught by a teacher who is there because "its a job" or by teachers who are there because they live and breathe for their students?

We've already lost a significant number of good teachers in years past, and administrators in other school districts continue to congratulate themselves on their good fortune in hiring these professionals.  There are still good--and great--teachers left in Readington, but how long will they hold their breath while we try to squeeze the life out of them?