When we think about everything that is put on us… when we think about how so many people think "If only schools would learn the lessons of business, they’d work better…" when we think about all the hats we wear in an attempt to help our students… and when we think about NCLB and how it has and continues to change our culture to be more suspicious of schools and teachers, I think it’s important to remember the Blueberry Story.

Let’s remember, when we talk about our schools, that the vast majority of our teachers went into the profession and stay in the profession because of a sincere desire to help students. If our society is really going to argue that so many of our schools and teachers are failing, let’s look at the structures we’ve set up that have created that, and let’s start by looking at what we ask our teachers to do every day and ask ourselves if it is realistic to ask a teacher to sustain a level of excellence in all of their roles over time. Then let’s ask ourselves how we can create structures that allow for those of us in the profession to interact humanely so that we can take our shared humanity and apply it in the way students and teachers interact as well.

If we create unsustainable, unrealistic, and unattainable goals for teachers, then what can we expect to happen in our classrooms as well?