"Never Sit Down" - I Will Not Stand for it.

Michelle Rhee is a paragon in the public education sector.

She took on a very difficult assignment in the poor suburbs of Baltimore. After the first few weeks, she acknowledged that she was going a terrible job. As a Teach for American recruit, she faced stinging opposition from a recruiter, who told her that she did not have what it takes to be a teacher.

Instead of getting discouraged, however, the future Chancellor the D.C. Schools rose to the challenge, throwing in extra time after school and on the weekends to get her kids to learn.

After a few more months, she noticed that her kids were learning, and nothing could stop them. Then came the end of the year, when Rhee ruefully realized that all the hard work and learning would end up either furthered or frustrated by the next teacher.

Sadly, more often than not the next year students have forgotten much of what they learned, or worse they suffer with an inferior, inadequate, or incompetent instructor. Ms. Rhee was not pleased, and from that moment she threw herself not just into improving curriculum and instruction, but also reforming the system so that students would be guaranteed a qualified teacher in a quality school.

Other Teach for America superstars also witnessed, through their own efforts along with observing other stellar teachers, that indeed a committed person can make a difference in the lives of urban and at-risk youth.

However, the sticking element that takes mediocre classrooms into a class of their own is the mindset of "Never sit down."

Especially in charter schools, where galvanized administrators will dismiss teachers who are too easy on their students, teacher are expected to put in 110%, nothing less.

Everyone has to sit down at some point. Even in one class period, at least once every hour, a teacher has to take a seat.

Taking the mantra into metaphor, the results are even more debilitating. Most teacher manuals counsel prospective instructors to manage their time wisely: do not assign too much homework, take a day off once in a while. Monitor the amount of work that you assign in class as well as the projects which you set up for students to complete. Teachers can get overwhelmed very quickly with all the planning and grading that can overwhelm a teacher in a very short time.

Teachers have to have a life so that they can have life to impart to their classrooms. One of my favorite teachers, an older man who later advised on how to proceed with a class that I had just taken over in South Gate, told me that he started his day at 7:30 in the morning, then stayed for an hour after school, leaving at 4: 00pm. "The rest of the day was 'me time'", he told me emphatically.

Another colleague told me how important it was to keep all the work at school. "Never take school work home if you can avoid it," was the first plank of his private time-management philosophy.

One things for sure: "Never sit down" was not advice that they did not advocate. I still remember another new teacher, one who would drag stacks of papers to grade everywhere with him. Sometimes, he would be eating in the faculty lounge and stain the work he was looking over! "We  have got to help that guy with time management," another teacher commented.

At any rate, the idea that a teacher "never sits down", always on the move also illustrates the growing the dependence that students are having on their teachers, and thus the increasing pressure which reduces teachers to burnout and resignation. I have lost count of the number of teachers who went on stress leave in one district, a notoriously corrupt affair in which principals were routinely demoted, transferred, or fired, and teachers were moved from classrooms or schools with little warning. The culture of disrespect, matched with the pressure of bringing up the test scores for low-performing students, pushed many teachers to leave the district in large numbers over the past few years.

"Never sit down" is a standard for which no teacher of limited means and human stamina could ever stand for. A teacher who never sits down is a teacher who ends up lying down for a much longer time. Indeed, some teachers are called to put in thirteen hours a day. They dream about lesson plans and working with tough students to make the most out of a difficult upbringing compromised by an inferior public school system. This challenge of meeting the needs of as many students as possible, coupled with a growing number of students, fewer resources, and no stable support systems at home or at school are all driving teachers away from the profession.

There is only so much that a teacher can stand. I for one cannot stand for the notion that a teacher never sits down, for one person cannot be entrusted with the final future and hopes of a large population of students. Education needs to be freed from the hollow model of one teacher giving, taking, living, staking all for the students. Learning is both active and innate, yet a model which fosters overwhelming investment in the teacher who "never sits down" will not last long.