Why Teachers Should Write for Publication

Educators Have a Unique Perspective on School Reform Issues

Aug 15, 2009

By writing for publications teachers can share a view from the classroom unavailable to pundits, policy makers, and the public.

Teacher voices are crucial to the school reform movement, but educators are often reluctant to write about their experiences and share their opinions. There has probably never been a more critical time for teachers to sit down at the keyboard, and share their unique perspective.

Teachers Reflecting on Their Teaching Practice Through Writing

Reflective writing is a thinking and learning process for the writer. It allows teachers to discover what they believe, what they are learning, and to analyze and document the evolution of their teaching practice. Teachers who have gone through the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards process for USA National Certification are familiar with reflective writing as a tool for professional growth. While most pieces of reflective writing are never published, these reflective narratives can serve as the starting point for other forms of writing.

Teachers Writing to Inform the Public

Grace Hall McEntee of the National Writing Project says in her article “Diving With Whales,” [The Quarterly, Fall 1998] that many teachers are hesitant to write about their personal view points or teaching practices because they realize they are making a political statement – a role most teachers are very uncomfortable filling, even though teacher narratives can have incredible power.

Forty years ago Jonathan Kozol, a 4th grade teacher in the inner city of Boston, personalized the debilitating yoke of poverty by writing about the horrors, and hopelessness his students and their families faced every day. No sociological report ever fueled policy changes the way, Death at an Early Age: The Destruction of the Hearts and Minds of Negro Children in the Boston Public Schools, [Houghton Mifflin, 1967] did. But it isn’t necessary to write a book to add to the dialog of educational and social change. Teachers can voice observations and opinions effectively in articles, Op-Ed pieces, letters to the editor, blogs and on websites.

Teachers Write to Change School Culture and Teaching Practices

Teachers work in isolation for a great deal of their work week. Opportunities to share concerns, success stories and effective teaching strategies are generally not formalized. Writing about ethical issues, an innovative idea, or new slant on an old idea, and publishing in content-specific professional journals can reach, and influence, colleagues across the country. Revolutions in teaching practice have been started with articles and books from people like Ruth Sidney Charney, Nel Noddings, Mary Baratta-Lorton, Marilyn Burns, Regie Routman, Nancy Atwell and more, all writing about their teaching challenges and their responses to them.

Many People Write About Public Education, but Few are Teachers

There is a missing voice in the on-going debate on school reform. Thousands and thousands of books, articles and editorials are written about public education every year, but only a small fraction are penned by practicing teachers.

Since the 1980s teachers have been encouraged to write with their students during language arts class, perhaps it is time to encourage teachers to write about their students, their schools, and their fundamental beliefs about education and the children they serve.

The copyright of the article Why Teachers Should Write for Publication in Educational Issues is owned by Sheila Gaquin. Permission to republish Why Teachers Should Write for Publication in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.