Mt. Pleasant SIWP

With some support from Jim Davis I organized and directed a Southeast Iowa Writing Project institute in Mt. Pleasant. It was held in the cafeteria of the high school. I had dreams of it being packed with local teachers. The truth is I had to beg people to take it even though they got four hours of graduate credit and a stipend to participate.

I was disappointed and confused about the reluctance of teachers to participate. Perhaps I had come out too strong or something. Teachers who I thought would embrace the idea were not even interested. I am afraid some just didn’t want to admit that it might be good for them and their students. Teachers are an interesting group that are sometimes turned off if innovation comes from a colleague, but will readily accept it if they perceive it is from the outside. I was the morning instructor in this institute and many didn’t feel I had anything to offer them that they didn’t already know.

Karen Pelz was the afternoon instructor for the class. She had 20 years of experience at the university level. We met at a training session in the spring. She was a kind and gentle person and we got along well. Her job was to respond to the participant writing. My job was to get the participants to look at research and professional opinion and their own practice.

Twenty-one teachers signed up to participate in the institute. Thirteen of them were from the Mt. Pleasant district or a local pre-school. The rest were from Burlington, Winfield Mt. Union, WACO, Fairfield, Wapello, Iowa Wesleyan College and Central Lee.

Use of facilities, computers, and copy machines had to be arranged. I note in my journal that the secondary administrators were uncooperative. The high school English teachers were the same way. None of them participated. I thought they would have embraced it and realized that their students would benefit. Part of it, I think, was that they just didn’t think they could learn anything from an elementary teacher.

Just a few days before the institute we were informed that computer lab would be off limits for us even though the room sat empty during the entire three-week institute. The high school principal and the computer teacher just decided they didn’t want us to use it. Maybe they thought if they made it difficult for us we would go away. They moved the class from the school library to the school cafeteria. One was a comfortable learning environment amd the other was very uncomfortable. To this day I am not sure who was behind the whole thing but do know there were jokes about it among the administrators.

It had something to do with jealousy and not wanting others to be successful or receive any kind of recognition. I have since heard it described as the “tall poppy syndrome” in Australia. In a poppy field if one poppy grows a lot taller than all the others it is chopped off so the field looks uniform. In education if one of the teachers excels above the others some try to “cut them off” so the others don’t look bad. A strange practice for educators!