School reform is unsustainable.

There, I said it. Now let me explain.

I ran cross country in high school and one of my favorite poems was one called "Why do I run?" There is a fantastic sequence near the beginning that goes :

Is it easier now? Not really.
The same pain I felt the first day I began.
Only easier now to cover greater distances in shorter periods of time.

The work involved in transforming school culture, curriculum, and expectations is intense, grueling work. Is it easier a year, two years, three years in? Not really, just easier to do it better and more consistently.

The upshot is that it is also highly sustaining work. Creating situations for students to engage in deep, authentic, and engaging work is addictive. Sort of like the first time you hit a golf ball REALLY pure, and all you want to do is have that same feeling over and over again. Part of this is the familiar "educator's high" when we see the light go on for a particular student, or even an entire group of students. Part of what we ignore, however, is that when our students are engaging with our content via engaging contexts and problems, SO ARE WE! I was never happier or more engaged as a teacher then when I was skipping out just a head of my students each AM to apply some content idea to the solution of a messy problem.

For me, the shift of late has been away from questions about "How do I make this work sustainable?" and towards questions about "What about this work sustains me?" Not that I think we should abandon sustainability questions. Obviously there are practical, monetary considerations and we have to ensure we can continue to turn on the computers (and that we have computers to turn on) and we should also be on high alert for things we should stop doing.

But ultimately it is about fueling the fire, not reducing the drag.

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