Creating Good Education against the Odds

What is the responsibility of an educator--where does it begin and end? We report on a study of teachers at four admired public high schools in urban areas in the US. The teachers describe their deep commitment to meeting students' academic needs, as well as their developmental, social and emotional needs. The ways these teachers construe responsibility requires them to be creative, innovative and flexible inside and outside of the classroom. However, this broad conceptualization puts them at odds with current signals from the larger society, which define their responsibilities narrowly, calling for a focus primarily on the academic needs of students. Despite this tension, many urban teachers work tirelessly to connect with students personally to find new ways to satisfy students' needs--indeed this is how the teachers ultimately derive meaning from their work. With minimal guidance about how to carry out what they see as "good work", teachers set their own goals and expectations, while also aiming to meet the school, state, and national standards. Teachers worry that at some point in the future, without support from the field, they will not be able to sustain their energy and passion for this challenging work. We focus on how these urban teachers describe and define responsibility in their work, the relationship between responsibility and creativity, challenges teachers face to sustain this work, and how these factors impact teaching as a formal profession. (Contains 7 notes.)