What Exactly is the
Message Anyway?
by Peggy Savage
The Road Not Taken is a very popular and transcendental poem by Robert Frost.
I first came to know this poem as a seventh grader in junior high school. In those days seventh graders were lumped into a 7th through 12th grade configuration and that was junior and senior high combined . I grew up in Wilkes- Barre, Pennsylvania. It was 1972 and my little town was devastated by Hurricane Agnes. It destroyed Wilkes-Barre..
But back to the poem. I remember my English teacher directing the class to some how come up with a, “ theme” for the poem. I found this task very hard because I thought that the poem itself provided multiple themes. Of course my teacher chose the obvious theme: One comes to a preselected traveled path when faced with a selection of hard choices. So immediately I traveled in my mind to the current state of the educational system here in Philadelphia.
Hard choices like do I return for the upcoming school year? Do I retire or resign and just cut my losses and get the hell out. Some of my colleagues have been faced with their own personal, physical, and metaphorical forks in the road. The science and the art of teaching has whittled away for some. The joy of looking forward to a new school year has dwindled from thought. And yet there are those of us who accept the challenges and joys that beseech our mere nature to implore students to write, read, and think critically.
I remember that as a seventh grader I agreed with my teacher’s choice. There was very little ownership and risk back then. You either agreed or disagreed. Back then the Socratic method was not used to encourage thinking and responding critically. Actually, I don’t remember that particular strategy/method being deployed in this case. I remember basically agreeing with the authority on a particular theme and that is the speaker in the poem is faced with a decision when he comes to a fork in the road. So he takes the one that appears less traveled.
Authority, experts, and C.E.O’s have chosen a particular path or false, “fork in the road” for some educators. So what exactly is the message? The current educational system is a top - down system. Within this system there have been some opportunities for redesign and the implementation for the redesign appears to be in the teacher’s hands, but is it? Teachers make decisions all the time but after making such decisions how do they feel about their choices? Did they actually have a say in the design or did they come to a fork in the road and both roads were less traveled.
I came across this poem again in my junior year in high school. This time my English teacher didn’t give us any direction but only to be a “careful reader" and she warned us that maybe a second, third, and fourth reading would be sufficient to ask questions of the poet. Wow! We were asked to ask questions of the poet. She wanted us to visualize the road and the fork in the road and the conditions of “both roads.” So I reverted back to the title of the poem. The title was, “The Road Not Taken” but yet the poet spoke of two roads and the speaker describes the roads as “had worn them both the same.” Nowhere in the poem does it tell us that when we come to a fork in the road we need to just take it. So I ask this of my colleagues: Have you created your own fork in the road?
So I ask this question: What exactly is the choice? Teachers are laid off. The district waits. Still there are no jobs. Private and district charters begin to recruit and hire. So the choice to leave a public school with a union and contract and accept a position with a private charter school that reviews your contract yearly appears to be a true choice, right? The decision to retire or resign only to be so disillusioned that your return to the same school district you left is about two years or less. And then there’s the other choice: To take the road that you didn’t take. The road to stay with your public school system. A decision that most of us don’t think about. Many of us haven’t sat down to analyze why we stayed with our public school system. Did you analyze your choice of school, neighborhood, students, parents, politicians and any number of other factors?
I read and analyzed this poem for a third time when I was a senior in college. That year I decided that I wanted to be the best teacher ever! A teacher that taught students no matter where they were from . A teacher like my kindergarten teacher. Back in 1964, I was her only African American student. She never mispronounced my name, singled me out, got in my face, or assumed my parents didn’t love or care about me! She said, “Peggy always makes the right choice not the popular one.”
So as a senior in college, the path for me was to become a teacher. Many of my aunts, uncles and cousins were educators. Their hero was Mary McLeod Bethune. She was an educator and civil rights activist. After reading the poem yet again, I believe I have made the chosen path in my career. To think that I’ve chosen the "right path” limits my ability to expand and reach out to teacher networks that have teachers who know that they’ve found their “niche.”
These colleagues are educators and social justice activists. Stay involved in your school community, champion for your parents and students, ask questions, attend community forums and most importantly stay connected to your teacher networks.
Please note that I did not say that I took the "right path." I took the path not chosen. Thirty one years in the district teaches you valuable lessons. Lesson one: Everything you are, you are for your students. Lesson two: bureaucracy is just that, bureaucracy! Just teach! Lesson three: Step away from your classroom of students. Think of a bureaucrat. Can they do your job with a tenacious attitude and want to come to work every single day? Can they keep your students actively engaged for 100% of the day everyday for a total of 180 to 185 days? Can they teach your students without textbooks and the latest technology? Can they handle the children who have been off their medication for weeks? Oh and how silly of me to forget this last point. Would the bureaucrat be able to do this everyday, all day, day in and day out for 180 days by himself?
That bureaucrat would not hesitate to take the road less traveled!
Peggy Savage teaches at Richmond Elementary Academic Plus School. Peggy participated in the Academy for the Study of Teaching English Language Learners in Summer of 2008 sponsored by the Philadelphia Writing Project.