Like most teachers my work day starts at 6 AM.  I flow through my morning routine and then head to school where I spend half an hour preparing for my students.  I power through my five classes, followed by tutoring, clubs, parent phone calls, grading, and tracking and faculty meetings.  Most days I’m fortunately if I’m home by 5:30, and even then I often have additional work to complete.

Despite all these responsibilities, I believe that my job isn’t done until I’ve shared my experiences with our public education system.  Because of this I always make sure I find the time each day to tell my stories and encourage other teachers to do the same through my blog, Bluff City Education.

Teacher voices can be a powerful tool for change.  As individual teachers, we hold a unique mandate to speak about the pros and cons of our public education system.  I also believe we have a moral imperative to make our voices heard on behalf of our kids.  Nobody else is better qualified to speak out on their behalf.  When we fail to do so we fail our kids.

I developed this belief early on in my career.  Back then I was fortunate to meet the director of Teach Plus, who encouraged my passion for sharing teacher voice by connecting me with opportunities to share my voice through Teach Plus on their national editorial board.

Over the next year I was happy sharing my own experience with our education system. But I always felt dissatisfied with the local teacher voice here in Memphis.  I rarely saw any other expressions of teacher thoughts or opinions outside of the local education association.  There was no central outlet for the thoughts and opinions of individual teachers.  And there was no place where educators could go to find the thoughts or opinions of their colleagues who share their experiences.

Last July I founded Bluff City Education to be the outlet for individual educators in Shelby County to share our knowledge and experience.   Our site is driven by three guiding principles in promoting the collective teacher voice.

First, we believe that teacher voices should be both critical and constructive.  At Bluff City Education we always strive to critically analyze policy and offer our perspective on what is working and what can be improved. As teachers we often complain without taking the time to offer an in depth analysis of the pros and cons of individual policies.   Failing to do so all but guarantees that our voices will go unheard.  Sniping and snarking at others just won’t cut it if we really want things to change.

Second, teacher voices should focus on solutions for our students.  Just like a business focuses on providing the best services to its customers, our end goal through teacher voice should be to provide the best services for our students.  It is important to consider how policies impact teachers, administrators and communities.  But every story we tell, every policy we comment on, should all be viewed through the lens of how it impacts our kids. When we focus on anything else we lose our credibility to speak out on behalf of our kids.

Third, we believe that teacher voices should be strong and frequently heard.  They should be an ongoing cascade giving constructive and student-driven feedback to our policy makers.  Our voices should be a collective force to drive the discussion in the right direction.  Because of this we seek to develop partnerships with other organizations and outlets to promote the teacher voice around Tennessee like Teach901, SCORE and Classroom Chronicle to ensure that our stories are heard and that they contribute to the ongoing education discussion.

The last few months have only convicted me that we are indeed filling a much needed gap.  Over the last eight months we’ve had over 9,500 visitors to our site and gained over 250 twitter followers.  Our work has been republished in the state through SCORE, Classroom Chronicle and the Commercial Appeal.  We’ve also been republished nationally through the Huffington Post and Eduwonk.   It’s an exciting time for teacher voice here in Tennessee!

Every Shelby County teacher, past or present, has a story to tell, and we offer a place to tell it.  If you’re a current or former educator in Shelby County, we invite you to join the discussion and hear what educators have to say about education policy here in Tennessee.  You can contribute pieces of your own, comment on our message boards or just read about what other teachers are doing and saying.  Visit our main site to read more and follow us on twitter at @bluffcityed.

By Jon Alfuth, Chief Editor and Author