A Credo

I'm working on a code to guide my conduct at school . . .

I need to offer my students an experience in class that cannot be duplicated.  A class is something that cannot be simulated by someone else.  And when one misses a day in class, they will miss out on something that was unique and personalized to who was in the room that day. 

To these ends . . .

• I will use video in only the most judicious and careful ways.  Why show the kids a film they've probably seen.  If I show a video resource, it will be something the students otherwise wouldn't have found on their own or have learned from the way they'll learn from it in my room.
• My presentation of information will be centered on visuals, concepts, patterns, and quotes.  The day of the text-heavy slides are done.  Slides can be rich in content without being laden with words.  
• I will personalize the experience for my students.  They will feel like the teacher likes them and knows them.  They will know the teacher cares about their growth.  
• Content comes before skills.  The students have a unique opportunity to be in my classroom.  They get the chance to tap into my considerable wealth of knowledge about history.  They get the chance to engage with an adult who diligently keeps track of the news.  Every day they have the chance to know more that helps them make sense of their world.*
• Skills have a place.  We practice skills while mastering content (rather than use content to master skills).  
• I'm an important model.  From me kids can learn the integrity, honesty, and courtesy that poised adults demonstrate.  I show them the role passion plays in igniting the intellect and objectivity plays in making sense of our contemporary world.  I show them how one can find meaning in great works of literature, great works of film, and the great figures of our past.

*Is this particular credo arrogant?  Perhaps.  However, I think more of us in this profession need to start adopting an intellectual swagger to our time in the class.  

The Imagination of Teaching

I heard recently of some student teachers from a program complain that they had had too little coursework on instructional techniques.  They complained that they felt they went into the classroom with an empty toolbox of techniques for teaching their students.  I didn't have the heart to answer them honestly. 

Their comments worried me because they might be right that they're not exposed to enough ideas on how to engage students. 

Their comments worried me more because they might not be accustomed to thinking creatively about solving a problem.  There is a tendency toward standardization and script-reading in my line of work.  There has been a de-emphasizing of teacher creativity in instructing teachers-to-be.  The instruction now seems to be more about essential questions, enduring understandings, and dense, script-like lesson plans.  The desire to capture a spark or pursue a teachable moment is downplayed.

Their comments worried me the most because, when desperate, one can hopefully fall back on memories of how great teacher solved problems.  Might these young teachers not have such great examples to fall back on?  Was there no one who inspired them like I was inspired by that constellation of great high school and college teachers? 

Do they feel gun shy about just telling the kids about the past?  About our government? 

Are they afraid of delivering a lesson that might flop?  Are they so fearful of the error part of trial and error that they won't give a possibly good idea a try. 

I'm worried that the newest teachers coming into the field have not been pushed or mentored to look for the moments of this job that are creative, awesome, spontaneous, and messy. 

A sad but sincere wish for the best

Yesterday a student left my school.  At a meeting with administration before my class started, he was informed that he would not graduate on time.  His parents therefore withdrew him from school.  The boy visited my classroom on his way out of school.  I assumed that he had had "the meeting" but played dumb.  When he said, "See ya later, Mr. Johnson" I replied "But it's not 2:30 yet."

Some thoughts . . .

There are some lessons I can't teach.  There are some learnings I can't guarantee.  I surmise this boy is fighting addiction to drugs (he betrays some of the mood-swing tendencies and honesty issues I associate with junkies).  I've known him since sophomore year, and he took an extra year just to get to senior year.  I've known that he is troubled for some time.  He was passing my class at the time of his departure - it was problems elsewhere that prompted his removal from school.

I'm rambling.

I don't disagree with my administrator's decision to prompt his removal from school.  I feel sad because I just saw a boy take a turn onto another road.  It's a sad road he's traveling.  A harder road, through his choosing and his parents' choosing.  I wish him well, though I think the best case scenario is that life goes well only after something scary takes place.  In other words, I don't think he's hit rock bottom yet, even though yesterday he got word that he won't be earning a diploma, and that his admission to his college (yes, he was accepted to a college!) is in jeopardy.  I don't think yesterday's conference changed that.

- - -

Note my tortured wording regarding the boy's status.  Did he drop out?  Technically I don't think he did.  Did he fail to graduate?  Technically I don't think that's true. I think he voluntarily withdrew.  And I think at graduation we will hear once again that 100% of our seniors graduated.  I know this boy is not the only who had a "Dear John" conference yesterday.  What kind of a shell game are we playing with graduation statistics in public education now?  For years we've graduated "college-ready" students who couldn't hack college and who couldn't graduate within six years.  I think that's been a problem we have deferred dealing with for years and years.  I think it's bill is about to come due.

- - -

A high school diploma isn't an entitlement.  It's a privilege to be earned.  The right to earn it is an entitlement.  Though sad, I think the students' withdrawal yesterday serves a valuable purpose.

- - -

I'm wondering if my reply to the boy was too weak yesterday.  I surmised he had been "kicked out" but I never said goodbye to him.  Never grasped his hand and said good luck.  Then again, was he deserving of that.  Maybe my hand-grasp-good-luck is for the kid who earned a diploma but is worried about the next step. 

I often think that the best I can do for a student in turbulence is to play it straight.  This boy is probably facing down an ugly addiction, but isn't at the point yet where he admits to needing help.  I think I do my best when I play my role as the stable, honest adult.  Earlier this year I learned of a girl on my roster fighting a terminal illness.  The girl never brought it up with me.  I decided I'd never bring it up with her.  Nor did I excuse her from expectations for the class, though I was very flexible with deadlines.  I'm not doing her a favor by giving her something out of sympathy rather than giving her the chance to earn it.

The Theater of the Classroom

Nearly a year after the fact I found out that my inspiration retired.  He taught me English in my freshman and senior years of high school.  He profoundly shaped me in two ways: he taught me to write and he showed me the role passion can and should play in the high school classroom.  I model much of my teaching on what I saw from him, and most of what I teach my kids in efforts to elevate their writing comes from him. 

In an interview with the high school paper before he retired, he offered an interesting response to the question what do you like most about teaching.  He said: "The absolute drama and fun of the classroom.  Adults who think they know me well don't know me unless they've seen me in the classroom.  In that respect, kids probably know me better than most adults in my life.  I feel most fully myself when I'm in front of a class."

Well, it showed in his teaching.

I don't know if my answer would've been the same, though I feel similarly.  He's right in that my students see a more vibrant and passionate man than the adults outside of my family see.  I thrive on the role out in front of a young group.  I find the adrenaline rush of performing in front of more than a score of hopeful skeptics a powerful motivation still.  If anything, the theater of the entire school is what I find especially fascinating.  I guess when one gets 1,500 adolescents and 125 effervescent adults in one building at one time, it's impossible to not have some theatrics.

Had I been asked that question, I think I would have answered that it's the puzzle of a classroom that intrigues me the most about this job.  Each class is a personality, shaped by the characters in the room, the time of day, the investment in the class, and the energy of the teacher.  Each class needs to be "solved," or reached on a consistent basis.  Some classes are more puzzling than others, and therefore take longer to solve.  But there is a rush to solving a class that defies easy answers.  

Specializing

The last month or so has been humbling. I have taught only classes I like to teach. I have taught students who were nothing but remarkable. However, the teaching schedule wore me down more than I can remember being worn down, and with eight weeks left I feel as tired as I normally feel after a whole school year.

To make a long story short, I taught AP level classes in two fairly different disciplines within Social Studies. In so many ways, spending a whole with AP upperclassmen is a remarkable pleasure and privilege. Yet the challenge of preparing for the intellectual rigor in those two areas was fatiguing. And the experience makes me wonder if I need to make a tough call: specializing in one of those topic areas, forfeiting the privilege of teaching the other.

My whole career I've avoided teaching the same subject or class throughout a whole day. Some teachers strive for that, I found it tedious and boring. So as often as possible I have requested schedules that avoided that sameness. Perhaps I need to push for sameness and push for ways to become very, very good within consistency rather than fancy myself as an Advanced Placement utility infielder.

Deciding to specialize involves taking risk. It involves deliberately taking one fork in a road, and forfeiting the opportunities that might come from proceeding the other direction. Have I been postponing a decision I should have made long ago?

A dilemma with a career like this one, where the ladder up which one advances is nebulous (one is a teacher, a department chair, or a principal . . . there aren't too many other rungs), is that the signs of when one is stalled or when one is advancing are hard to discern. There aren't too many guides for the fifteen-year veteran teacher about what paths to take.

Efficiency

I had a chance to sit in the board meeting room recently. It was my first time there since the district had done some modest remodeling of that space, namely to post new vision and value statements around the top of the walls. It gave me a chance to see a new part of our mission statement, to be efficient.

Though I value the need to be efficient in our daily conduct I deplore it held forth as a central value or mission of a school. I wouldn't have a problem if we were to instead dedicate ourselves to prudent stewardship or wise use of resources. Efficiency sounds like a mantra for quality control. Efficiency sounds like using byproducts in such a way that there is no waste, such as in a meat processing facility. Efficiency sounds like using every last physical and mental talent of the people you work with so that not a minute is wasted.

We would all benefit from finding ways to be more efficient in what we do as public school teachers. But efficiency can't be the most important principle, or even one of the most, when dealing with children and adolescents. Their quirks and needs defy efficiency. They grow at different rates. They possess different abilities. Dealing with them "efficiently" means dealing with them superficially and impatiently. In the case of students with disabilities, dealing with them "efficiently" is illegal and often inhuman. Efficiency is not what we really want to be doing with students.

No posts in a month. Sigh

Let it be a testament to what March does to teachers. Teachers and accountants must be the busiest and most un-fun people imaginable that time of year. I'm glad to be through it.