Blasphemy!
Heresy!!!
(a sort of essay)
11/2/15
The main thing is not student engagement.
What!!!?
How can you say that? Whole careers, countless teacher hours, books, grants, PDs, evaluations are based on this unassailable axiomatic truth.
Well it's wrong. That's not to say it's not important- even crucial. It is not, however, the number one main thing.
OK wise guy- what could be more important?
More important than student engagement is - and at first it will sound like a bad joke - so laugh - then...
Think about whether it resonates with you.
More important than student engagement is... teacher engagement.
The second most crucial element is teacher confidence. That has to do with honesty -and - without being defensive- confronting what's actually going on.
Reducing defensiveness is a challenge for most of us. We want to believe we are better, perhaps on some levels - even yearning to be perfect - to make up for some early injury to our self-esteem.
Of course reality sooner or later -generally sooner - disabuses us of our notions of perfection. If we're lucky we can gently laugh at our folly - time and time again.
Sometimes we don't see the reality of a situation because stuff- present and baggage from our recent and especially remote personal past gets in the way. Change and improvement are possible not only for our students but for us as well. As we grow, our students and our loved ones benefit also.
****
We can learn something from every culture. We know this in art, philosophy, the sciences, language and history studies, mathematics, literature and physical education - think back to the Hellenic period - the golden Age of Pericles and countless other examples from time immemorial to the present moment.
The first Noble Truth of Buddhism is that we all share the common experience of suffering.
Do you ever feel like there's just too much to do and you're not doing it well enough or fast enough? Who doesn't?
It seems like a paradox: if you take to heart the message of John Kabat-Zinn's Full Catastrophe Living that when we - if even briefly -stop doing, just stop to pause from our busy, busy lives- our priorities and our compassion for ourselves emerge.
Compassion for ourselves emerges-- worth reading again: compassion for ourselves.
Do you have a reaction to this? "Too wimpy? What the hell is this guy talking about? I'm reading this to become a better teacher. He's not such a good teacher; he's no guru, what with all his warts and flaws."
All true... but are those or other reactions helpful or even relevant? Who cares? Let it go for now. Return to:
Compassion for ourselves. In a sense it is like putting on your oxygen mask before your child's in an airplane emergency.
When we feel truly compassionate for ourselves all of a sudden, then increasingly so, there is more room for us to care for our students. The "shoulds" fall away. They are replaced with a genuine desire to do what is needed next in each situation. We become more authentically ourselves, closer to the person we feel we are meant to be. The idealism of youth returns. It is tempered, informed by our life experience, our ripening maturity.
Zinn's work is essentially Buddhism minus the religion. It is similar to Sensory Awareness and other techniques for developing mindfulness.
Medial summary: to become better teachers, become better versions of ourselves. We can accomplish that by being gentle, patient and caring for ourselves.
Here's a slightly fictionalized account.
John was a research scientist at Bell Labs when his department was downsized. He always liked mentoring his younger colleagues, so he decided to try teaching. He had a Ph.D in physics from Princeton, an M.S.in electrical engineering so you could say he knew his material.
He took a few Ed credits then on his first day he learned if, in enthusiastic praise, he clapped a kid on the shoulder he could be written up for sexual harassment. Then he was told to memorize a booklet on child abuse. Then he was lectured for two hours in an old auditorium on all the things he must and must not do on the first day. He then was interviewed individually by an AP who said,"If you ever touch one of my students I will personally come after you." John was married with two kids, never been accused of any wrongdoing- he felt he was being treated like a criminal.
Then after lunch, the advice resumed: never smile the first month. Be warm and supportive to all your students. Never show anger. Be professional, always smile. Be nice all the time. Give tough love. Do Nows should be 5 minutes long, they must inspire students. Give homework every day. Go over the homework every day. Preview the next homework every day. Empower students. Differentiate. Scaffold. Observe seasoned teachers. Go to 72 hrs of PDs. Write lesson plans with state standards, common core competencies, motivate students every day; always relate concepts to real world applications. Send a newsletter to parents every week. Call all parents of students in every one of your classes to introduce yourself. Involve parents in the education of their children. They know best. Parents are your allies. Bring parents into school at every opportunity. Call parents when students miss three homework assignments or fail a quiz or exam. Parents like all this outreach. That's what the expensive consultants we hired told us with all their data collection. Keep detailed logs of parent outreach; C6 activities. Enter grades in Skedula every day there must be formative and summative assessments. Apply for grants. Lots of good ideas, he wrote them in his smartphone.
Week one: a student shot a rubber band at John, barely missing his eye. He yelled at the kid, was called into the Principal's office where he was given a stern warning, "You may not talk to children that way." Similar things happened when a student threw a firecracker into his classroom.
John called parents every time he was supposed to do that. One parent said: "Stop calling me. You are a bad person. Leave my daughter alone. All the kids hate your classes. Didn't you ever learn how to do your job correctly? All you have to do is make it fun for the kids. Geez, stop picking on kids and get a real job you over educated, overpaid snob. You must be one of those tenured teachers. You are really a bully. I'm going to report you for child harassment."
***
John thought about this whiplash and wondered what part it played in the fact that many talented teachers leave teaching within the first three years.
John had written a dozen short educational films over his years in industry. These had been viewed by hundreds of thousands of students in several counties. Many were cartoons which had animals portraying vital roles in science: environment, cosmology, chemistry - he was a man of many talents.
Week two, his supervisor came for an unofficial visit. John was showing one of these films. Later that day John received a warning letter that "we may not show cartoons." The letter went on to say if he did it again, he would be called in for possible disciplinary action and should bring union representation.
The advice and criticisms flowed- sometimes just a trickle other times a torrent but never ending.
After fifteen years the main thing John learned was to never trust his instincts. He woke up one morning to this realization. Out loud, to no one in particular, he said either I find my love of science again and my desire to help people and especially my own judgement or I find a new job. Luckily, he heard about five books:
1. How Children Succeed
2. Full Catastrophe Living
3. The Artist's Way
4. Teach Like a Champion 2.0
5. When Anger Hurts