Good teachers teach. And over the years I've had a lot of really good teachers. Teachers that did a fantastic job of imparting information to me. To be honest, though, I loved school and learning, so I basically thought that as long as the teacher was saying something that I didn't already know, which was a lot of things, then that teacher was a good teacher. In my 12 years of formal, pre-secondary schooling from K-12th grade I attended 7 different schools: 4 elementary, 2 middle, and 1 high school. 2 high schools if you count the one I walked across the parking lot for when I was in middle school. So I went to a lot of schools. I had a lot of teachers. And most of them were good. But a few of them were truly great. They were great not because they were exceptionally knowledgeable or because they were exceptional orators. As a matter of fact, a couple of the best teachers I've ever had were a little awkward in speeches (at least as I remember). It wasn't anything that stood out that made these teachers great.
In fact, if all teachers stood in a line-up you'd probably see a lot of the same thing. All of us have that sort of perpetually tired look, the feeling of undone-ness, thinking of that pile of papers to grade or that lesson to plan, the look of a stressed parent, because we don't just have the kids that live in our house, we actually have dozens of them running all over campus, and the look of heartbreak because at any given moment there's a kid out there who's been through our classrooms, and we just know that he's hurting. In case you've ever wondered, a teacher doesn't wear her heart on her sleeve. Our hearts just run around freely all day long, from class to class, in the cafeteria, on the playground, and everywhere else.
I digress.
In a line-up, I don't think I could spot a "good" versus a "great" teacher. There's not cosmic gold dust that floats down when great teachers shake their hair, nor are there halos hovering over them. They don't have giant T's hidden under their top layers of clothing that stand for superTeacher, and they don't walk around with textbooks hidden in their pants pockets. There's nothing remarkable about them at first glance.
But then, start talking to them. Start asking them how they see and manage their classrooms. What sorts of things do they notice? What sorts of things do they know both about their kids, and within their kids? The really great teachers will start to stand out.
Really great teachers know their kids, even when the kids don't tell the teachers what's going on. I don't mean guess at it. I mean KNOW them. Really great teachers don't try and pigeonhole a kid as one thing or another, don't try and put them in a box. Really great teachers NEVER wash their hands of any class. Success is always an option. But success might look different from student to student. A great teacher doesn't want to fail, but knows that it's inevitable. A great teacher knows how to pick herself up when it's over, brush the dust and tears off, and find a way for that failure to be a success next time. A great teacher has eyes but even more importantly a great teacher sees with her heart.
I read this story today and it made me smile, and shudder.
It made me smile because I didn't think of doing it this way. I didn't think of actually polling the students. But what my students don't realize (and probably some will now) is I keep track of where they sit, who they sit with, what happens when they change seats, who they hang out with between classes, at lunch, and during after school activities. I track it all. I run statistics on their grades from time to time, tracking when things started to go sour or started to look like rainbows. I look for trends to see if it's topic related or if it's student related. I correlate those statistics with changes in what their social interactions are like in their classrooms. I take into account information I get from their parents and their peers, my colleagues and my administrators. From that I can tell who's fighting with whom, why the A+ student is suddenly a C student, why certain kids are always moving from seat to seat and some kids just sit in a spot, claim it, and stay there. My students have often asked me, "How did you know that?" when I sit them down to talk about how they're doing and I smile and say, "I have eyes," but the truth is, "I have eyes, and Microsoft Excel."
But I shudder, because what if I'm missing it. What if one of them is sliding through the cracks somehow. Over the course of a day almost 60 students come through my classroom. Some of them I see more than once a day. Some of them only for the brief 45 minute class period, the one during which I somehow have to teach proofs, trigs, systems of equations, or logarithmic functions, get to know them, help them, and grade them. And so I shudder because I wonder sometimes if my innate ability to process information, like all humans' ability, overrides my desire to get to know them, that my brain groups them into groups subconsciously before I can see them the way I want to. And I shudder because I know I have done this before. I know I have looked at the same student over and over, watched him or her make the same mistakes over and over, and then, slowly, without me noticing or doing it deliberately, the kid who makes the same mistakes, the one who I struggle with regularly, who probably needs me the most, gets lumped into a group in my brain marked "Too much work," or, "I'll try again next year," or worse yet, "Failure." Without doing it on purpose, I've written him off. Written him or her off when I shouldn't have. Given up when I know what he needs is not for me to give up, but for me to work harder. I shudder at the thought that in 4 short years, these high school students will be out on their own and I will wonder, "Did I see them the way I was supposed to?" And it might be too late.
In the end I don't know what kind of teacher I am yet. Good, great, bad, or ugly. I just don't think I've been doing it long enough for me, or really anyone else, to know. But I do know that the story I read today hit me in all the right places. It has revived me and taken away my sense of weariness. It has rejuvenated that spot in my heart that had started to get tired around this time every year. Stay the course, teachers.
James 1:3 ... for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness
Be diligent. Allow yourself to be tested. Prove yourself to be steadfast.
In fact, if all teachers stood in a line-up you'd probably see a lot of the same thing. All of us have that sort of perpetually tired look, the feeling of undone-ness, thinking of that pile of papers to grade or that lesson to plan, the look of a stressed parent, because we don't just have the kids that live in our house, we actually have dozens of them running all over campus, and the look of heartbreak because at any given moment there's a kid out there who's been through our classrooms, and we just know that he's hurting. In case you've ever wondered, a teacher doesn't wear her heart on her sleeve. Our hearts just run around freely all day long, from class to class, in the cafeteria, on the playground, and everywhere else.
I digress.
In a line-up, I don't think I could spot a "good" versus a "great" teacher. There's not cosmic gold dust that floats down when great teachers shake their hair, nor are there halos hovering over them. They don't have giant T's hidden under their top layers of clothing that stand for superTeacher, and they don't walk around with textbooks hidden in their pants pockets. There's nothing remarkable about them at first glance.
But then, start talking to them. Start asking them how they see and manage their classrooms. What sorts of things do they notice? What sorts of things do they know both about their kids, and within their kids? The really great teachers will start to stand out.
Really great teachers know their kids, even when the kids don't tell the teachers what's going on. I don't mean guess at it. I mean KNOW them. Really great teachers don't try and pigeonhole a kid as one thing or another, don't try and put them in a box. Really great teachers NEVER wash their hands of any class. Success is always an option. But success might look different from student to student. A great teacher doesn't want to fail, but knows that it's inevitable. A great teacher knows how to pick herself up when it's over, brush the dust and tears off, and find a way for that failure to be a success next time. A great teacher has eyes but even more importantly a great teacher sees with her heart.
I read this story today and it made me smile, and shudder.
It made me smile because I didn't think of doing it this way. I didn't think of actually polling the students. But what my students don't realize (and probably some will now) is I keep track of where they sit, who they sit with, what happens when they change seats, who they hang out with between classes, at lunch, and during after school activities. I track it all. I run statistics on their grades from time to time, tracking when things started to go sour or started to look like rainbows. I look for trends to see if it's topic related or if it's student related. I correlate those statistics with changes in what their social interactions are like in their classrooms. I take into account information I get from their parents and their peers, my colleagues and my administrators. From that I can tell who's fighting with whom, why the A+ student is suddenly a C student, why certain kids are always moving from seat to seat and some kids just sit in a spot, claim it, and stay there. My students have often asked me, "How did you know that?" when I sit them down to talk about how they're doing and I smile and say, "I have eyes," but the truth is, "I have eyes, and Microsoft Excel."
But I shudder, because what if I'm missing it. What if one of them is sliding through the cracks somehow. Over the course of a day almost 60 students come through my classroom. Some of them I see more than once a day. Some of them only for the brief 45 minute class period, the one during which I somehow have to teach proofs, trigs, systems of equations, or logarithmic functions, get to know them, help them, and grade them. And so I shudder because I wonder sometimes if my innate ability to process information, like all humans' ability, overrides my desire to get to know them, that my brain groups them into groups subconsciously before I can see them the way I want to. And I shudder because I know I have done this before. I know I have looked at the same student over and over, watched him or her make the same mistakes over and over, and then, slowly, without me noticing or doing it deliberately, the kid who makes the same mistakes, the one who I struggle with regularly, who probably needs me the most, gets lumped into a group in my brain marked "Too much work," or, "I'll try again next year," or worse yet, "Failure." Without doing it on purpose, I've written him off. Written him or her off when I shouldn't have. Given up when I know what he needs is not for me to give up, but for me to work harder. I shudder at the thought that in 4 short years, these high school students will be out on their own and I will wonder, "Did I see them the way I was supposed to?" And it might be too late.
In the end I don't know what kind of teacher I am yet. Good, great, bad, or ugly. I just don't think I've been doing it long enough for me, or really anyone else, to know. But I do know that the story I read today hit me in all the right places. It has revived me and taken away my sense of weariness. It has rejuvenated that spot in my heart that had started to get tired around this time every year. Stay the course, teachers.
James 1:3 ... for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness
Be diligent. Allow yourself to be tested. Prove yourself to be steadfast.
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