I am a teacher. I teach. I plan, organize, assess, evaluate, modify, reevaluate, reassess, research, deliver, monitor, manage, entertain, and enlighten. I also pass out band-aids, tease out smiles, determine whether restroom requests truly are “urgent,” manage materials, distribute papers, correct assignments, enter grades, create report cards, make phone calls home, arrange and conduct parent-teacher conferences, motivate reluctant learners, create bulletin boards, manage schedules, run an after school club, supervise the playground, gather lunch money, arrange book orders, update a classroom website, mediate disputes, supervise clean up, monitor supply levels, analyze data, create multimedia presentations, gather appropriate online resources, evaluate potential special needs, adapt curriculum, differentiate instruction, and about a thousand other things. I care about my students and I care about my school community. I am fully involved in the goings on of my students. But here’s the thing: there are 31 of them, and one of me.

Now on to the part that irritates me, and trust me, it’s not the kids. What pisses me off more than anything is people who have a strong sense of entitlement. There, I said it. That, in general, is enough to get my goat, but when it applies to the school setting, it makes me crazy. Parents, please be aware that I am just as fond of little Eustace as I am of any other child I have taught in my career. Ok, maybe that’s not entirely true, but odds are he’s not my least favorite student of all time, and really, it doesn’t matter anyway, because in my classroom he’s going to get a fair shake no matter what.

Please don’t ask me to make him extra homework packets because you threw his out. Please don’t ask me to tutor him after school because you’re too busy to sit with him and help him learn his math facts. Please don’t tell me about how you’re going to make sure he does his homework, then the following day make excuses for him. He needs you a lot more than he needs me. Parents, please, I am doing the best I can. A five minute phone call isn’t a big deal, but several of them each day becomes extremely time consuming.

I’m not unwilling to work with you. I WANT to work with you. But please, be willing to do your part too. Get little Eustace to school on time each day, check over his work each evening, and look through his backpack. Talk to him about school, and life, and be there for him. He needs you. He really really does.

September 21, 2013
by BulgingButtons 23 Comments

Daily Prompt: We Can Be Taught!

What makes a teacher great? Being a teacher, I have some pretty strong opinions on the topic. I think back to my own school days, as everyone does, and pick out those teachers who stand out. Why were they the best?

In elementary school, it was my sixth grade teacher who made the greatest impact on me. He was funny, knowledgeable, and compassionate. Learning in his classroom was fun, but the standards were high. He made it clear that we would be well prepared for Junior High by the time he was done with us, and we were. He also had a more playful side, and on blustery days when there was no outdoor recess, he played endless hands of blackjack with his eleven year old charges.

Later on, I had Dr. T. He also had high standards. Really high. He, too, knew his field inside and out. He pushed us to think beyond our own teenage existence and orchestrated opportunities for us to connect with Hester Prynne, Lady Macbeth, and the Joads. He took us to the university library and taught us how to find reference materials (pre-computer era) and write research papers. He was a stickler for details, and he taught me to be a critical reader and ruthless editor. Sometimes I wished he wasn’t so demanding, but when I arrived at college, it all became clear. He saved me. As a result of his demands, I could write.

As an educator myself, I have some thoughts of what makes a teacher great. First, are their students engaged with the topic? This sounds easy, but when you have to teach a particular curriculum, which you may or may not be excited about yourself, it can sometimes be a challenge. Not every student is going to be thrilled to learn the quadratic equation, just as not every student will find joy in poetry. Your job as an educator is to sell it, and it can be a tough sell. Knowledge of technology can help a lot, as can having an open mind when it comes to learning new teaching techniques and trends.

A second hallmark of great teachers is that they entertain. Kids are media savvy, and many have short attention spans. When I was a kid, a filmstrip was a thrill. Those days are gone, which is why I believe that great teachers are also entertainers. Infusing lessons with great stories, a little drama, the occasional joke, and a spirit of fun can go a long way toward student learning. If I’m being entertained, I don’t mind going along for the ride, even if I didn’t sign up to be there in the first place. Think back to Schoolhouse Rock. My generation could sing the preamble to the Constitution, explain the function of a conjunction, and tell you the types of adverbs all because a little learning was squeezed into our Saturday morning cartoon lineup. Genius.

Finally, great teachers know their stuff and know their students. I have to understand my content inside and out, and I have to develop multiple ways of sharing it with my students. I’m always assessing what they understand and what they still need. I’m watching them, reading their work, listening to their conversations, and thinking about the next step. I gather resources, put them together into learning experiences, and evaluate how effective they were. I reassess and determine where to go from there. You really can’t get that out of a teacher’s guide.

Great teachers are a little different than the rest of the world. They may not have the prettiest classrooms, and other teachers may not always understand exactly what they’re doing, but their students love to learn, and ultimately that is what it’s all about.

September 21, 2013
by BulgingButtons 7 Comments

Daily Passion Prompt 16: Giving It Away for Free

TODAY’S QUESTION

If you had to choose one thing that you’d do for free for the rest of your life, what would it be?

I don’t quite “get” it. What one thing would I do for free for the rest of my life? I realize where this prompt is trying to lead me. I’m supposed to say something along these lines, “Well, I love cars and have always tinkered with them, so I would work on cars for free for the rest of my life.” Where I get fuzzy is the whole question of whether I would be doing this thing, whatever it is, for myself or for others. For example, would I be restoring a ’64 Corvette for myself, or giving all of my friends and neighbors free oils changes?

Now don’t get all indignant on me. “It shouldn’t matter,” I hear you say. But really, it does. When we’re talking about the things we would do for free, I think we need to make this distinction. We do things for ourselves for free all the time. I enjoy quilting. I don’t get paid to make quilts for myself, whether to give them as gifts or contribute them to charity, or even keep them to snuggle with on the couch. I have made quilts for clients, though, and for those I was compensated. Do I feel badly about that? No, I do not. There is a great deal of time, effort, and expense that goes into making a quilt. I enjoy it and am glad to do it, but I would not make quilts for others for free for the rest of my life, at least not unless it was on my terms.

As I said earlier, I make charity quilts. I do them at my pace, with nobody telling me how to do it. I don’t have an inspection at the end and I don’t have to make sure that I keep a customer satisfied. Do I plan on continuing this activity? Certainly, as long as I continue to gain satisfaction from the process. If that changes, I will give myself permission to stop doing it.

Sometimes giving of ourselves too freely devalues what we have to offer. There are many things I do for free that I will continue to do for free, but I feel like the spirit of the question has more to do with what I would do for free for the benefit of others. This distinction doesn’t come from a place of greed. It’s an important distinction, because the car enthusiast, while they love working on cars, has the right to be compensated for their time, experience, and craftsmanship.

That being said, I believe I will always teach for free in some capacity. Yes, I’m a professional teacher. I do get compensated for teaching (as I should, and no, I’m not overcompensated, just in case you were wondering). Natural Born Teachers (NBT’s, read more about them here) start teaching early in life, and really don’t ever stop teaching, even after retirement. In fact just yesterday, one of my retired colleagues, an NBT, came to school to work with kids, for free, on an art lesson. She came, she taught, she left. No lesson plans to turn in, no meetings, no irate parents, no observations or evaluations, no assessments, no discipline challenges, no report card grades, no sweat. To any full time teacher, that arrangement sounds like heaven. We teach because we love teaching, but it’s a hard job.

My colleague is still teaching. She comes to school on her terms, teaches what she loves, and then calls it a day. She is looking forward to hopefully becoming a grandmother, someday in the not too distant future. She will be that grandmother who reads endless stories with her grandchildren. She will lead them on nature walks and they will examine ant trails. She will sit them at the kitchen table and mix paints with them. She will bake cookies with them and talk about how the various measurements relate to one another. I will do all those things too, someday. Once a teacher, always a teacher.