Super Teaching?

A colleague gave me an article called “Are You Teaching Material?” from the book Teaching Outside the Box by LouAnne Johnson.

The article focuses on outlining her version of effective types of teaching.

“Super teaching” seems to be predicated around devoting the majority of your life and time to teaching. I agree with many of her requirements for super teaching (arriving early and staying late, taking extra courses and spending outside time devoted to becoming a better teacher . . .). I also like her point that if a super teacher has such a good rapport with her students and engages them so well that discipline problems are not a problem.

I disagree that you have to sacrifice your life to it. Johnson writes: “. . . if you are a single mother with three young children and have a close friend or intimate partner, you may not be willing or able to devote the amount of emotional energy that being a super teacher requires.”

Is she trying to perpetuate the old spinster ideal of teacher? My grandmother, as a country school teacher, was not allowed to keep her job if she married. The idea being that it was inconceivable to a woman to be able to do two things at once, like be a good teacher and a good wife. Haven’t things changed in 90 years?

In fact, I think in order to be a super teacher, it is absolutely essential to have a healthy life beyond the classroom or school. While I spend less time on schoolwork outside of the school than I ever have before (because I finally have a worthwhile personal life thanks to Kristie and the kids), I believe I do my best teaching now (though, I do not claim to be a super teacher).

Now I don’t see my life as being divided into two separate areas. I will be talking with KoKo and a lesson idea will pop into my head. Or I will be in the middle of class when I’ll think of a connection between my life and whatever we are reading or writing. In fact, that is one reason I love teaching composition. As I tell my students, we have no textbook for this class. Your lives are the textbooks. You are the subject.

To counter Johnson’s point about the ‘spinster’ model of teaching, Leon Botstein points out that one reason for pessimism in our culture is that people are not exposed to children enough. He argues that it is impossible to be around children and not be inspired and hopeful. Look at the constant state of shock in which they live. Look at their imaginative powers. Or their zest for the mundane. Those things are inspiring.

Wouldn’t a mother with three young children bring that to her classroom?

Johnson claims that it takes a very understanding spouse to put up with a super teacher since they will have to devote so much extra time to your profession. It appears that not only spending massive amounts of time are essential for super teaching but also spending a lot of money too.

Ultimately, Johnson believes that these super teachers work so hard and sacrifice so much that they burn themselves out in a few years.

I think this is hogwash.

First, I think teaching, be it super, stupendous, monumental, good, sound, strong . . . use whatever adjective you like . . . is truly an art.

Teaching is a mixture of personality, passion, intellect, energy, charisma, charm, and love for kids.

Of course, I have these in vast amounts.

Ha.

A little joke there to lighten the mood.

Those things don’t require massive amounts of time or money or time.

In fact, after reflecting on some of the best teachers I’ve ever had – at all levels – I recall always being amazed at all the things they were able to accomplish outside of the classroom (having families, raising children, publishing, volunteering, chairing university committees, doing research . . .).

Not only that but they all had personality. I wanted to talk with them. I wanted to be in their classes. I wanted to know what they thought about issues. I wanted to know what their lives were like. That’s super teaching.

Their passion and charisma was evident in every class period. They shared their own work. They talked about other books and projects that related to the class. Simply the way the talked about the subject and their work made me passionate about the class. That’s super teaching.

Their love for kids was evident too. The best teachers always made me feel that when we were talking that I was the only one in the universe. They zeroed in on me and tuned out everything else. They had that gift of making me feel like I mattered to them. They never treated me like I was inconveniencing them (well, plenty of teachers made me feel that way, but those were not the super ones).

So personality, passion/charisma, and a love for kids . . . none of those can ever be taught. There’s no course in the world that can teach those.

You either have them or you don’t.

That’s why it’s an art.

*****

I’m interested in applying Johnson’s idea of using certain criteria to identify not good teachers but poor ones.

Here’s a shot at (as one of my professors once said, “I went into teaching because I knew I could do it better than my teachers”) –

A poor teacher is one who goes into teaching for something other than kids. I truly believe that is why some of the worst possible teachers reside at the university level. As one former professor told me when I was debating grad school right after my undergraduate degree, “Teachers who decide to teach high school love the students. Teachers who decide to teach college love the subject.” I cannot tell you how often I have heard that repeated.

A poor teacher goes into teaching in order to coach, or to get summers off, or because it is easy, or because they want to move on into administration.

Here’s an example – a colleague of mine, whose daughter was taking a history class, recounted how her professor said, “Some of you may have a difficult time with this class. Many of your high school history classes may have been run like this, your teacher lectures and gives notes for 15-20 minutes. Then they put on a film for 30 minutes. Finally, the give you an assignment to work on for the final 10 minutes of class.”

My colleague’s daughter looked around the lecture hall and saw many students nodding.

“I bet,” the professor continued, “that you had a coach for a social studies teacher.” Again my colleague’s daughter looked around and saw even more head nodding now.

Sure enough my colleague mentioned how that was exactly the way he ran his classes for the early years. Not only did he teach four different class but, because he taught in a small North Dakota school, he also coached three different sports.

Sometimes good teachers are forced into bad situations. My colleague would never have gotten hired just for teaching. Having his coaching license was essential.

How ridiculous is that?

Sometimes our school systems make it impossible for super teaching.

How ridiculous is that?

I coach one sport, 9th grade football. I take pride in the fact that I never put sports ahead of my class. In fact, I’ll scramble to get something together for practice while the players are warming up. I will never scramble to get my lesson together because I devoted the entire morning to getting a practice schedule ready or looking at game film.

We’ve all witnessed bad teachers. The ones who nod off during class, who read the paper during first hour, who bog kids down with busy work, whose lessons have no apparent rhyme or reason, whose kids hate their class, who refuse to attend conferences, workshops, or seminars that will make them better, who refuse to read books on teaching and professional literature, who refuse to adapt to technology and implement it into their courses, who spend vast amounts of class time getting ‘off topic’ because they kids know how to dupe the teacher into getting distracted and forgetting about the lesson . . .

We’ve all had these teachers.

But for all of those crummy teachers we’ve had, we all can remember to few who really were great. Hopefully, the ones doing the super work make the difference.