On Teaching

Over the past thirty plus years of teaching I’ve learned that teaching is a bundling of many arts and sciences. The obvious sciences are psychology, biology, and physiology. Knowing the way the brain accepts and processes information is an obvious must. Being acutely aware of the stages of physical and psychological growth is important. But knowing the background and prior experiences with school, family, social groups are equally important. Assessing prior experience and strengths in my particular subject (mathematics) is another key issue. Judging the individual learning styles/modalities and the classroom dynamics at a brief glance may be the most important of all of the sciences/arts for successful teaching and learning. I say at a glance because the students and teacher are thrown together on the first day of school and an immediate assessment must be made for the sake of both behavior management and optimal learning. Judging the classroom dynamic quickly allows for knowing your audience and how to manage them as teenagers with all the incumbent baggage that goes with that but also for what strategies for presenting your material will work best for that particular group. The arts of course include theatrical, interior design, and stand-up comedy to name just a few. The teacher must be theatrical to capture the attention of students who would rather by their very nature and socialization, be chatting away about more significant things to them. The teacher must be dramatic at times to drive points home and often must also be a jester to ease tensions between students or with the subject matter. Mathematics has always been the “hard” subject and brings with it a special and named anxiety. Humor, I have found, is the best way to relieve some of the tension generated by the mathematics I’m trying to teach. Being able to see when individuals or even larger groups are not connecting with the material being taught is paramount. Arranging and decorating a classroom to encourage learning and positive attitudes and safety is definitely an art to be mastered. If everything comes together properly success still isn’t guaranteed.

Teacher education programs give their students (prospective teachers) a whirlwind tour of the psychology and biology of the stages of human development from birth up to adulthood, mostly Piaget, Bloom, and Skinner. I went quite a bit further in my studies to earn a Master’s degree and studied the previous psychologists in greater depth but I also studied Aristotle, Plato, Freud, Jung, Erickson, Vigotski, Maslow and a host of other notables. The prospective teachers are taught behavior management techniques many of which don’t apply or can’t be used when matters get really serious. We are taught the laws which govern our relationships with our students but the kids have the upper hand from about 5th grade on. They know how to frustrate teachers so that no learning has to or can take place. They employ a sort of a bad behavior filibuster technique. A twenty-one year old, new graduate thrown into a classroom with only a very few weeks (12-18) practicum is really being thrown to the dogs. A true trial by fire. The kids can smell fear and prey upon it. Many times I’ve seen caring committed first year teachers quit after their first year or be fired for not being strong enough to lash the lions and tigers back onto their barrels.

Even the seasoned teacher can be challenged by a classroom dynamic which by totally random computer generation is not a good one. Today’s classroom mimics society far closer than ever before. Ethnic tensions, rampant sexuality, all too common drug use and a preponderance of learning disabilities all jumbled together in a classroom of students whose ages can differ by five years makes for a real challenge for the teacher. The “state” expects every teacher to be able to manage such a group and impart a mandatory curriculum with the outcome being satisfactory performance on standardized examinations which determine the students’ advancement or even graduation. The performance on the examinations is also used as an assessment of the teacher’s performance and competence. A sad state of affairs since the students consider the examinations folly and do not, in too many cases, even try to do their best on them. When poor performance is shown on the examinations, the teacher’s competency is called into question by parents, administrators and district personnel. A vicious cycle ensues. Teachers try harder (as if we weren’t trying to begin with) to get the information into the student’s heads, act as cheerleaders to get the students to really try to pass the exams but often it seems for naught. The kids don’t care.

There is a mentality among many high school students of entitlement and this is most visible around their lack of effort, especially on the standardized examinations they must take three or four times each year. The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), I believe, exacerbated the problem. Districts have always administered performance/achievement examinations to mark progress of students within the district, specific schools, and even specific classrooms. Often, prior to NCLB, states have had examinations for achievement evaluation and promotion. Now we see these tests having “higher stakes.” Students must perform at minimum standards which are never really very high in order to advance grade levels and most importantly graduate. Nowhere is the emphasis or onus put on the students to take responsibility for their performance. Still the teacher’s competence is called into question when students perform poorly. To some degree this is appropriate. I have known my share of poor teachers. But still the kids don’t care. They feel like they’ll make it in the world without graduating, without a higher education. Often with students from upper income level families I hear, “I don’t have to do well I’m going to inherit my parent’s business or money.” It makes one wonder what values are being taught at home.

The term in loco parentis is bandied about in teacher education courses to promote a sense of responsibility in upcoming teachers. The fact that we as teachers see these children for more hours during the day and week than their parents do is important. But all too often it is used as a way to lay blame anywhere but on the parents. During their very early formative years, mothers and fathers should have been teaching values and a work ethic. But it seems that regardless of income level parents are too busy with other activities to interact with their children and they come to school with little or no self-discipline or respect for others. Rather, they come laden with their parents’ biases toward other people and school. Low income students have parents who work two and three jobs and are raised by surrogates within the family or raise themselves. Upper income students are farmed out to preschools and playgroups where little is done to promote respect for teachers or education. They more often promote a sense of needing to be entertained.

I’ve heard, “school is boring” too often. Why? Students are programmed by preschools, televisions, and Playstations. Teacher presentations don’t have commercial breaks, reset buttons and every lecture is not fun. Having to work is foreign to the student. It’s hard to believe that a fifteen year old doesn’t know that homework is key to practicing and therefore understanding classroom material. Where were they from Kindergarten through eighth grade?
We are charged now with training them to see the value of education as a lifelong pursuit and the key to a successful life. In mathematics especially, we teach more than formulae. We teach skills for solving problems which can be applied to any situation–a flat tire at night on a dark road, interpersonal conflicts, etc. Getting the student to make the connection is the hard part when they ask questions like, “When am I ever going to use this shit?” Of course then we must act as moral referees and correct poor uses of language as well as coming up with examples to show practical uses of our material which fits into the students limited experience base.

We are charged to with discouraging drug use, premarital sex (without actually calling it “sex”), and promoting self-esteem and actualization. All this and we must keep exacting records of each lesson, attendance, problems and celebrations. Out of 186 days or so in a school year nearly a month’s worth of class time is taken up with school assemblies, pep rallies, standardized testing, and other school-wide activities. Athletes, choir members, thespians, musicians, student government officers, debaters all miss class time to participate in extracurricular activities as well. All cutting instruction time down and interrupting the student’s progress toward a class’ curricular goals as mandated by the state and/or district. When they miss class, who teaches them the material they missed. The responsibility is still squarely on the teacher’s shoulders.

If prospective teachers were told these things, I believe, far fewer students would enroll in education. The quality of student entering the major is dubious as well. We’ve all heard and some take great offense at, “Those who can do, those who can’t teach.” Personally, I not only take offense at the statement but I name it Bullshit. I have done and done well. I chose to become a teacher to have a positive impact for change in society. As a roll model and a demanding teacher, I have impacted many students’ lives and I believe for the better. Prospective teachers are cranked out of universities as little automatons who teach the only way they know: the way they learned or were taught. They do not have the experience base outside of academia to present material in different ways. They teach strictly from the textbook and without it they are lost. I would rather not have a textbook at all. A teacher should know their material so well they can teach it ten different ways and if some students still don’t get it be able to make up an eleventh or twelfth strategy until everyone can understand the material. Older teachers get into ruts. They have been teaching the same classes so long that they have the textbook memorized and teach the same thing the same way they did their first year of teaching in their twentieth year. Now that’s boring. They have and use the same tests year after year and about the same success ratio as well.

Then there’s the matter of compensation. For all of their education, typically a Bachelor’s degree and two years of teacher certification classes, the average teacher makes far less than their counterparts in industry, business, or technology. Automobile assembly line workers make $45.00 per hour. Teachers make as little $25 per hour starting wage. We are far better trained to do what we do than the auto workers. Always, however, someone will toss out the comment that we only have to work for nine months out of the year so don’t deserve more. What they need to know is that we are mandated to continue our education at our own expense on our own time to remain certified. The required number of recertification hours varies from 50 to 200 depending on the state and district where one is employed. University tuition, conference fees and time are all uncompensated but nonetheless mandatory. We work twelve months a year. Our free summers are spent analyzing our curriculum to better present our course material to try to garner better success on the part of our students in our classes and on the standardized examinations. We work weekends and holidays to be prepared for our jobs. Factor these things into the salary and we make maybe $15 per hour. Cashiers at grocery stores make that

Now it may seem as though I don’t like being a teacher but it’s far from the truth. I love teaching. I love the interaction with young minds and seeing the little light bulbs go on. I enjoy their energy and am energized by it. I particularly enjoy working with a student who has never had much success in mathematics and seeing them succeed. I like the relationships I have with my students. They trust me when adults are usually considered the enemy or too out of touch to understand their problems. We won’t tell them we had the same feelings when we were in high school. I thrill to see students come to me for advice and work out solutions on their own while they talk to me. I love my subject matter and enjoy the challenge of getting my students to at least appreciate the beauty of mathematics, if not actually loving it themselves. Most of my closest friends are also teachers as well. We share the comradery of the trenches. We are frustrated when we don’t succeed. We take it personally when a student fails, especially when we know the student had the potential for success. And then there is the real reason we went into teaching: to have an impact on the future and society. We have positions of incredible power. We can change the future of the world, if we are successful. And lastly, we are consummate professionals who are committed to our jobs and to our students.