There’s been a lot of ink (digital or otherwise) sacrificed over the last few months about teachers’ work. Their hours, their work ethics, their supposedly exorbitant pay and pensions (don’t even get me started). So many times, we see outsiders quantify our work with the number of days we’re on official duty during the year, making it seem like we’re part-time employees. Those who are teachers, or who live with teachers, know that the job (read: obsession) of educating goes far beyond contract days, and, like with many professions, just because we’re doing other things in life doesn’t mean we’re not actively planning and organizing for new and better lessons.
Case in point, this blog entry from one of my favorite inspirational sites, “Learning Like a Hurricane,” by Marsha Ratzel. Her stated experience of spending June reflecting and August honing is recognizable to most of us. I like having an afternoon commute because it gives me time to mentally sort through what worked, and what didn’t, during my day, and plan ways of directing the next day’s lessons. The last couple of years have been even better because I’ve gone to and from work with my husband, so an actual, exterior dialogue happens daily on school events and lessons. While that won’t be happening in my upcoming teaching year, I’m quite capable of having quite vociferous internal dialogues of my own, thank you very much!
I’ve often thought that teaching is like art in many ways; everything experienced, seen, heard, felt becomes fodder for lessons (or parts of lessons). Just as we now realize that part of the reading gap in young children is due to not having the varied life experiences that carry with them vocabulary and frames of reference, so, too, would teaching come hard to someone with a very narrow focus and little imagination. To be effective, one needs to be able to view things from various sides, transcend disciplinary boundaries, speak on many levels, and balance content and method.
As Ms. Ratzel exhibits above, the catalysts come at the oddest moments. Anyone who’s ever lived with, or spent time with, a teacher will recognize that spark when the eye brightens, the back straightens, the tail twitches (okay, okay, this latter is probably just because I live with cats…). The teacher has an IDEA. And…she’s off and running.
This is another reason why I could never teach with a canned curriculum, or scripted lessons. I want the freedom to bring in my own fodder and relate it to the objective of the lesson, based on current events, my personality, and, mostly, the personalities of the kids whose butts are in my classroom and their eyes on me. Just as art exists in the space between artist and viewer/listener/reader, so, too, does education occur in the interaction between teachers and students (and that education is multidirectional, mind you).
Having my ability to shape content clipped would, indeed, keep me–and my students–tethered to the ground, when so much of life is elsewhere.
P.S. Thanks to Marsha Ratzel, and I wish I were a student in her classroom! What an amazing teacher! More thanks to Clay Burrell, also linked, who’s long been an amazing voice for quality education.