Notes to My Student Teacher

Well, since this is my 17th year in education, I hope I have something to say about. I'm not saying I have the answers, I'm saying I have something to say.

Here's a recent exchange between us:


STUDENT TEACHER: I started looking over Great Gatsby and experienced a mix of excitement/inspiration and dread/intimidation.

STEVE: I get that same mix most every day, and this is my 17th year.

STUDENT TEACHER: How can I teach this when I am no Fitzgerald expert?

STEVE: No problem not being a Fitzgerald expert . . . no one is really an expert on any author they teach. I remember an education professor say something which has turned out to be very true: a teacher pretends like they know something, and through the process of pretending, they come to know it.

So sometimes you know a lot about an author, sometimes you don't. What is that literary theory that disavows the author from his/her work? New Criticism? So there's some value in leaving the author out anyway. And if you just read the wikipedia page on him, you'd be WAY a head of the students.

STUDENT TEACHER: How do I know if my lesson plan ideas are good ones?

STEVE: Well, you never know. Sometimes you throw together a lesson, and it's a hit. Sometimes you spend hours crafting a masterpiece lesson, and it falls flat. You never know exactly why. There's just too many factors always at play: the weather, the time of year, the time of the day, which kids are having hard days, which kids are having good days, the ever-changing alchemy of the class, etc. That's why the best metaphor I've ever thought of for a teacher is a jazz musician. You've got to improv every day.

And herein lies why teaching is a magnificent profession: it's always elusive, never quite figured out, and never quite mastered. And that's great, because it's alway a challenge, always intellectually absorbing. Mastery can sometimes feel like a death, after all. Embracing the surprise and contingency (scary as it may be) is what keeps you coming back.

And it's hard to know what a good or bad lesson plan is when you don't know the students, haven't gotten a sense of their interests, their dispositions, their ability. Once you observe the students, it will become much more clear what a good lesson plan would look like.

STUDENT TEACHER: Do you plan lessons with the Massachusetts Curriculum guidelines in the forefront of your mind? If not, how would you suggest that a novice teacher such as myself assess whether her lesson plan ideas are practical and useful learning tools?

STEVE: I never, ever plan with the Massachusetts Curriculum guidelines in mind. But I/we need to be a bit careful here--I may be an exception instead of the rule. Maybe the guidelines help some, maybe they could help you. I have always, always gone rogue with my lessons, which may be a bad professional decision if I want to keep my job, but it hasn't gotten me fired yet. (The irony is, anytime I've gotten some sort of teaching accolades from students, it's BECAUSE I've gone rogue).

It can be very hard to engage students at all these days, and following something as sterile as the MA guidelines may make it worse. I've found you can almost always make a lesson plan that feels good in your gut, and then you can bend the curriculum guidelines fit it if you need to.

This will be interesting for me to figure out as we continue to work together: most of my decisions in my career come from asking simply what feels right. Using intuition is probably a good thing after you've been doing something for 17 years, so the question then becomes: what do you do your first few years? How valuable is intuition when you're inexperienced? I don't really know the answer, but my guess is the intuitive voice is still often the best way to go. My career started without very little guiding or direction (working in poor schools), and I became addicted to that freedom and autonomy, and I think it has always served me well.

Like I said before, I want you to choose the exact amount of prescription or freedom you want. I don't want you to feel hamstrung by structure, nor directionless by freedom. I can provide you with exactly as much prescription/structure as you think would be best at any given time.

STUDENT TEACHER: Do you read up on the history & politics underlying the books you teach? About the authors? Literary scholarship about the work?

STEVE: Usually not. There just isn't time . . . teaching high school is too busy an affair. Sometimes I might know a little something about an author, or will have previously read something that relates to a book, but for the most part, time is too short. And the CP class that you'll be teaching will have a lot of struggling students, and what works best (I think) is to use themes of the book to help them reflect upon their own lives. I find they are often eager to write about their lives, maybe because they are forming an identity at that age, or they need the catharsis because their home life is chaotic. That's what I often have in mind with a class, particularly a CP class.

And some final thoughts for you:

It's really hard to conceptualize lessons or teaching when you don't have the specifics of a particular class in mind. So I wouldn't try to figure out too much or worry too much at this point; much of teaching is dealing with things as they come up, and things won't come up until you're in the class every day.

I can tell by these questions alone that you'll do a great job. It will be hard and messy and complex and frustrating (and wonderful and exhilarating and interesting and rewarding) to be sure, but no matter what happens we can sit down and address every single concern. I may be out of the classroom (eventually) much of the time, but you won't be doing this alone by any means. I be working closely with you, you'll have a co-teacher in the room, you'll have all the other teachers around, you'll have your BU support (I know you know all this, but I'm typing it all out for some reason), so it will be a group effort in many ways. As it should be.

Hope some of that helps.

Steve

That Was Unexpected

One day this week, before 3rd period started, a student of mine came into class early. Let's call her Karolina. She seemed to be in a good mood, smiling and humming to herself. I asked her how she was:

ME: Karolina, how's it going?

KAROLINA: Great Mr. Jordan.

ME: How so?

KAROLINA: Well, I got some good news back from the doctor.

(As a teacher, anytime you hear half-revealed information like this, you always wonder if the students want to tell you more. And in case they do, you give them the chance.)

ME: You did? Is it anything concerning? And, if you want, you know you can feel free to tell me about it.

KAROLINA: Well, O.K. (pause). I just found out my chlamydia is all cleared up.

(Good to know Karolina, good to know).