Teachers

There are way too many teachers out there who need to find a new line of work.  Not because they are still developing their skills or still learning how to be good instructional leaders, but because their desire for a paycheck, an airtight union contract, and a 3pm end of day outweighs their concern for the individuals sitting in front of them day in and day out.  These teachers (you know, the ones who care more about themselves than the future of our country) are a great departure from the ones that I remember growing up.  In the hopes that more of the good ones would join the profession, I'm going to throw out into the blogosphere/universe the names of some of MY most amazing teachers.  


Dodge, Gale, Solan, Reynolds, Levy.  If you've had them, you likely remember them and are grateful for their brief presence in your childhood.  Someone get more of them to come teach.  Now.  


A note to clarify: these individuals did not impact my life because they were excellent pedagogues.  They were excellent pedagogues, of course, but that's not why I remember them 5, 10, and 15 years later.  I don't remember how Mrs. Dodge taught me to be a better reader, but I remember listening to her read The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe while sitting on the carpet, enthralled, and how Dodge city (our class token economy) was like the coolest thing ever.  I can't recall the structure of Ms. Solan's lessons, or the notes she gave us, but I definitely remember enjoying math more than I ever had before, and I remember getting a 98 on the regents after getting a 72 the year before (no secret that the teacher is the key).  There probably wasn't anything terribly remarkable about the textbook we used in Ms. Levy's class, or the way she assigned our homework, but the short time out of class that she sometimes took to do trivia or incite my impersonations of other, less admired staff members (SHAPIRO) - those were the remarkable things about school; the moments we laughed together as a class and sat on the edge of our seats and believed we could be really really smart.  These moments may not fall under the act of teaching, but they are a big part of what it means to be a good teacher.  It's a hard thing to remember in the current climate of high-stakes standardized testing, tenure debates, and drastic budget cuts that threaten our livelihood, but that's what it comes down to.  


And so, the bottom line comes from a David Brooks early January New Yorker article: "We’ve spent a generation trying to reorganize schools to make them better, but the truth is that people learn from the people they love."


End. of. story.