The essays in this book all enter into this conversation in different ways and on different subjects. Pick any topic, from homework requirements, grouping students by age, or separating subject disciplines to the questions about why girls are underrepresented in math and science or boys shun English and writing, trace that idea through time, and you will come up with the same reflection of our history. To ignore the influence of our past while trying to reform the present ensures that we may unwittingly perpetuate beliefs about human capacity that are not our own. We may reject many of the ideas we encounter in our study of history, but to then determine you will reject history altogether is an approach doomed to fail if your intent is to think outside the ideas you are rejecting. To ignore history is to be harnessed by ideological structures that have governed the lives and the education of each of us. Learning to think outside these imposed structures requires that we pay close attention and study with a critical eye, but it also requires a leap of faith and asks that we operate in a kind of suspended animation between past and present. The faith is in unlimited human capacity, in instinct, insight, acceptance, and in an approach modeled by the love you have for your own family and friends. Your challenge will not be easy, especially when for generations we have been trained to view all knowledge as either right or wrong. On behalf of future generations, it is worth it to continue to strive toward an analysis of the present that fully accounts for, yet is not defined by, the past.
Reference
National Commission on Excellence in Education. (1983). A nation at risk: The imperative for educational reform. Washington, DC: Author.
Part I Why Teach?
Students file into a crowded lecture hall at a small liberal arts college in the Northeast. The class, Foundations of Education, is a prerequisite for acceptance into the School of Education program, and it is enrolled at maximum capacity. It is the first day of class. Students are expecting that the syllabus for the course will be distributed and read aloud, and if no one asks any questions about the requirements of the class, then the students can cut out early and enjoy the warm September sunshine. After all, nobody bought the book yet.
The professor arrives and greets the students.
“Good morning. So, you are all interested in becoming teachers? Wonderful. We need bright, energetic, young teachers in the profession today. Teaching can be a very rewarding career, but I must warn you that it is a challenging time for teachers, especially beginning teachers. Teachers are under tremendous scrutiny. There are also increasing concerns about the deplorable condition of our schools, the lack of parental support, the disturbing behavior of the children, and the general disrespect for teachers by the public at large. So, why teach?”
A long silence fills the hall.
“This is not a rhetorical question. Tell us, why do you want to teach?”
More silence . . . long silence.
Finally, Jennifer offers, “My mom is a teacher. So is my aunt. I guess I have grown up around teaching, and ever since I can remember, I’ve wanted to teach, too.”
Then Erin says, “I just love kids. Like, I just want to make a difference in their lives. I want to teach elementary school. The kids are so cute at that age.”
Robert adds, “I work as a camp counselor in the summers. My cabin always wins the camp contest. I really connect with kids. I mean, I just know what they like. It is not so hard, plus teachers have summers off.”
Sound good? Do Jennifer, Erin, and Robert have it right? Are these reasons to teach?
Chapter 1 My Need to Teach
Deanna Rochefort
A day in the life of a teacher is difficult to adequately describe. At times I will feel as though my sanity is hanging by a thread as I question whether the job of teaching is really worth doing when my paycheck is minuscule. The balancing act of trying to please everyone while doing what is best for my students will overwhelm me and seem impossible. I will have sleepless nights spent worrying about my students and weekends consumed with grading papers and writing lesson plans. The needs of my students will be numerous and different, but I will have to find a way to meet them all. This will result in hectic days as I try my best to maintain order. Scrutiny of my teaching will frequently come from those who know nothing of its challenges. I will be told to teach in ways that do not match what is best for my students. Standardized tests will loom over me as a deciding factor that determines my worth as a teacher. Parents may be quick to place the blame on me for their child’s failures, but they won’t know that I may already blame myself. There will also be times where I think quitting would be easier because the task of teaching just seems like too much to bear. And yet I want to teach. I need to teach.
Source: © Deanna Rochefort. Reprinted with permission.
Despite all the challenges of teaching, there are dedicated teachers who spend countless hours helping children prepare for their futures. Those on the outside looking in will frequently question why these individuals are teachers. Sometimes, even for the most dedicated teacher, answering the question of why they teach can be difficult. My answer to this question has evolved the more I’ve learned about teaching. I started out years ago as a person who would have told you to avoid teaching at all costs. I would have told you this despite my own desire to teach. I had been conditioned to focus on the negatives of teaching and to see it as a career for those who couldn’t do anything else. After four years in the Marine Corps, I realized that going to college for a degree in something that I wouldn’t actually enjoy would be a waste of my time so I ignored the naysayers and applied to colleges to pursue a degree in education. I entered college majoring in early childhood education with the idea that I wanted to teach because I like kids, like the act of teaching, and thought it would be easy. I was naïve to everything that teaching in America entails and realized early on that my idea of teaching was seen through rose-colored glasses. After two years of college classes, my rose-colored glasses have been retinted, and my desire to teach has only strengthened. I now want to teach not because it is easy but precisely because it is challenging, requires intelligence, is one of the most important jobs one can do, and I believe I am capable of being a good teacher. And good teachers are very much needed.
There is a common misconception in American society that teaching is easy. The first thing that I quickly realized when I really started learning about teaching is that it is not easy. I know that this seems obvious, but for many, it is not. When I was in high school, I ran a volunteer program where high school musicians weekly went and taught young children how to play instruments. I thoroughly enjoyed doing this, but the mention of pursuing music education as a career was treated by my high school teachers as a horrible decision that they needed to steer me away from. It seemed preposterous to them that one of their star students would give up their promising future of being a doctor or scientist to instead be a music educator. Even the music educators that I interacted with would be quick to name all the negatives of their own careers in order to save the naïve high schooler from following in their footsteps. Teachers themselves tell students who are high achievers in school that teaching is beneath them. This frequently seemed counterintuitive to me. Why would teachers insult their own profession? Why would they lower the standards for future teachers? Why would they demean themselves in this way? As Meier (2000) expresses, “What kid, after all, wants to be seen emulating people he’s been told are too dumb to exercise power, and are simply implementing the commands of the real experts” (p. 15). This led me to not really know what I wanted to do after high school because teaching had been made out to be a career I should not go near.
About the time that I was busy procrastinating with my college applications, I received a phone call from a Marine Corps recruiter wanting to talk with my twin brother. Thankfully for me, my brother was not home and I quickly became hooked on the idea of becoming a Marine Corps musician. This decision came with the voices of many more teachers, each of whom felt compelled to tell me that I would be wasting my intellect if I joined the military and played an instrument. I even had one English teacher