Dear Ms. Wright,
Before you left you told us that the substitute teachers that would be in our class for the next three days would write you a report on our behavior every day so you would know exactly what we idea and exactly how we acted. Well, I thought that it would be good for me to write you a report on exactly what the substitutes did and exactly how they acted. You see Ms. Wright, you did not have to worry about what we would do while you are gone. Instead you should have been worried about what those substitutes would put us through.
On the first day that you were gone, we walked into the classroom to find that all of the desks had been removed and we were greeted by a woman in a dress that was covered with pictures of pink hearts and flowers who hugged and kissed each one of us as we came in. She instructed us all to sit one of the many beanbags that were spread around the classroom to form a giant circle. She gave us each a cupcake that had our name written on it with icing. She told us that her name was Ms. Fantastic and that she was so excited to see us all that she had been at the school since four in the morning waiting for us and preparing for our arrival.
As we ate our cupcakes, or “brain food,” Ms. Fantastic told us that she would be our substitute for the day and that she was from Hollywood. Ms. Fantastic learned to be a teacher in Hollywood by watching the most inspirational teacher movies and emulating the techniques of the characters. Ms. Fantastic ended her introduction by tell us that she “was sure we will become quick friends and never ever forget each other.”
When the announcements came on Ms. Fantastic made us all cover our ears with our hands until they were over. She told us that good teachers never take orders from administration and that she didn’t want their voices to be heard in her classroom. When Sandra reminded Ms. Fantastic that it wasn’t her classroom Ms. Fantastic said that teachers like her only need a short amount of time to make a huge impact on students so she didn’t need it to be her classroom for very long.
Instead of having Reading Time, we had to go around and share our favorite memories and tell each other nice things about each other. Instead of practicing spelling, we recited what Ms. Fantastic called “inspirational phrases” such as “Seize the Day!” or “If you can dream it you can achieve it!” During Math Time we practiced standing on our heads. When Marco asked “When are we going to learn something?” Ms. Fantastic said that we had been so brainwashed by the system that we didn’t know real learning when we saw it.
At lunchtime, Ms. Fantastic made us unpack all of our lunches and place our food in the middle of the lunch table. She said that today lunch was going to be like a potluck, and that we would all share everything.
By the end of the day we were all exhausted and we hadn’t even learned anything! We asked if she would be back the next day and she told us no, she had to go to another school to touch other lives. Ms. Fantastic went on to tell us that another substitute trained in Hollywood would be coming instead. Ms. Fantastic started crying and told us that she would never forget us and she hugged us again.
The next morning, most of us tried to fake sick. Our parents didn’t buy it. When we walked into the classroom, it was back to normal. We began to think that today might be a better day. We thought about this for a long time. A very long time. By 8:30 the substitute had not shown up yet. Maria poked her head out the door and said no one was coming. We were just about to ask the teacher next door for help when a grizzly looking man walked in, plopped down at the teacher’s desk, lay his head down and began snoozing. We all looked at each other, not sure what to do. He woke up about fifteen minutes later, looked at us and said, “alright, so what do we do here?” Eddie told him we start with attendance. Carla had to help him find the attendance sheet. Sidney told him where a pen was. Twenty minutes later we were done with attendance.
I asked him if he went to the same teaching school as Ms. Fantastic, he said yes. We asked why he was so different than Ms. Fantastic and he told us it was because he specialized in a different type of teaching that he had learned from a different set of teacher movies. He told us that he believed that children learn best when they are forced to learn on their own. So he left us alone.
I asked him what we should call him and he told us to call him ‘whatever.’ So we called him Mr. Whatever. Mr. Whatever told us to do anything we liked but to not be noisy. Some of us read, some of played cards. Mr. Whatever lost his lunch to Susan in poker.
It was a pretty fun day but it made me feel worried that I would forget what we started learning in math and that we would get behind the other classes. Half an hour before the bell rang Mr. Whatever told us he had to leave early to meet some friends. He told us to keep it down and goodbye.
The last day that you were gone was the worst. When we came in the desks were all pulled apart and arranged in rows instead of groups. A woman with long nails dressed all in black sat at the teacher’s desk. We walked in quietly and sat down. She didn’t look up until someone giggled. She walked over to the giggler until her face was only inches away. After a few minutes of this she walked to the chalkboard and scraped the words “Read a book” onto the board. We all took out a book and read. The whole day. We were too scared to tell her that we were missing P.E and Recess.
As soon as the bell rang we all ran out of the classroom. Behind us we could hear her cackling.
Mrs. Wright, we are all very glad that you did not go to the Hollywood teacher school. If you did you might be crazy, or scary, or boring. And we wouldn’t learn anything. So please come back Mrs. Wright, and next time you go, make sure not to choose a substitute from Hollywood.
Yours Truly,
Mary
Introduction
Think you don’t know how to teach? Don’t worry about it—it’s easy, anyone can do it! In The Joy of Teaching I will show you how to be the kind of teacher that today’s society revels in. In this edition, I provide three recipes for becoming the teacher you want to be. Whether you’ve been driven to the profession by a passion to teach, or you’re in it because you need a paycheck, I’ve got a recipe that will fit your needs!
The following recipes should be viewed as guidelines, not rules that must be followed to the letter. Teaching is a lot like cooking, you get a result no matter what you throw into the pot! Feel free to take these recipes and make them your own. Remember, teaching is about what works for you. Don’t let someone else’s standards dictate how you teach. You’re the one doing the teaching, so why not do it your way?
SuperTeacher Smoothie
I call this a “smoothie” because making yourself into a SuperTeacher is like making a smoothie. To make a smoothie, you don’t really need a recipe, its better to have a formula that you can tweak to meet your own needs. For a smoothie, you basically need some kind of liquid base, a bunch of fruit, maybe some ice and from there on you add whatever tickles you fancy and blend away! Becoming a SuperTeacher is similar. It’s super easy and it reflects your style.
Ingredients:
1 cup goodness (or a good heart)
1 good head on your shoulders (or common sense)
½ cup of unorthodoxy
1 tablespoon stubbornness
A pinch of experience (optional)
Troubled, Mysterious Past (optional)
First of all, I must say, my favorite part of this recipe is the good heart. Can you ever go wrong with a good heart? I think not. So, to become a SuperTeacher, let your good heart guide you in all that you do. Remember, relationships always trump academics. A SuperTeacher NEVER lets academics get in the way with his/her likability. It’s important for you that your students like you, it will give you a sense purpose and make you feel like you are doing something for someone, or at least like you have friends.
Next, remember that along with a good heart, common sense is what will guide you as you become a SuperTeacher. Sure there are books written on the profession, research has been conducted and there are countless workshops that you can attend that will ‘teach you how to teach,’ but a SuperTeacher like you doesn’t need that, right? When a problem arises, just think to yourself, “what do I think is the best thing to do? “ It’s probably best to go with your gut. The gut of a SuperTeacher can be trusted.
Combine the stubbornness and unothodoxy and stir them against the grain. The difference between a SuperTeacher and other teachers is that they represent information in a new way. What way you ask? Whatever way you think is best! Other teachers may scoff at your stubbornness and unorthodoxy, especially if they are experienced. Ignore them, SuperTeachers never listen to administration, they just don’t. You’re a SuperTeacher, and your students like you. That’s all that matters.
The last two ingredients are completely optional. A pinch of experience adds a lovely touch, but be sure not to go overboard! Part of the reason you’re a SuperTeacher is because your brilliance comes from you, not from someone else’s findings or beliefs! A mysterious past is especially good for SuperTeachers who wish to work with teenagers. Having a mysterious past will make you appear cool, and students learn best from cool teachers.
The Anti-Teacher
Ok, so you want to be teacher—but you don’t really want to be a teacher. No worries! Teaching can be lot like babysitting, and anyone can babysit. The easiest age group to babysit is teenagers, so this recipe is probably best for High School teachers. Teenagers are old enough to take care of their own bathroom needs and best of all, they are old enough to be held accountable for many of their own failures and injuries! This recipes lacks supervision and accountability, so it is definitely suited best for teachers of older students!
3 heaping cups of counter productivity
2 cups of incompetence
2 cups apathy
½ cup control
concern for students, as much as you have on hand
So an Anti-Teacher is just what it sounds like, a teacher who doesn’t teach! Now I’m not saying that you can’t do teacher-like things. Taking attendance is a great way to look like your teaching when administrators are passing by. But you’re main goal is to not teach, not to get caught not teaching, and receive a paycheck each month.
Mix the counter productivity, incompetence and apathy. This is a killer combination for an effective Anti-Teacher. You’re job is to not teach the students, or better yet make it harder for them to learn! If you’re experiencing stress in your personal life, your classroom can be a great tool for relieving your frustrations. Pass them on to your students! Assign ridiculously long papers and frequently give pop quizzes. Life is tough, you can show your students that (although, in a way, this does border on teaching them…).
Take the ½ cup control and give it to the students! The Anti-Teacher always makes a point of letting the students control the classroom.
Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, take any concern you may have for your students and get rid of it. If there’s anything that can provoke you to start actually teaching, it’s any type of deep-seated concern or affection for your students. Remember, students are basically strangers to you, so why should you do anything to help them?
The Scary Teacher
Does intimidating others make you feel better about yourself? Do you naturally just hate kids or people in general? Then you’ll love this recipe! The teaching profession is especially good for you because it involves working with minors who have little power against you. When becoming this kind of teacher, you are in a way setting yourself up for being hated by your students. This is fine, but be prepared to answer a lot of questions and shoulder complaints from parents.
3 cups of control
2 cups of unfairness
1 cup of weird/scary quirks
1 cup manipulation
½ favoritism (optional)
The control is the star of this recipe. You want to give the impression of having complete control over your classroom. If you can get your students to believe this, they’ll never cross you. You having all the control will also add to your scary persona. Unfairness and control complement each other very well. You being blatantly unfair will reinforce that fact that you are in control.
This part requires a little dramatic flair. You have control and you run the show unfairly, but that just makes you intimidating and infuriating. Add strange things like wearing a black cape, never cutting your fingernails, or mutter to an invisible animal perched on your shoulder from time to time. This makes you mysterious and a little crazy-looking, and people fear what they don’t know as well as insanity.
Once you’ve got the first ingredients down, manipulation will be a cinch. Really, being a Scary Teacher is all about power, and manipulation is just another way to show that you have the power.
Favoritism is optional, because you may not want to acknowledge or be cordial with any of your students. However, showing special attention to a small group of students can really help you carry out unfairness and manipulation. Plus, it’ll infuriate the rest of your students to no end!
Interview Transcript
Janille: Have you ever felt that you have been viewed a certain way because you are an elementary teacher?
Ms. Talley: Yes….do you want me to elaborate? I think sometimes especially because I’m an early childhood teacher, so I was in kindergarten, I was viewed as somebody who played with the kids, or who did lots of painting and lots of art, or who did lots of things like that, even by other teachers sometimes. I had a teacher one time comment in the teacher’s lounge that she wished she could teach kindergarten because there were no standards and no testing. And obviously there’s no TAKS test, but she was misinformed about standards and I was about to jump in and defend myself and actually my principal jumped in and defended me and said something to the effect of ‘you must of lost your mind, they don’t know how to sit still, they don’t know how to raise their hand, all those behaviors you take for granted.” But yeah, I have definitely felt that and especially when you tack on the kindergarten part. And in fact the last teaching placement I had I moved to teach fifth grade solely, not solely I wanted to do it, I wanted a new challenge but a big determining factor for me was that I thought at that time I might be an elementary school principal. I didn’t think the faculty would by in to a teacher who had only taught kindergarten and first grade, and I thought especially in this time of accountability they would look at me and say ‘well that’s all well and good but you don’t know because you haven’t taught a TAKS tested subject.’ So that was a high motivator for me when I taught fifth grade science not only to do it really, really well but to…this is horrible to say maybe, I wanted the highest scores in the district, and I set out to get the highest scores in the district to prove that a kindergarten teacher…and comments like that did kind of trickle back to me like ‘I knew you were a good kindergarten teacher but I didn’t know you would be able to do fifth grade science’ so it’s just really interesting to me.
Janille: So do you have any idea why people, kind of value the upper grades more than the lower grades?
Ms. Talley: I don’t. I don’t know if it’s maybe because kindergarten does look different—the room looks different, the kids are small, sometimes we do crazy things like hundreds day, or sometimes we dress up like our favorite book character. But in my mind the teachers that I know who have had the most success at any level have been early childhood teachers, because early childhood teachers are really flexible and adaptable because five-year-olds don’t fit in rigid little molds, and that adaptability and flexibility is what serves me well as I continue to change grade levels even at the collegiate level. But I don’t know, I don’t know if they think it is just fun and cute, I don’t know….
Janille: Do you think it has more to do with what goes on in early childhood, or do you think it has to do with how people view children at that stage?
Ms. Talley: Oh that is a really good question. Umm…I think that’s a ‘both and.’ I think that we do view those children as young, and they’re the smallest ones on campus, and we do value, we do look at them and…but it may have a little more to do with what we do. The fact that it looks different than..(interruption where another teacher comes in)…because we have centers and we have literacy stations and we have tables instead of desks in rows, because we have math manipulatives instead of getting out a worksheet, or because we have an art easel in the back of the room, because maybe we have tables instead of desks. Interestingly though, that is part of my teaching philosophy, so I had tables in fifth grade. But maybe because it does look different, so the things we do look different, maybe that’s a little bit of the reason why.
Janille: Okay, how did, when you were teaching or now, how do you think your students and your parents viewed you, and was it ever difficult to win their respect?
Ms. Talley: I, it was difficult to win their respect when I was a beginning teacher, because I was younger than they were, even the kindergarten parents. So I do think those first two or three years when I literally probably still looked like a college student I did have to kind of prove myself and feel that a little more. I do feel like though, because parents seem to be more invested in school and in volunteering and things like that the younger their child is, that once we got over the fact that I looked very young, I felt like I was really successful with parents. If you love their children and you love what you do with the children that speaks volumes, so parents, I thought I had a really good relationship with parents I thought it was highly successful. In fact I think I got more respect from the parents of my kindergartners than probably anyone else, because if you even just walked into the classroom for a few minutes and saw all we were doing and all the kindergartners were achieving and all, I felt like they were more respectful than the norm. So, I really just think it was that ‘young thing’ at the beginning, I never really thought that parents were just real disrespectful to me in any way. But you could kind of see that questioning like ‘are you old enough to be left alone with these 22 children? ‘. But once I got in the classroom and start doing it, I think my passion for the kids and for the job and for the teaching really shined through. I would say that I’m fairly—not fairly—I’m very successful with parents, because if you love their kids they’re going to love you.
Janille: So when you were talking about, they have more respect for you than ‘the norm’, you kind of mentioned how other teachers maybe didn’t take you seriously because you taught kindergarten, but what about people outside the education community, when they heard you were a teacher of young children?
Ms. Talley: It’s mixed. Some people –and I wonder if it has to do with their experience with school—if I’m on vacation somewhere or I’m in the airport and someone asks me what I do I seem to get “Oh wow, that’s a great job and I could never do it, those kids would drive me crazy.” Or “Oh must be nice to get the three months off.” But I tend to get more of the really positive so that causes me to really question sometimes these negative portrayals, I wonder how much of that the media drives. Because really, probably 95% of the people I meet, I get a really positive reaction about how important that job is or “oh I could never do that” or “Oh my child’s kindergarten teacher was so instrumental.” The people I meet in life are really pretty respectful, and think positively. That’s not what we get in the media always so I wonder about that.
Janille: Shows geared for children, often shows on the Disney channel, portray adults, including teachers as being crazy people, do you have any idea why that might be?
Ms. Talley: Is it crazy like eccentric, like Mrs. Frizzle crazy?
Janille: Like dumb.
Ms. Talley: Like dingy, like dumb, like the whole Saved By the Bell, which I know that dates me. I don’t know if it’s part of that whole…like if we look at children’s literature a lot of times, like even the Harry Potter books adults sometimes are duped or tricked by the child character, so I don’t know if that’s latching in to the childhood fantasy that ‘I want to be smarter than the adults, or in my own pretend world we could exist without them’. But I do think it hurts the stereotype or the perception of teachers, so I would hope that that is just their way of suspending reality for children , I would hope that the programmers don’t actually think that’s the way teachers are. But I don’t know if that’s the way it really is, I do think it hurts though, and I do think children mimic what they see. So if they’re seeing that on TV…And I’ve been thinking a lot, because I knew what we were going to be talking about, and it’s interesting that you said all the movies that are inspirational are all about High School, the only the books I can think of that are inspirational about teachers are about elementary school. So I think it’s interesting how one medium kind of treats----because most picture books, if they have to do with teachers, most picture books have a really positive spin on teachers. I don’t know if that’s because the author loved school or what. But it’s hard for me to think of a negative example of a teacher in a picture book. Except for maybe The Art Lesson by Tomie DePaola.
Janille: Do you think that people view childhood as a less important stage of life than maybe adulthood or adolescence?
Ms. Talley: I do. Unfortunately. I think we pay lip service to the value of childhood in our country, but I don’t think we pay any real attention to it. I think we spend all of children’s childhood preparing them to be an adult instead of reveling and enjoying the fact that they are a child. Everything I think is geared that way, schools, sports, anything that they could become involved in. Unfortunately, I think we have period times where we say you don’t have to show these adult behaviors until middle school, or until fifth grade and I think the times are getting compressed. So I’ve got five-year-olds in kindergarten who are expected to do adult things, whether it’s take care of siblings or manage a busy schedule. I think we really don’t value childhood.
Janille: Do you have any ideas of why it’s not valued as much?
Ms. Talley: Oh this is a horrible thing to say, but I almost wonder sometimes if it’s because it is seen as an inconvenience. And I don’t know that people would say that, but we are living in a society now where time feels like it is of the essence. We feel like we have to do everything fast, we want instant gratification. I want instant information, I want to buy my movie tickets instantly off of my phone, I want to be able to communicate constantly—and childhood takes time. And to allow children to grow and develop takes time and there’s really no replacement for that. So I think in all our flurry we have—it’s inconvenient. I don’t like that answer, but unfortunately I think it might be true. I also think we have mistakenly placed more value on things opposed to time. So we think giving our children all the neatest, latest greatest is more important than giving them time with family or time spent to play. So the parent who puts their child in soccer one day, and piano the other day and something else the other days thinks that their child will have all these great experiences, but is that a little bit misguided because what the child really needs is just time to discover what thier interests are. That’s a tough question.
Janille: What value do you think our society places on education and teachers?
Ms. Talley: I think it depends on what part of society you look at. I think they would say they value both of those, that’s the rhetoric that is out there, but I don’t think in reality that’s accurate. Especially their perceptions toward educators. When you have presidential candidates saying things like John McCain when he was doing the presidential debate he said that we should just bring back the veterans from Iraq and put them in the classroom because they would be good teachers. That sends the signal that there is no skill to this or no strategy to this. A lot of corporations are going in and taking over schools and doing reform, that sends the signal that the business model that works so well in business is going to work well with children. So I think they would say they value that, but I don’t think their actions follow through, it’s just like any other lesson and what we know because we are educators, the words that are coming out of your mouth aren’t near as important as the actions that are following that. So they can say that, but I don’t think as a whole our country’s actions say that. You can get alternatively certified now, online. And again that just plays into this perception that anybody with a good head on their shoulders can go into the classroom and teach. And I’m just not real sure about that.
Janille: When I was looking at movies where teachers are portrayed in a really good light and that are inspirational, they were kind of inspirational more because of the relationship they had with the students than the academics. I know the relationship is important, but do you think that maybe people are not so concerned with sometimes the academic part of school? Are they less concerned with whether or not students are actually learning or are they concerned with just getting the grades to make sure their child can succeed later in life?
Ms. Talley: I think that probably is true. And we’ve even experienced some of that here in Program as we’ve tried to raise the standards in Program. Parents become very concerned that—I think there are a lot of parents at every level that would rather their child get an A even if that A doesn’t represent a lot of hard work, than to have a C that represents a lot of hard work. And so, I also wonder if those movies and shows have inadvertently sent the signal that pedagogy, academics isn’t important. And that perpetuates that myth that as long as you love kids, as long as you can really build a relationship with kids, you can be a good teacher. Well, that’s not necessarily true. It’s both. I do think the relationship is the gateway into the teaching that needs to happen, but if I stop there I’m not being a good steward of my talent and I’m not doing the kids any favors. I do think parents and everyone suffers in education because everyone feels like they’re an expert in education because everyone went to school. So people expect school to look the same as it did when they were in school. School doesn’t look the same and should not look the same as it did fifty years ago, but we’re still being compared to that model. I think it’s part of our American culture, you know second place is first loser and pull yourself up by your bootstraps. We have this culture where winning is the key, and that educationally doesn’t set us up for a good paradigm or a good equation. I also think, again everyone is and education expert. It’s interesting to me we have all this policy coming out on education right now and none of it comes from educators. We say we have all these problems in schools and all this school reform, the literature is pretty clear and has been pretty consistent for the last 30-40 years. Researchers do know what works in schools, but nobody is listening to them. I don’t know if that’s because they’re not perceived as having the power. But people say “we have problems with kids reading,” well we can tell you exactly what to do with that. But none of the people with the real power are talking to the people with the information. I think again, it may come back to that time thing. To do what needs to be done in schools is going to take time and it would be expensive. There is no doubt, absolutely no doubt, that we could do it. But I don’t think it’s a priority.
Janille: How do you think the way people view elementary teachers affects the big picture?
Ms. Talley: Well I think, because we are getting children from everyone’s homes, and that is the wonderful thing about American education we educate everyone, our doors are open. That means that everyone comes in with this perception that is either reinforced at home or that they have seen in pop culture. That perception, good or bad, is either reinforced or negated at home. Everyone comes in with an idea of what ‘teacher’ means. Every family, every child has this perception of what teacher is, and that plays into how they come to school and how they interact with that teacher. Some teachers reinforce instantly any negative stereotype you have. I think one of the keys is for teachers to really start viewing themselves as professionals and start acting like professionals. And to view themselves as advocates and act like advocates. Teaching the children is my primary job, but the longer I’m in education I realize my voice has to be used to educate everyone about teaching parents, administrators, other professionals, policy makers and I have to take that job seriously because if I want to redefine that definition of ‘teacher’ I want to redefine it. I don’t want the media to redefine it, I don’t want the policy makers to redefine it, I want to redefine it. The only way to do that is to go to work every day, be extremely professional about what I do and be professional in all my interactions, and then advocate for that same professionalism across the board.
