Entry # 36:
A Permanent Teacher

What a difference five years make.

This week I received, signed and returned my permanent teaching contract. It was the first milestone of my teaching career, and though it means little officially, becoming a permanent teacher as opposed to a probationary teacher feels like an official stamp of approval.

Receiving my permanent contract spurred me to reflect on my five years at Turner. There have been good, bad, and downright ugly times during my brief career, but every event has contributed to my abilities as a teacher.

As I was watching a PBS special on volcanoes today, one volcanologist stated that in order to predict future eruptions, one had to be aware of the history of the volcano's activity. Only by looking to the past could one predict the future. I believe the same is true for teaching, whether it is being aware of one's own history as a teacher or understanding earlier reform efforts. However, while the volcanologist cannot as yet control future activity in volcanoes, we can control the steps we take to become better teachers or enact more effective reforms in education.

I did not believe I would be at Turner five years after I signed my first contract. Turner was my last choice of the three schools I interviewed with, and St. Louis Public Schools was my next-to-last choice of school districts. Only the tight job market and the frustration of being a highly regarded but poorly compensated substitute induced me to apply for a position in the St. Louis Public Schools. I was one of those people who believed the worst of the city schools -- just like the people I was complaining about last week.

Blind enthusiasm and the best intentions

I started my career with the best of intentions, but I was as naive and green as they come. My homeroom was made up of students the other two seventh-grade teachers assigned to me (read: discipline problems), and no one but the instructional coordinator spoke to me the whole first week I was there. I had no curriculum guide and no clear understanding of what, exactly, I would do if I actually did have one to follow. My team leader later suggested I follow the book and use the resource materials that came with it. She was "old school," and that's the way they had always taught reading, so she was giving me her best advice.

Thank goodness I did not take it. I was filled with the blind enthusiasm of a new teacher, and I set to work to create challenging, interesting projects and lessons for my students. After meeting them for the first time, they seemed just like any other kids, so I treated them that way. With a few exceptions, they followed where I led.

That first year, however, was a real challenge for me, especially with classroom management. By the end of that year I was so tired of yelling everyday, writing parental appearance notices, and requesting suspensions that I vowed to learn everything I could about discipline and classroom management.

I spent the summer on the internet picking the brains of the people on Teachers.Net and the MIDDLE-L listserv, reading books like Cooperative Discipline by Linda Albert and The First Days of School by Harry and Rosemary Wong, and planning my rules and consequences for the next year. Though my second year was far from perfect, it was a lot better, and each year has been better yet.

As I think about my first year, I see that I had a lot of heart but little real understanding of how to be a teacher. I believed that if I just loved my students enough, all of them would succeed in life. While love or at least appreciation does factor in to the mix, determination, planning, and reflection are by far more important ingredients to the making of a good teacher.

The lessons I have learned

What does my past tell me? What are the lessons I have learned since I taught that first lesson? There are many, but these are the most important or at least the most useful to me at this point in my career.

1. Be clear and consistent with your expectations -- whether it is for behavior, a student's performance, your instruction, or the directions on an assignment. I used to get very upset with students because they would ask me what to do on a task even though the directions were right in front of them. Multiple requests for clarification are a signal to me that I need to rewrite or restate the directions for the class, while isolated incidents are simple requests for help from a student who is having a hard time comprehending.

I believe Harry Wong says that most students want to do well and they want to know what to do and how to act, so most requests or behaviors are a result of unclear communication of the teacher's expectations. I have found that the more explicit I am, the fewer problems I encounter.

2. Lasting change takes time. The problems we have as a school and staff, especially when it all seems so simple to solve sometimes upset me. I remember a day in my second year when I ended up in tears with my instructional coordinator because I knew I would get the same satisfactory evaluation as everyone else, regardless of the extra effort I put into my job. I was looking for my principal to make several of the other teachers on the staff do more than pass out ditto sheets, and I was frustrated that he would not do that.

I have since discovered that no one can make anyone else do anything they do not decide to do. Since human beings have their own fears, shortcomings, and their own belief systems, real change is filled with adversity, and working through adversity takes time. I can see now, five years later, just how far we have come as a school. We will continue to improve.

3. Problems can be solved and are opportunities to grow. Fortunately I learned this early in my career, and it has carried me through some very trying times. Trying to have my principal solve my discipline problems was not effective, so I learned how to solve them myself. I was not only successful, but I also gained confidence in myself as a problem-solver.

Since then I have always identified weak areas in my teaching as well as areas of interest, and I have educated myself in those areas through professional associations, various publications, and discussions with colleagues. I openly share my failures with my students as well as how I am trying to overcome them, and I hope modeling this habit of mind will transfer to them as well. Failures are just opportunities to learn.

4. If something is not working, scrap it. Do not hold on to behaviors, strategies, lessons, or units just because that is what you have planned. I used to be afraid to scrap a lesson for fear my supervisors or my students would think less of me. However, how ridiculous is it to continue doing something you know does not work? Throw it out, be honest with the kids or your supervisors about the reason for the deletion, think about why it did not work, and start over.

5. Be human. I used to cringe at the old adage, "Don't smile until Christmas," as a preservice teacher. It is not in my nature to be a dour old sourpuss, and I went into teaching partly because I did like the kids. I know teachers who still follow this advice, and they think any questions about their personal lives are impertinent. While this approach may work for them, it does not work for me. I do not care if my students know my first name or my age, and I think it is important for them to know how I love to travel, eat at good restaurants, and read.

I jump around in class, make up little poems and songs about them to encourage them to get on the bus or into their classrooms, and generally act like a big goofball. They sometimes look at me askance, but they appreciate my human-ness. At this time in their lives, especially when they are questioning who they are and how they should be, I think it is important for them to see an adult who has embraced all the quirks and idiosyncrasies of their personality while working to become a better human being in the process.

As I said before, my list of lessons is not at all comprehensive. They are, however, important to who I was, who I am now, and who I will become as a teacher. I cannot wait to see what the future holds.



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