No Matter What You Say, I Won’t Abandon My Goals
Nelson Mandela
My life has always been about goals. Small ones as a child, bigger ones as I grew into adulthood. I’ll skip a lot of them–come to a big one. I’m sitting across from the Superintendent of Schools in the district where I was applying for my first job as a teacher of English. I was fresh out of college.
He had my resume, was scanning it, looking at me, probably thinking, young, so very young, maybe thinking innocent, even weak. I waited.
Then he spoke: “So. Some of the students here have knives. Could you handle that, if something happened in your classroom?”
I didn’t hesitate: “Yes,” I said. Yes.” I heard my voice. It was strong and purposeful. Nothing was going to stop me from attaining my goal. This was what I wanted.
Was I being foolish, unrealistic? Thinking back there was nothing that man could have said to me that would have kept me from what I wanted, from what I was prepared to do: approach young minds with works of literature so that they would be eager to READ; teach future adults to write essays, to think and evaluate, be able to build a decent vocabulary, weigh and argue the words and ideas of others–skills that help you get a job, advance your reading and critique skills and in the end become better citizens.
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matter compared to what lies within us.
Today, I am not a perfect copy of the young woman I was that day. But I can attest that with some minor adjustments WHAT LIES WITHIN ME has not changed.
BEING A TEACHER
My father-in-law used to tease me about my cushy job, saying I got out at 3:30. I had the summer off. (Actually I taught summer school to make more money.) I might have tried to defend what I did, telling him:
well, I really work from 7:00 to 4:00.
I teach 5 classes of 25-30 students–sometimes more
In teacher-speak have 3 preparations, three different classes (Humanities, Novel or basic sophomore English, for example) translation: lots of work the night before.
Read, corrected and graded papers for these 150 students—translation, worked nights and on the weekends. Read lots of books on the weekend.
Took an extra assignment—like coaching or mentoring, a rule at my school. Translation: went to games and dances and tournaments on the weekends.
Inserted school business and paperwork into each day: attendance reports, notices to student nurse, counselors, deans; reports to principal, department chair; parent-teacher meetings and phone calls; frequent teacher meetings.
Created curriculum: tests, assignments, evaluations and interactive learning.
TEACHING TODAY?
It’s even more stressful than ever before. When change occurs in any society there are always unforeseen effects. When I taught high school I had many students whose parents both worked in order to pay rent, have a car, clothe their kids. Public education was a gift and it still is. Now more women are in the work force and more students are “on their own” before and after school. For some children, school and local libraries have become daycare centers. For others, extra curricular activities have expanded so that kids can remain on school grounds before parents are able to pick them up. Society adapts and teachers must also. Society can also fail kids. That is happening right now.
RULES IN SCHOOLS
Rules have always existed to provide a teaching atmosphere. DEANS deal with attendance issues and behavior issues. KNOWING your students helps. A close friend of mine who had taught for years, became a valuable dean because she knew many of the students, over time learned the names of many more. She could call them out in the hallways. She related to them.
School rules certainly change: put your cell phones away! When I taught, it was taking a bag of chips away; breaking up a tussle in the back of the room; waking up a student—if they can’t stay awake send them to the nurse’s office; and yes, if they come at you with some scary bravado, you have to do your best to stand your ground.
During a student riot, a young man came at me with a lead pipe—but I knew the student’s name and as soon as I used it, his affect changed—and I was fortunate that another teacher was coming through the classroom door at that time.
The ability to NAME the student is the same today as it was then—naming starts the process of settling them down. Anonymity is key to breaking the law. When that goes away, often the behavior changes. Oh, the anger might still be there, but the situation usually opens up to less threatening behaviors.
GUNS IN SCHOOLS
Except for guns. Guns throw every rule out the window. Still, I firmly believe that teachers should not be armed.
So what would I do today, if my principal said I had to get gun training, pack some ugly firearm in my classroom? What would I do if I was the sole provider of my family and I had no other choice? Would I abandon my goals?
Yes. I think I would. First I would fight the issue with every argument I could muster. Because I would remember WHAT LIES WITHIN ME–that I could never fire a gun at a student–though I could do everything in my power to protect those in my charge, those frightened individuals sitting in my classroom who are supposed to be there to learn about Jane Austen or Arthur Miller. To write a book report or a term paper. To become good citizens of the United States.
THE FUTURE
Students who have lived through the horrendous experience of seeing their classmates maimed and killed are fighting–not for arming their teachers, but for disarming citizens with power weapons that can shatter human beings in seconds. These students are beyond brave and making a difference. They also know what LIES WITHIN THEM, they know what their goals are and they don’t want to abandon that out of fear. Fear can be more destructive than a gun–because it clouds thinking, encourages RETREAT. This is the wrong time to lie down and give up. Let’s hope something sensible happens with gun control–or every superintendent in the future will be leaning across the desk during an interview and saying: “You might be able to teach great works of literature, to fire up students to parse arguments and think critically–but you’ve got to PACK A GUN.”
photo credit: Melon Education Charity, South Africa.
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