About a month ago I was contacted by the publisher of the book Educating Esme. She asked simply if I would mind reading the book by Esme Raji Codell and mention it a blog post. My first thought was that sounds great–a free book and I don’t even have to do a “book review.” What I was most excited about however, was that the book is based on the author’s first year experiences in a very difficult inner city school right around the time I was experiencing my first year teaching at a very difficult inner city school. It was an experience which I had never fully reflected on and I thought that I could write a post about my decade in the “‘ville” and throw in the title of the book to meet my obligation. Last Saturday I sat down to read the book and four hours later I was done. The book was the blog post I have always wanted to write about my experiences. I read words that I have written and spoken, relieved the experiences that made first ten years of teaching a living nightmare, and and at the same time a dream come true. Codell somehow magically wrote a book that did not depress me by making me relieve the experiences, but her words served as motivation to continue doing what I do. Codell reminds us that “You can’t test what sort of teacher someone will be, because testing what someone knows isn’t the same as what someone is able to share.” What she shares is motivation, inspiration, and love of students. No where does she say “do this,” but somehow this became one of only two books in my twenty years of teaching that truly inspired me to keep doing what I do.
I thought that after teaching in my first school for ten years that I was burned out and finished. My wife had given me a copy of Parker Palmer’s The Courage to Teach three years earlier and after attempting to read it several times, after my tenth year I read it cover to cover one weekend–for some reason something just clicked. That book kept me alive in the classroom, and gave me the courage to change schools and continue teaching. Flash forward ten more years. I have entered another phase of questioning why I do what I do. Recently I have felt as though I am losing the “battle.” I have become very discouraged. Educating Esme is helping me snap out of my funk. When I was reading about her classroom experiences, it made clear that the reason I teach is because of the twenty-five kids infront of me, not to change the system. The “battle” is won when I realize I am “teaching” the right way, not when the entire system shifts to use new methods and tools. Somehow my scope had moved beyond the class, and I needed her book to bring my focus back to my classroom.
So in lieu of a post on my experiences, and instead of an official book review, I would like to go back through the book and leave you with a few of my thoughts and several of the lines that I have notes scribbled next to or have highlighted.
How many of you feel as though every time you have a great idea you should keep it to yourself because the rest of the staff just to destroy it?
“If you give people an idea these days, they just think you are sharing it with them so they can critique it, play devils advocate, and so on. It doesn’t occur to them that they might help or get enthused or at least have the courtesy to get out of your way.”
Most new teachers look at me with shock when I tell them that they don’t have to hear everything, and that you can be loudest when you whisper. Some lessons she gathered from her mentor:
“Ignoring bad behavior as long as you can stand it…How a soft voice can be more effective than a loud voice. Starting out with positive comments to parents before lowering the boom. Waiting patiently for children to answer questions.”
I am trying this tomorrow. What a great symbolic gesture to make at the beginning of class.
“…I collect “troubles in a “trouble basket,” a big green basket into which the children pantomime unburdening their home worries so they can concentrate on school.”
I often fall victim to believing that I am making a difference by pointing out problems and because I am passionate about “change.” I have to remember that unless I have a plan to move forward, I don’t really have a plan.
“In reference to other colleagues: As long as they are freaking out, they feel busy, like they must be doing work. Getting upset is force, but no motion. Unless we are moving the children forward, we aren’t doing any work.”
How can you give kids confidence? Do they know this about you?
“They know I would never let them fail.”
Too often teachers get angry at the kids who say “I don’t care,” or the kids who get angry in class. Negative emotions are met with negative emotions. When I read what I nearly say word-for-word in Cordell’s book it reminded me that love is always going to be more powerful than punishment.
“You can hate me all you want. That’s your prerogative, your choice. But no matter how you feel about me, I will always love you.”
“I am sorry you are angry, but I still love you, and I won’t allow you to fail.”
After ten years in my first school I moved on out to the ‘burbs. The meanest nastiest kid in my new school would have been the valedictorian in my old one. No one could even imagine the difference between the two. I could carry a wallet in my new school. Leave a pen on my desk. Walk out and use the bathroom. And could drive to school with my doors unlocked. My new school was…dare I say…easy. After receiving praise from a principal in a new school she reflected:
“…but I didn’t break up any fights…I didn’t take any children home to hide…I didn’t fear for my life…”
When I left my first school after ten years I felt incredible guilt, and I still have pangs of guilt today ten years later. I want to blame the kids and school for taking away ten years of my life. Every day was painful. Every day brought anguish and sadness. Unless you have taught at one of those hardcore urban schools you cannot even begin to relate to the violence, the bureaucratic mess, crumbling buildings and supplies, rotating administration, no parental involvement, and having to referee fights each week . Looking back, I can now say those kids made me who I am today. While they are responsible my gray hair, they are also responsible for forcing a unique perspective on how kids learn, and the importance of second chances.
“Wrongly I have thought teaching lessened me at times, but now I experience a teacher’s great euphoria, the knowledge like a drug that will keep me: Thirty-one children. Thirty-one chances. Thirty-one futures, our futures. It’s almost psychotic feeling, believing that part of their lives belongs to me. Everything they become, I also become. And everything about me, they helped to create.”
Many teachers reccomend a package of The World is Flat and A Whole New Mind to show teachers how the world is changing and how teachers need to change with it. While the world is changing, the spirit of great teachers remains the same. If you know anyone who needs to have their teacher spirit fed, buy A Courage to Teach, and place on top of it Educating Esme. To repeat a quote Cordell included from Neila Conners, “If you don’t feed the teachers, they will eat the kids.”
