You know you are deeply involved in your education Ph.D. program when

you put parenthetical citations in your Facebook comments.

three-hour lectures on the need to not lecture don’t seem surprisingly ironic anymore.

Dear Mr. Alden,

I’m grading my final exams, and I am wondering how you set your curve. I want to uphold a high standard, but I want to be fair to my kids.

Grading in Gettysburg

This challenge is vividly illustrated in a current controversy at my high school. As a part of our WASC Action Plan, we are supposed to develop school-wide activities whose aim is to improve the social and academic culture at our high school. One aspect of that culture arises from the fact that we serve two different communities. One is comprised almost entirely of upper-middle class and wealthy professionals who are of European or Asian ancestry. The other is more economically diverse, but includes a large number of working class and poor families who are predominantly Latino. They go to separate elementary and middle schools, so they don’t interact until they reach high school.

Through a combination of some spectacularly horrible scheduling and my second-year naiveté, I was convinced that it was a good idea to have a majority of the special education students from the fifth grade level included in my general education classroom. To defend my second-year self a bit, kindly consider that my first year was spent crammed into the tiny, overheated corner room, trying not to step on twenty-eight fifth-graders. When I heard the number eighteen – eighteen! – general education students for the majority of my school day, the fact that these four special education students would join the rest of us for part of the day didn’t seem all that important.

Our line leader of the week likes to skip. The body just behind, cleverly (but not skillfully) wants to show how she can walk backwards too!  The fourth body down is using the hallway walls to rehearse for Pong.  Bodies ten and eleven are engaged in a spontaneous hug, smiling ear to ear with body thirteen physically and verbally encouraging them to “GO!” 

Similarly, Thomas Kane, a Harvard economist and Gates Foundation board member, argues that we shouldn’t worry so much about how teachers get prepared; we should just try out the ones who seem promising and fire the large percentage who don’t make the grade. On some level, getting past the red tape which has allowed ineffective teachers to continue teaching is a noble goal, but the whole spirit of the campaign is negative and misguided. Is that focus alone really the way we are going to develop a solid teaching corps and encourage teachers to want to stay in the career?

Stuff like this wouldn’t bother me, but seeing as our department head says that we are supposed to be enacting the district action plan, which involves creating professional learning communities, and since I am on the district 21st century Literacy Initiative, I just think it is really important that everyone is there to listen to what I have to say.

Sure, you've got the satisfaction of giving something to the community, helping to positively shape the future of a democratic society and blah, blah, blah.  And there's the minor thrill of exercising petty authority.  But one of the greatest joys of teaching for me is making stuff up.  Spreading misinformation.  Perhaps also, a corollary: sowing the seeds of doubt.

I had known it for some time: months, quarters, semesters, years.  But it wasn't until a good friend, a fellow teacher "dropped the bomb" on me, that I really accepted it.  I remember his well chosen words.  I remember the day of the week it happened, the time, the feelings.  He was a good friend and an excellent teacher.  I could not doubt that man.  I had asked for his feedback; he had observed me teach, sacrificing his prep. period many times to watch my poor teaching.  He gave it his best shot at coaching me, trying to teach me the many things excellent teachers do.  But I just didn't have what it takes.  I didn't have the personality; I didn't have the skills necessary and developing them was doubtful at best.  I wasn't made for teaching.