The Rusty Gate

My friend and fellow Michigan teacher, Cossondra George, recently asked:

Do teachers have a responsibility to be the gatekeepers of their profession? Can we settle for allowing our colleagues to give students less than they deserve?

Teachers ought to serve as gatekeepers for admission into the profession--and until that happens, we can't lay claim to being fully professional. I'm all for raising the bar for entrance to teaching (using better tools than SAT or Praxis scores), and investing more time, resources and research on effective teacher development.

In the meantime, however, we have teachers who are not doing the job well enough. Some of them should be gone--tomorrow; others have plenty of untapped potential but are floundering. No point in repairing the rusty gate granting access to teach unless we pay attention to supporting teachers once they're in the field.

Struggling teachers come in two basic flavors: #1) teachers who haven't had sufficient experience or training to do the job well and #2) teachers who once had the disposition and tools to be good teachers, but have checked out due to cynicism, fatigue, bitterness and unforgiving working conditions.

The first group is not necessarily easier to deal with. In some environments, "professional development" is seen as an administrative duty, and early-career teachers are threatened by the idea that their performance might be evaluated and found wanting. Their daily practice is marked by the overriding desire to keep a low profile. All teachers--from rank newbies to award-winning veterans--must consider themselves collaborative learners and practitioners.  All of us are responsible for lending plans, tips, materials and support to new teachers.

One thing that can be done by accomplished veterans: asking newer teachers for their ideas, and approaching them as full colleagues, rather than those who need help. I work with many first- and second-year teachers who are pretty vocal about observed shortcomings in their assigned mentors. Most faculties adopt a kind of pecking order. Flattening that hierarchy--opening doors and sharing uncertainties--can help. Novice teachers ought to be considered for leadership roles, such as curriculum writing or the school improvement team, rather than dumping unwanted, time-sucking class advisories or club sponsor roles on them.

The second group of ineffective teachers is a different problem. I worked for decades in a strongly veteran culture, which equated years of service with accrued power and influence. I eventually discovered that many of the teachers I saw as jaded burn-outs were once enthusiastic and creative, but had had their mojo squashed by a culture of anger and perceived betrayal.

For a teacher trained in the 70s, teaching to a mandated and scripted  reading program feels like being told that the best lessons in their tool bags are useless, and their judgment flawed. For a teacher who's spent 20 years in Detroit, bringing in used clothing and peanut butter sandwiches for neglected students, blaming teachers for the system's failures now is callous.

Some of those favorite lessons and teaching methods are useless junk. But--a significant group of teachers who retain the potential to be very effective in the classroom have found the only "leadership" role open to them is fighting back against systemic change through their unions. They need to have their professional experience validated and acknowledged; they're not going accept either praise or criticism from someone they don't respect, but they have not stopped caring about their students' learning.

So there is an opportunity to salvage good teaching--and valuable contextual experience-- by acknowledging that veteran teachers have something to contribute: been there, tried that, learned from it.  We might start by asking dried-up veteran teachers "Why did you choose to be a teacher?" The ones who say "June, July and August" can be dismissed. But the ones who say "I wanted to make a difference in kids' lives" deserve to have their ideas heard, at least.

An old friend inadvertently gave me the title for this blog when he let me know that a true Michigan conservationist and sportsman-Rusty Gates--passed over to the great fly fishing stream in the sky last week.  Rusty Gates understood that in order to learn to fish, you had to stand in the river for a time. And so it is with teaching.

Image: Neil Whiteside@Flickr Creative Commons

Comments

[kim lee]

This article had great suggestions on welcoming new teachers as being equal to the well seasoned teachers. Both old and new teachers should be valued. New teachers can teach the well seasoned teachers what they have learned and the well seasoned teachers have experienced many things that they are able to provide the new teacher with lots of knowledgeable advice.

[Jennifer Muller]

Nancy - I really enjoy your point-of-view about teaching - it is clear you were (and are) a great teacher. This article really resonated with me; I am an ex-teacher (English, Speech) who left the classroom after only a few years - I guess I was one of those idealists who got burned by what I perceived was a lack of caring by administrators who didn't support their staff. I also found it much more rewarding to work directly with troubled youth and their families and became a child and family therapist. My son is also certified to teach in another state, but gave up trying to find a job in a decent school system after 2 years of subbing for one district on the promise of a position when someone retired, only to find out he was the "place-holder" for a relative of the superintendent. He had great passion and would have made a great teacher, but once again, the insider culture won out. However, I am sure there are still many great new teachers coming into the system. I wish them (and their students) well. With mentors like you, they have every chance to succeed.

[john]

Nancy,

Excellent post and great metaphor.

If nothing else, the RttT will force teachers to address the issues you face.

I've never made more than timid "gate keeper" suggestions and then I quickly backed off if there was pushback.

And the same applies in regard to encouraging teachers to take more engaging approaches to instruction.

Sometimes (involving clear cases of identifiable students' welfare)we really need to take a stand. In those cases I still haven't done more than express my opinion and tried to not feel too guilty.

Charles Payne deals with this well. Schools in the ghetto, he says, become schools OF the ghetto. Students thus come from neighborhoods, he said, where people can't get along and then go to schools where people can't get along.

That's the reason, I hope, that I take the safe approach and remain too quiet. The dangers of causing more discord seem to outweigh any other dangers.

Rather than contnue playing Haamlet in response to your post, I'll just thank you for your insights and the opportunity to read your work.

[Nancy Flanagan]

Thanks for all of your comments. This post seems to have struck a nerve. We do need to pay attention to who gets to teach--and we need to support the teachers in place. While teaching is partly artistry and disposition, it's also something that can be continuously improved--even in our toughest schools.

[Scott]

Nancy,
I am a new teacher and find myself in a situation where fellow colleagues, who are burned out, are tearing down kids instead of lifting them up. As a new teacher, I do not know a respectful approach for confronting such problems. I grew up with a "respect your elders" mentality and find it very hard to talk to veteran teachers about their shortcomings. Can you, being a seasoned teacher, give some advice on how to approach veteran teachers to give them advice without looking like an arrogant youth?

[Nancy Flanagan]

Hi, Scott--and thanks for visiting a Strange Land. The fact that you're looking for ideas about teaching in a virtual medium speaks volumes about your commitment to your students and to your practice. Give yourself a pat on the back.

You might try going to your elders (I'm laughing here--realizing that I'm probably what you'd consider a super-elder) and asking them for advice, instead of offering your opinions on their admittedly discouraging and unprofessional behavior. Don't get me wrong--I'm not defending teachers who trash kids in the lounge. But some of those teachers went into teaching for the right reasons.

Here's a story: I used to teach with this guy named Chuck who was downright nasty to kids, one of those hard cases who refuses to let kids use the restroom, assigns tons of meaningless work on holiday weekends, leaves the parking lot before the buses. A handful of teachers who were interested in rebuilding a positive climate in the building divided up the staff for one-to-one conversations and I got Chuck's name.

When I went to talk with him (before school--he got there early), he told me how much he loved Science and how he'd once gone out and netted frogs from a nearby pond to start a daily study of pond life. He actually had a photo album (this dated back to the 1960s) with notes from kids about how much they enjoyed studying pond scum. I found this hard to believe--this guy had never evidenced a shred of kindness in front of me.

He told me that he and another science teacher had raised money for an ongoing science retreat on building property, gotten permission and built a deck out over the water (their own labor). Then a vindictive principal made them tear it down, and transferred him out of Life Science and into Physical Science. At the time, he was the chief negotiator for the union, and had done a study on wasted money in the building--the result was a vindictive power play on the part of the principal.

Now--some teachers should go into real estate. But others might benefit from your own openness and eagerness to chat about professional issues. Ask questions! Or offer an alternative viewpoint. Sometimes, your receptivity and new ideas can be an inspiration for someone who once found teaching a joy.

I'm going to ask some other Teacher Leaders Network teachers to respond. Keep reading. And best of luck.

Nancy

[Susan]

Hi Scott,

I'm even older than Nancy, but I can still remember my first year and how shocked and disappointed I was when other teachers made disparaging remarks about kids and school. My husband started teaching during his 50's and he experienced the same culture shock. It makes a new teacher wonderewhat got them into teaching and why on earth they stayed. Had they always been that way or do teachers "went bad" over time like overripe produce?

Over time, I think many emergent teachers like yourself come to realize that veteran teachers who are really down in the trenches with their students sometimes develop a sort of gallows humor that seems very calloused and cynical. When a colleague appears calloused, I'd ask you to remember that a callous is caused by indifference. Extensive use over a long period of time may have made them a little less sensitive, but has made them tough enough to hold up to heavy demands. Actually, one could argue that callouses could a mark of commitment. I'm really going to date myself here, but the best example I can think of is MASH. The flippancy, silliness and seeming disrespect of Hawkeye and Trapper was a defense mechanism against losing themselves because they cared too much. Could this be a possible explanation to what sounds like negativity or hopelessness?

Since you're sensitive enough to realize that your desire to be helpful could be misinterpreted, I'm sure Nancy's advice of giving advice by asking for advice makes sense. It's also a great way to begin to nurture the development of a professional learning community among your colleagues.

And, if asking for advice doesn't open up the conversation, here's my favorite question of all. It works equally well with students, colleagues, parents or even administrators under all sorts of circumstances.

"Could you tell me why you say that?"

If you ask assuming good intentions and with real curiosity, and then listen to the response with even greater curiosity and an open mind, you'll probably get back some pretty interesting information, both explicit and implied. Sometimes it's completely different from what you expected and often what you don't hear is at least as important as what you do hear. And every now and then you have the pleasure of watching someone change their own mind which is a thousand times easier and more effective than trying to change it for them.

The fresh perspective of new teachers and the seasoned insight of veterans create a richer and more thoughtful learning environment for all of us as well as our students. Thanks for joining the conversation.

[Scott]

Nancy and Susan,
Thank you so much for the wonderful insight. You know you come into teaching "green" and college has not prepared you for what is to come then you have colleagues belittling students and you begin to wonder what in the world you have got yourself into. Susan the callousness you describe is a genious analogy and that's what I think a lot of the disparaging comments can be linked. I'm not so new that I can see the politics of teaching take there toll on a lot of great teachers. It's the overuse and constent fight in the trenches that hardens them. I will definately take all your advice in how I approach my situation. Thank you all again for your insight.