Tales of Teaching
By Paul E. Schindler, Jr.
August 11, 2003
I have a Job
Well, it happened. Just as my mother predicted, my failure to get the first job I applied for simply left me free to accept the job of my dreams. Well, almost. I will be teaching six periods a day of 8th grade social studies–U.S. History through World War I. I will be in the room across the hall from Mrs. S, my best friend and a veteran teacher of the same subject upon whom I can lean heavily as I get the ball rolling. I will be replacing a beloved teacher who has taken ill, which means it won’t be easy. Plus, I wanted a half-time job and this is a full-time job. But at least, since I am teaching the same subject all day, it means just one prep. Of course, keeping six classes in synch will be a challenge in and of itself, but it’s a challenge I think I am up to. We’ll see as time goes on. My first day is Wednesday Aug. 27. Wish me luck! I have two weeks to prepare–which is actually MORE time than I expected.
I’m going to try and wait to have my nervous breakdown until Thanksgiving break so I have some time to recover from it. Just kidding. I think.
I know I can talk. Can I listen? Can I inspire? Can I assess fairly? These are the big questions. The world is full of mediocre teachers. If I can’t be a great one, I’m not sure I want to be a teacher at all. Will I move some or all of my 180 students? Only time will tell.
If you have any materials or suggestions (including web sites, books, videos, plays, songs, posters and lesson plans) that will help make U.S. History through WWI accessible, send them along.
August 18, 2003
Teaching
One of the reasons I got into teaching was friends who teach. Among them is Kent Peterman:
Congratulations! I’m thrilled and ecstatic. Welcome to the profession. You’re now an official teacher type dude.
Of course you can talk and entertain and amuse. Vital skills in the profession. But you can also listen, guide, and inspire. One of my basic tenets of teaching is: sometimes you have to push, sometimes you have to pull, and sometimes you have to just get the hell out of the way. At any rate enjoy the ride.
There is nothing more wonderful, exciting, difficult, rewarding, frustrating, exhausting, and fun as teacher. Take a tip from this veteran…keep your social schedule very light for the first month or so. You will be more exhausted than you’ve ever been in your life.
I was a mentor to a second grade teacher whose husband is a middle school teacher. After the first week of school she told me that she was a rotten wife. I asked her why. She said that all of those years when she was in the corporate world and her husband was teaching she had no idea how exhausting the beginning of school was. You will do swell. Enjoy the ride. It’s an “E” ticket.
Sept. 1, 2003
First Week Teaching
I am exhausted. I am baffled. I am confused, tired, scared and exhilarated. I don’t know if I have the respect and love of my classes or the fear and loathing. I teach the same thing six periods a day and, despite my well-known love for repetition, I am not sure period 7 gets the same level of energy as period 1. I am sure they don’t get the same level of spontaneity. On the other hand, all the rough edges have been polished off. I’ve made every possible mistake by the last period of the day, and I don’t make them again at the end of the day.
Can I teach my students anything about US History? Too early to tell.
Sept. 8, 2003
Deliverance by Teaching
I’m almost like the man on the roof in the flood who prayed for delivery by god. While he was praying, a boat came, but he refused to get in. “God will deliver me.” Then a helicopter came, but he declined a ride, saying, “God will deliver me.” He was swept into the water and drowned. He asked St. Peter what happened. “We sent a boat and a helicopter, what more did you want?”
I had always fantasized I could work for the educational foundation established by the founders of my former employer. I never heard back from them. I though maybe a former supervisor of mine would pay me to gather audio of the 2002 gubernatorial race for a national audience. Didn’t happen. I thought I’d be a journalism lecturer at USC. Never got called. I believed I might have a shot at being a liberal talk show host on the newly forming liberal talk network. No one called back. Then a local middle school where I had many friends and much substituting experience called and asked me to teach full time. I really only wanted to teach half time. But unlike the man praying on the roof, I recognized deliverance and opportunity when they knocked. Eight days of teaching later, I’ve had some frightening moments, thousands of dull ones, and a few wonderful ones–parents have already told me their students are enjoying the class. That warms me. If I finish the year beloved and respected, that’s nice too. But can I teach? Will they choose to learn? Vicki scoffs when I ask these questions, but I think they’re still open.
Paul Makes The NY Times, Again
August 31, 2003
EXECUTIVE LIFE
It’s Back to School, to Become a Teacher
By MELINDA LIGOS
Blame the weak job market. Or the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Or the corporate accounting scandals that have left some workers disillusioned. Whatever the reason, as students head back to the classroom for the new school year, so are many executives who are aiming to become public school teachers, according to education experts and administrators of teacher training programs. … Others are engineers who are accepting early-retirement buyouts from their companies. “Because jobs are not as readily available, people are coming to us and saying, ‘Now I might as well do what I really wanted to do all along,’ ” she said.
That is what Paul Schindler, of Orinda, Calif., said he remembered feeling two years ago, after he was laid off as an editor at a publishing company where he had been working for more than 22 years. Mr. Schindler had always fancied himself a schoolteacher. So, with his 49th birthday approaching, he enrolled in an accelerated teacher certification program at Chapman University in Concord, Calif. He is now interviewing for English and history teaching positions in the Bay Area.
“I knew that if I ever was going to teach, this was the moment,” said Mr. Schindler, the former editor in chief at CMP Media, a technology publisher.
Funny Teaching Stories (First in a series)
So, there’s this stuff they teach you in education school. Like including an open invitation to parents to come by and visit your classroom, any time they like, without an appointment. I made that offer. I had a parent come by the next day. I was telling the other teachers about it. They were appalled. Mrs. S, my friend and mentor, told me to never do that again, and advised me, “The next time you think of doing something you learned in Ed school, check with me first.” Which is also what my other master teacher (also a Mrs. S) told me a long time ago.
There’s another idea I’m using; some books call it the bell-ringer. You post a list of things you want your students to do as soon as they enter the classroom, without being told. They are supposed to look at the board and do what it says. It gets things going right away. At first I called it “Do Me First.” After two days, I noticed some boys chuckling in fifth period. That’s when I remembered that you have to set your double-entendre filter very low when you are teaching 8th grade boys. If it can be taken as smutty, it will be taken as smutty. Smut, as we know, is in the mind of the beholder. There’s lots of room in there at age 13.
The section of my whiteboard is now called “Before the Bell” or “B4 The Bell.” Eventually, it will just be BTB.
Sept. 15, 2003
One Tired Teacher
As a matter of fact, the 8th graders ARE running me ragged. Or, probably, to be more precise, I am running myself ragged. I have to learn to relax. I had back spasms today after school–for the first time since my second week of student teaching. This too will pass.
So here’s the problem. I have a job in which the costs are obvious, physical and short-term–exhaustion, insomnia, anxiety. Meanwhile, the benefits are subtle, psychological and long-term–doing some good in the world, helping young people learn, introducing them to history. How does one balance this? How do you push through the short-term so you can enjoy the long-term? After a few conversations with my mother, I am fairly certain these never balance. The dailyness of the job always outweighs the benefits. You just do what you have to.
One recurring thought I’ve had this week; I have to have some sort of job. The odds of my getting a work-at-home, set-my-own-hours journalism job again are zero. Less than zero. So, realistically, would I feel better and derive more satisfaction if I was selling stocks or real estate, or working on the copy desk of the local daily? I know for sure that in any of those jobs, I’d be doing less good for the world. I want to do good. Sometimes, doing good involves personal pain and sacrifice.
And yet, and yet… Vicki asked me earlier this week to tone down the griping. I was apparently coming home every day talking about my aches and pains and fears. I stopped talking about them–and some of them stopped. Boy howdy, isn’t life a lot about your attitude? Everyone has commented on how much more positive I seem. It’s really like the old Wizard of Id cartoon, “How are things?” “Can’t complain.” “So, things are good?” “No. It’s illegal to complain.”
A quick, final, anonymous note: both of my master teachers have stayed in touch and provided excellent advice on coping, as well as copious advice (and lesson plans) for teaching.
Sept. 22, 2003
Face Control
My mother could, famously, control her high school students with a single raised eyebrow. Alas, that is a recessive trait, and I did not inherit the ability to raise one eyebrow without raising the other, although I may be a carrier.
In the meantime, however, I am working on what my fellow teacher, Mrs. S., calls “the look.” It’s an “I mean business” scowl that will usually bring the class to attention.
I had hoped to leave my seating assignments in place until Oct. 1, but there was too much wrong with where students are sitting (what an art and science that turns out to be). So, despite my desire to leave people in place to help me learn their names, I am moving everyone around today. And this time, I am only printing a few copies of the seating chart, because I know there will be adjustments. Of course, requests for adjustment are like prayers. All of them are answered; some of them are answered “no.”
Nov. 10, 2003
Sore muscles, Four Day Weekend
My back is so sore I’m afraid it’s going to spasm at any minute. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I’d done to injure it so badly, until several of my fellow teachers pointed out it was probably as much psychological (stress) as physical. That hadn’t occurred to me.
I’ve gotten a few notes asking me to write more about teaching. Apparently, I’m pretty popular with the students. When I went with Vicki to the Matrix at 7pm Friday, the theater was filled with my students. Except for one wise guy who called me “Paul,” most of them smiled, waved and said, “Hi Mr. Schindler.” I take that as a compliment.
But in general, I’m not sure how to take my “popularity.” This isn’t a popularity contest. I don’t mind being liked–I prefer it to the opposite–but I think the jury is still out on the important part of my job–am I helping the students learn? In part my popularity may be due to the fact that I massively overdid the extra credit first quarter. As a result, my students earned far more A+ grades than makes any sense. We’ll see how things look at the semester.
I am more relaxed now, and in my district, this is a four-day weekend; we don’t have to go back to school until Wednesday. Which means a three-day week, a regular week, then a week off for Thanksgiving, back for three weeks, then two weeks off for Christmas. This is one of my favorite times of the year. I need the time away, for sure.
I am still suffering from the fact that the costs of teaching are all short-term and the benefits are all long term. Given the perfectly natural human tendency to overvalue the immediate and undervalue the future, it is hard for me to keep all this in perspective.
If I could just get a good night’s sleep and get my back to stop hurting…
Nov. 24, 2003
Teaching Update
Many of you have asked how teaching is going; I wrote out this description for a college friend of mine and decided to share it with all of you:
Teaching is the hardest thing I have ever done. I am constantly tired, constantly sore and frequently observed and judged. I was none of these things at any point in my journalism career… well, at least not in the last 25 years of it. I have idiot paperwork to do for the State of California. Thank goodness my school is a reasonable and peaceful place.
My former master teacher and friend of 25 years teaches across the hall and shares lesson plans and advice. I have only one prep per day since I teach the same thing to the same grade six times each day, and all I can say is thank God for that. My first year is so unlike hers, in which she had three preps, no help, and a teacher who actively undermined her. I am such a lucky guy. Possibly the world’s luckiest.
Dec. 15, 2003
Sick and Tired, Yet Exhilarated
What a complainer! But really, there has been an outbreak of flu in California, and, for me, at least, the best way to fight it has been doubling up on my already high vitamin C and getting a lot more rest. My nutritionist told me last weekend that five hours a night sleep and an occasional one-hour nap was not cutting the mustard.
Then on Monday and Tuesday I was feeling faint and feverish. Tuesday, I came home, went to bed at 3:30 and slept for three hours. Then after two hours awake, I slept through until 5:30 the next morning. I did the same thing Thursday (Monday and Wednesday I have band rehearsals). I made it through the entire week! I may not have been at my best; in fact, on one or two occasions I was tired and cranky and interacted with my students in ways that did not meet my own standards. But no one is dead, no lawsuits have been or can be filed, and, in fact, I had a positive observation by my principal, who told me it is a joy to watch me teach. Gosh, I hope the students feel the same way!
Sleeping any time I am not in a classroom has made me a bit of a dull fellow, especially as Vicki continues to work nights (although she joined me in the sleep-a-thon Tuesday), but I always knew the first year of teaching would be difficult. Never in my life have I looked forward to a two-week vacation more than I am looking forward to winter break at my middle school this year.
There’s still that delayed gratification thing. Right now, what I mostly see is hard work and a few unhappy students complaining. I know that, somewhere down the line, I will find I have lit the fire I am hoping to light in a student or two, but the wait is certain the be a long one. Still, I need to repeat my mantra–I know I am doing more good for the world in a classroom (even as a first-year teacher) than I ever was as a computer journalist (even with 30 years experience). I believe in public service–have my whole life. I haven’t really put my money where my mouth is since I worked for Ron Pelosi’s campaign in San Francisco in 1976. I am exhilarated to be back in public service. It’s just that, sometimes, it is hard to remember I am exhilarated when I am so tired and everything hurts so much every day.
An insight I have had before re-occurred to me as I wrote this. I cannot allow my satisfaction to be dependent on the feelings and opinions of 13-year-olds. I need to learn to be satisfied with a job well done by my own standards, and a feeling of accomplishment from knowing I am doing good, important work well. No more bylines. No more bonuses. Just the hope of occasional joy and insight, either on my part or the part of the students. If I can bring some joy into the room, their lives and my life, all the better. But we’re on a journey, and it will be sad if we can’t enjoy the process as well as the destination.
Jan. 19, 2004
Gradually Getting Back Into It
Second week back after the lovely, loonnngg winter break, and I am slowly readjusting.
I know every first year teacher has it tough, and nearly all of them are convinced they are uniquely snowed under. But I claim special status: from April 1979 to October 2001, I worked at home as a full-time journalist. I set my own hours, got up when I wanted to, napped when I needed to, and worked until the job was done, five, six or seven days a week. It was great, of course. I never missed a breakfast or dinner with my family (except during relatively rare business trips), I never missed a school play, or a basketball game, or a band concert. I coached both my daughters’ basketball teams (which would come as a real surprise to anyone who played Gra-Y with me in Portland, Oregon back in the day).
In short, I haven’t had an office job with regular hours in 25 years. It takes some getting used to, the fact that I have to be there by 7:30 (7:15 is better, 7:44:59 is absolutely mandatory–that’s when the bell rings) and can’t leave, by contract, until 3, with 40 minutes for lunch. Not when I’m hungry, but from 12:07 to 12:47. And I have to eat it on campus. That’s not a rule, just good sense when you have a class right after lunch.
Now for many of you, this little soliloquy will provoke a huge, yawning, so-what. That’s your life I’m describing. And that’s fine, you’re used to it. I’m not. And, frankly, it takes some getting used to. Add that to the normal tension and pressure of being a first year teacher, combine it with the fact that I’m undergoing a total mid-life career change (and empty nesting at the same time), and you can see where I might be… oh, how shall I put it…. a little frazzled.
January 26, 2004
Attitude
So I was standing in the kitchen with Vicki, my wife of 24 years, Monday night, telling her what a great week it was going to be. “We got Monday off, Friday is a minimum day, so we’re out at noon and we have next Monday off for in-service training.”
“Wow,” she said. “Do you spend all your time looking forward to your time off? What’s that say about your attitude towards your job? Are you enjoying it at all?”
She had raised one of the most fundamental questions of all, boiled down by the Buddhists, among others, as the maxim “enjoy the journey as well as the destination.”
I managed that in child-rearing, after being told by everyone whose opinion I respected that I should never spend my time yearning for the next stage of childhood, but rather enjoying each stage for what it offered. I am sure someone, at some point, offered me the same advice about teaching. I know my mother, for example, tried to make it clear to me that every day in the classroom was not going to be joyful and fulfilling. Then she reminded me that every day as a journalist was not joyful and fulfilling. It is hard to remember that now, three years after I left that field. She gave me, and I have tried to internalize, the message that teaching is one of those delayed gratification deals that we middle-class people are supposed to excel at: do the hard work now, make the tough choices, eat your spinach, and you’ll get your payoff later. I know this is true. The hard work I did in high school and college, the experiences I sacrificed as a young man, improved the quality of my entire life a hundred-fold.
But when I look back on my three decades as a journalist, I do strongly remember waking up every day looking forward to doing my job. At least, that’s what I thought I was feeling. Maybe I was waking up every day looking forward to a job that seldom involved leaving the house, and involved interacting with other people mostly by telephone, and long hours before a computer screen writing. I enjoyed the journey. Was that because the destination (the byline) was so close in–making the journey so short? Is journalism, as I have always suspected, a field for people with arrested development who require instant (byline, story published) gratification? Is teaching a more mature profession?
As I noted here a few weeks ago, since I have to do something, and can’t, at the moment, imagine doing anything else, what are my alternatives? Does that mean dragging myself through every day, pining for the weekend, until spring when I can start pining for the summer and dreading the fall? Is that a life?
Mistake me not. I don’t hate what I am doing. Yes, some of my students are more troublesome than others, and some are simply inert. But in the vast middle, they are engaged, and looking to me every day to provide them infotainment–information delivered in an entertaining way. I do enjoy that energy, and I try to fulfill their needs. It is good work. It is important work. It is God’s work. It needs to be done by people of intelligence and good will–in short, by people like me. Does it need to be done by me? That is the question I am struggling with. I think the answer is probably yes.
Which leads to the other question I am struggling with; how can I enjoy the journey as well as the destination? I remember last fall, when I came home every day complaining, and Vicki asked me to stop. I stopped, and then suddenly I didn’t feel like complaining any more. The wish became parent of the behavior. By the same token, perhaps if I approach each day looking for the joy and not the drudgery, I can make the time I spend with my students more enjoyable for me–and perhaps for them as well. It may be as simple as “lightening up.” As my colleague likes to say, “This isn’t brain surgery, and you’re unlikely to kill any of them no matter what you do.” Or it may involve no change in teaching style at all, simply an internal attitude adjustment that then becomes reflected in my behavior.
Feb. 9, 2004
To Be Or Not To Be… Sick
Turns out there’s another aspect of teaching–any year, not just your first year–that is highly controversial: whether to take a sick day if you can still stand up without falling over. There’s a teacher at my school with 66 accumulated sick days. My best friend at school, a woman I’ve known for decades, toughs it out. If her voice is gone, she has a quiet day. I was hoping, by asking several teachers, to reach a consensus. There was no consensus. It is clear to me that leaving my class in the hands of a substitute for a day basically costs me a day. I was going to show the Thomas Jefferson movie anyway, and now my students have seen it and I haven’t. Surely, I could have stood (or sat) in front of the class for six periods and toughed it out. But I’m coughing up brown phlegm, I’m exhausted, and I don’t feel mentally clear. That’ can’t be good.
I’m not, as a rule, a whiner. In 30 years as a journalist, I missed less than a week of work because of illness. I missed two days in grade school, one week in high school, two days in college (I skipped a lot of classes, but not because I was ill).
In the end, I went with an approach that appeals to me, my BTSA advisor and my former-teacher mother: if you don’t take the time off, the illness will only drag out. It may not be true, but that’s the way I feel. In fact, I went to a homeopath, who gave me Echinacea, some acupuncture and a homeopathic remedy. I skipped band so I could go to bed at 9 Wednesday, and tried to run my classes for a day
March 15, 2004
Teaching Update
I haven’t had much to say lately about the most important new thing in my life, my job as a teacher. The joy quotient remains low and the stress quotient remains high, which, I have been told, is typical for a first year teacher.
Harry Wong, a seminar-giving super-teacher defines the phases of teaching as Fantasy, Survival, Mastery, and Impact. Fantasy was where I was before I started, survival is where I am now. I am told I can reach mastery if I stick with it a year or two. That will be hard, especially if I keep gaining weight instead of losing it.
Repeat after me: it isn’t brain surgery, and I haven’t permanently damaged anyone yet. It is a low standard, but I have met it.
March 22, 2004
Teaching Aphorisms
Words to live by (thank you Peggy Coquet)
He who opens a school door, closes a prison. -Victor Hugo, poet, novelist,
and dramatist (1802-1885)
And an accurate description of teaching from Kevin Sullivan:
We used to say,
“in a teacher’s first year, the teacher learns”
“in a teacher’s second year, the student learns”
And the cynical added
“after that no one learns”
Let me add one of couple of my own: teaching is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s a baseball season, not a football season. It’s a ground game, not a passing game–you grind out the yardage inch by inch on the way to the goal line. Don’t swing for the fences every day–take a single if you can hit one.
April 12, 2004
Stories of Teaching
From my friend and classmate Kevin Sullivan
Teaching is a tough job where the rewards come from directions that are difficult to anticipate. I have one particular recollection on how emotionally draining public school teaching is. Having accomplished what I wanted in teaching I left the field after five years in the classroom. My transition job was being a teacher in a cad/cam computer company. The new job had its own challenge in that it meant learning a new field of study quickly, creating a curriculum, learning what these state of the art computers could do, figuring out how they were applied in industry solutions, and actually teaching a series of five day classes to computer programmers from customer companies.
I had been working non-stop and under intense pressure for several months when my manager came to me and told me I had to schedule my two weeks vacation. On initially taking the job, I had thought two weeks was a sorry step-down from my previous school calendar. My reply to the manager was, “Vacation? Now? Why? I’m not tired!”
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Tales of Teaching 2004-2005
By Paul E. Schindler, Jr.
July 5, 2004
Reflections on Teaching
I have been struggling to express these thoughts in this column for months. My teacher friend Kent Peterman managed to say it for me:
Congratulations on surviving a year of teaching. Not the snap job it seems to those outsiders is it? I have a psychologist friend who read a study about job stress. Air traffic controller is number one. Number two is teaching. You’re not surprised I’m sure. I sympathize with you and with the complicated relationship one has with teaching. The highs are incredibly high. But it is exhausting. I relate oh so well to the countdown of days. It’s not that you don’t love what you do. You do. It’s just so intense you’re waiting for that break. An interim when your whole life and soul is not consumed by teaching.
I feel your pain about the recipients of your kvetching as well. Outsiders, civilians, etc. don’t understand the angst or the need to unburden. You are not a whining sniveler. You have a need to share the incredible burden of teaching. It is mentally and physically exhausting. I have been doing it for 39 years and I still get totally wiped at the beginning of school and at other times in the year. They are not calloused people. They just don’t understand. Early in our relationship, before my wife became more enlightened, she once said to me. “The beginning of school must be an easy low key time for you.” To my credit I didn’t shoot her and did marry her. But now she understands and is great about monitoring our social life for the first six weeks of school. One of our teachers is married to a middle school teacher. When she started teaching (long after he did) I was her mentor. One day in week two of school she came to me and said that she had been a rotten wife. I asked her why she thought so. She said that she had never understood why her husband was tired at the beginning of school. Now she did.
So carry on my friend. The rewards are there. They are great.
Take care of yourself. When they said to put your heart and soul into the job they didn’t mean it literally.
Enjoy the well deserved summer. Relax. Read. Sleep. Don’t feel guilty. You deserve it.
Your colleague (gosh that sounds good…I’m so glad you’re a teacher),
Kent
By the way, on a similar subject: shame on me. I just took a State of California survey on the value of my teacher credential program. I learned a lot, especially from my supervisor and both my master teachers, as well as the classroom observation I did. Perhaps it was because I was already 50 years old when I started the credential program. Or maybe it was because I teach in a middle school in which, out of 180 students, there were two English Language Learners. Regardless, some of the material I mastered in the credential program was a pointless waste of time. At one point, that question was literally asked: was your credential program a waste of time. Well, parts of it were and parts of it weren’t. Anyway, I didn’t tell the truth.
The people who taught me worked hard. The school that runs my credential program does an overall excellent job, within the constraints of idiocy mandated by the state of California. I was not going to get it in trouble by telling the truth. It wasn’t the fault of the college or its credential program. It is the fault of the fatuous fatheads who have never taught in a middle-school classroom, setting their absurd content standards and their “jump through the hoops” credential program that insures that almost no one in the right mind will make a mid-career switch into teaching.
Don’t get me wrong. Prior to October 2001, when I began my journey into the classroom, I thought teacher credentialling was stupid and that we should simply invite content experts into the classroom. Well, as one of my wise master teachers once said, “Yes, you can write. But can you teach someone else to write?” The jury is still out on her question, but even in science and math, where the need for teachers is desperate, I am not at all sure that a sparkling résumé insures the ability to impart information to students. You do need pedagogy and classroom management skills. If only those were the areas upon which teacher education concentrated.
Craig Reynolds asks:
Is “Teach for America” a good thing (or some kind of evil plot)?
New ideas in teaching yield dramatic results (USA Today editorial)
My answer: it is a good thing to bring fresh blood into the classroom, but this editorial makes a common mistake. Ignorance of good teaching methods is not, trust me, an advantage for teachers.
July 12, 2004
I was describing my excitement to a fellow teacher over two recent developments among my hobbies; my move to the automated distribution of column notification and the possibility that the musical I co-wrote in college may actually be staged, someday, at Brandeis. Since no script or score exists, I have been transcribing them for the last week, and getting a big kick out of it. Anyway, the headline records the reaction of one of my fellow teachers, who noted, “I wish you had as much enthusiasm for teaching as you do your hobbies. Are you sure you’re in the right line of work?” Sometimes, I wonder myself.
August 9, 2004
Am I a bad person because I am enjoying my summer break so much that I have doubts I want to go back to work? Even half time? An old friend wrote:
Back to school time is approaching. I hope you’re facing it with serenity. Do I remember rightly that you’re going to be teaching part time? Our old friend… finished her first year as a high school English teacher in Baltimore. She was very close to giving up her new career. It was that tough on her. But she’s decided to give it one more semester to see if it’s true that the second year is much better. My hats off to both of you. We need good teachers like you guys but it’s got to be a hard, hard thing to do.
This note made me feel better than you might imagine. First of all, I believe I am approaching the new year with serenity, if not joy and enthusiasm. I can still sleep at night, something I had trouble doing all during the school year (except during vacations) because I spent all night teaching in my dreams, too. But secondly, I was interested to hear that I’m not the only mid-life first-year teacher to conclude a first year with doubts about the suitability of a career in teaching. I, too, hope that (since what “they” said about the first year of teaching was true) what “they” say about the second year of teaching is true.
In the meantime, I am gradually clearing off my desk of tasks and ideas, some of which have sat on my desk since April. And I am writing this on Friday, not Saturday or Sunday. Much of what I do, I am sure, must seem trivial, but it is important to me and part of the reason I love life; always something new and interesting to do. I teach because it is new and interesting–and does something besides amuse me.
August 23, 2004
Here in Contra Costa County, the Kaiser hospitals offer a course in mindfulness. Its all about using relaxation techniques, yoga and Tai Chi to relax and reduce symptoms from various conditions. Many of the people in the class have amazing stories of pain and sacrifice; I’m just there to lower my stress in general, and to see if mindfulness can help me lose weight and enjoy my teaching job more. So far, it’s been interesting.
In the meantime, Monday and Tuesday are prep and the students return Wednesday. I believe I am ready for them, and that both they and I will have a better experience this year than last year.
August 30, 2004
As I write this I’ve had three days as a half-time teacher of 8th grade U.S. history. That means a later start, and three classes with 78 students instead of six classes with 172 students. It is still too early to tell for sure whether my new schedule will improve my teaching experience. But I can already say that showing up at 10:45 am seems to beat the hell out of showing up at 7:15 am, except for the 50% pay cut (on top of the 60% pay cut I took when I went from journalism to education). Luckily, it isn’t about the money. The cutback in hours was to improve my attitude towards my job and my students and to help with my health. So, that’s how I will judge its success.
One friend of mine told another that she had “never in her life seen me trying so hard to rationalize a decision” as I was working to rationalize my decision to be a teacher. That’s a tough critique, but a valid one. At this point, I have two years, thousands of dollars and a great deal of mental energy invested in becoming a teacher. If I can do it, like it, and maintain my health, I want to be a teacher.
Confounding things during this term is the on-line class I have to take–one of three credential courses which, if not completed by July will leave me with a state requirement for FIVE CLASSES! And the State of California wonders why it is having trouble recruiting and retaining teachers.
September 6, 2004
I’ve been trying a lot of things to get over my variety of health ills–really, everything except what I have to do, which is lose 100 pounds (I’ve finally lost 5, and that’s a start). Anyway, I am seeing a homoepathist (mostly for allergies), and a nutritionist, and a cardiac doctor, and I am taking a night class in mindfulness. Plus, I cut my work schedule back to half time. I don’t know which of these things is doing the trick–perhaps all of them had to work together. All I know is that the nutritionist tested my blood Saturday morning and for the first time in a year–I’m in balance! No bad pH, no toxins, no signs of stress in my adrenals or kidneys or liver. In fact, the results were so good they brought a tear to her eye. All I know for sure is that I feel better than I have since before I started teaching. I am relaxed, sleeping well, and controlling my appetite. I know this is good for me and my students both. I am not snapping at my students; a calmer me in the classroom is a better teacher, I am sure.
ALSO: I made quite a discovery in the classroom last week, which dovetailed with something I have known for years. People remember songs better than prose. The Animaniacs cartoon series used to do educational songs. One of them was all the state capitals. I played the song for my class, several of whom had heard it in 5th grade. Three of the students told me they got 100% on the state capitals test because they remembered the song.
This reminded me of something I discovered last year when I looked up Battle of New Orleans: “In 1814 we took a little trip, along with Col. Jackson down the mighty Mississip.” It was a hit folk song in 1959, but I discovered while searching for it that it has been written by Jimmy Driftwood, a high school principal and history teacher who loved to sing, play instruments and write songs, who wrote many other historical songs.
Well, Wacko’s state capital song, and “New Orleans” and Garrison Keillor’s song about the Minnesota State Fair convinced me I should write a historical song for my class. To the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, here it is:
The Aztec, Inca, Maya Song
(To the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic)
The Aztec lived in Mexico: TEN-och-tit-lan Lake.
Religion told them they could steal the crops that they could take.
The guns and bugs of Cortez were much more than they could take, in 1532.
Aztec, Inca and Maya, you can learn them if you try-a
Don’t just heave a great big sigh-a, Just learn to sing this song
The Maya built their pyramids, they’re quite a sight to see.
In Central America they ruled from sea to sea.
We don’t know just what happened, it remains a mystery from 900 A.D.
Did the slaves and farmers riot? Poor soil could not support their diet?
We know it just got really quiet when the Mayans disappeared
The Inca lived down south in the mountains by the sea.
They did terraces for farming and built stone-paved roads you see.
At Machu Picchu Incans felt religion come to be.
And Pizzaro killed them all
Aztec, Inca and Maya, you can learn them if you try-a
Don’t just heave a great big sigh-a, Just learn to sing this song
The Mayans did a calendar based on astronomy.
Incans ran the biggest empire known to you and me.
The Maya and the Aztec they did things religiously
And that just ends this song.
Sept. 13, 2004
I was at the doctor’s the other day, and he asked me how I liked teaching. Last year, when anyone asked me that question, I paused a long time before answering, indicating some ambiguity. This year, without even thinking, I said, “I love it.”
Is this because I teach half time? Did the luck of the draw give me easier students? Is it because this is my second year, not my first year? As my mother said, maybe it is all these things together. All I know is, so far I am having a much better year.
Sept. 20, 2004
Another thing I changed in my classroom this year (forgive me if I am repeating myself) is the lighting. I think fluorescent lighting stinks (figuratively, not literally). The literature on how bad it is for you is as long as your arm. Besides, we’re not doing brain surgery in the room. So I bought three up-facing lamps, and I light my room with indirect lighting now. Bright enough to see, but not so bright as to be stunning. Also, I keep the temperature down around 68; very effective to cool down the students and me during the heat wave that may have ended last week (we’ll see; it rained Saturday night, but that may just have been freakish).
I think the cool and the dark have improved student behavior.
Nov. 29, 2004
Wow! What a Cold
I got sick the day after the election. I know a lot of people who did. The letdown was palpable around here, as was the depression and fear. That’s got to affect your immune system.
It was just a bother for the first week, but then it peaked and became a constant hacking cough during the second week. Wednesday of Thanksgiving Week marks the third week of this cough, which is so bad at night I have to sleep in the guest bedroom–partly to help Vicki get a good night’s sleep, partly because it is easier to sleep sitting up in that bed.
I love my students, but Oh! Their germs.
I barely made it through last week–wouldn’t have made it, except that we had a Potluck Thanksgiving feast on Thursday I wasn’t about to force my colleague to run by herself. Plus there was a test and a quiz and mid-quarter progress reports.
This is why it fries my beans that administrators think we’re constantly trying to cheat them with sick days; they never consider the days we drag in because we’re professionals and feel we have to be there. I sincerely hope I didn’t give a single student my cold, even though one of them probably gave me theirs. But I did what I had to; I’m a teacher. Still, it’s heck to have a cold you can’t sleep off because you can’t sleep because you have a cold.
Teaching: Tying Up Loose Ends
In the process of compiling Tales of Teaching 2004, I was reminded of how I felt at various times during my first year, and how that compares to the way I feel this year.
I was up to the challenge of teaching, although I’m not sure I was up to the challenge of teaching well. I can listen and I can assess, but the question of inspiration is also still open. It was a bell-shaped curve; I moved a few students, left a few students in the cold, and merely annoyed most of the students in the middle by trying so hard.
I had forgotten that I really only wanted a half time job last year; I took what was offered then, got what I wanted this year.
I think I’ve learned enough never to have a section of my whiteboard entitled “Do Me First” again.
By Sept. 15 last year I was having back spasms, exhaustion, insomnia and anxiety. I was always tired and always sore I think weekly massages and a half-time schedule prevented those symptoms from being as virulent this year.
I still don’t have a “look” as good as my mother’s, but I am getting there. I yell less, glare more. And sometimes I blow my whistle.
Is still seem to be popular with my students, and I’m still unsure whether being beloved is an unadulterated good thing. It’s a compliment, but not necessarily and assessment.
My luck continues; one prep, great students, great colleagues. There is no teaching situation in the world better than that.
Last year, my illness came a month later, in December; I used almost the same words (I made it through the week) as I did this year for last week (see item below). Don’t know if falling ill earlier is a good sign or bad sign. I can’t be sick for Christmas; we’re going to Europe. The issue of “whether to take a sick day if you can still stand up without falling over,” on which I mused last February, is still an issue; it is still probably true that if you don’t take the time off, the illness will only drag out.
The gratification is still delayed. I am getting used to having a “got to be there” job with fixed hours and limited bathroom breaks. I am less frazzled. I still enjoy time off, but don’t spend all my time thinking about it. I checked with my wife this morning, who informs me that my attitude has improved 100% since last year.
The joy quotient is higher and the stress quotient lower, which, I am told, is typical for a second-year teacher. Joy will never hit 100% and stress will never hit 0 while I am still alive. I accept that.
Harry Wong, a seminar-giving super-teacher defines the phases of teaching as Fantasy, Survival, Mastery, and Impact. Fantasy was where I was before I started, survival is where I was last year. I feel I am moving towards mastery. Who knows how far off impact is.
Kevin Sullivan isn’t a fantastically wealthy teaching consultant, but I liked his teaching stories, including
We used to say,
“in a teacher’s first year, the teacher learns”
“in a teacher’s second year, the student learns”
And the cynical added
“after that no one learns”
And I’m still fond of my own formulation:
Teaching is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s a baseball season, not a football season. It’s a ground game, not a passing game–you grind out the yardage inch by inch on the way to the goal line. Don’t swing for the fences every day–take a single if you can hit one.
Paul E. Schindler Jr.
