Teaching Strategies Archive
Teacher Man by Frank McCourt
I connected with Teacher Man. As I read it, I kept thinking about life experiences and teaching experiences that I have in common with teacher-author Frank McCourt.
Like him, I do not come from a family of teachers. I am the first teacher in my family. In fact, I am the first in my family to earn a bachelor's or master's degree, as far as I know.
Also like him, I did real work. I started working when I was 14 years old caring for a homebound 6-year-old with a heart defect. I baby-sat him while his mother worked as a nurse. I also cleaned their apartment. When I was 16 years old, I worked at a sandwich counter in a small drugstore on Main Street, USA. When I tired of that, I worked in a dry cleaning shop checking people's dirty laundry in and their clean laundry out. When I was 18 years old, I began working as a teller in a bank. I did this work through college until I earned my bachelor's degree in English Education.
It took me five years to earn that B.A. degree that is usually earned in four years. I had limited financial resources so I had to work and I attended a local community college where the fees were much less than those at the four-year colleges. After earning my A.A., I worked full-time for a year in order to buy a car because my '64 Chevy was wearing out. I also needed a break to recover from a broken heart. I had been dating my first love for seven years when he decided he wanted to play the field. I was ready to get married and he wanted to play the field. Broke my heart. After working for a year full-time as a bank teller, I applied for a student loan to continue my education at the state university. Why? Danny.
One of my part-time jobs was after-school care for elementary students. One of my students, Danny, had some interesting learning differences. I obtained permission from his mom to visit his classroom, a classroom full of elementary kids with various special needs. I began researching different types of learning problems. Why can't some kids learn to read and write and do math? I was hooked, but didn't know it until later. I wanted to earn my teaching degree as fast as possible because money was hard to come by and I needed to get a better paying job than working in a bank.
Most of my teaching experience was at the secondary level in middle and high school. I started out teaching English. In 1975, PL 94-142 was passed requiring students with special needs to be identified and taught by teachers with special training. Prior to this law, these students were usually sent elsewhere including back home. To meet this federal requirement, the county in which I was teaching offered to reimburse teachers for graduate school classes in special education leading toward a certification or degree in that field. Now, I could learn more about learning differences and the tuition would be "free." So, I attended Johns Hopkins University classes in the evenings and summers. In 1978, I completed my M.S. degree in two and one-half years while teaching middle school language arts full-time.
For 24 years, I taught adolescents with learning and behavioral problems in regular classrooms, special education classrooms, alternative programs and schools, and a juvenile detention center. On a typical day, I heard "fuck you" much more often than "thank you." I was an adult so I was to be feared as one of those authority figures who often hurt more than they helped. I was a teacher who taught reading and writing, two things that most of them did not do well, so I was the enemy. If you cannot read and write, the world of words is a serious threat to your self-esteem. Their fear of failure was masked by being bad.
I have also taught adult education classes in English and English as a second language to adults. I thought I had gone from hell to heaven in those classes. The adult students wanted to learn and used their time wisely because they had little time outside of class to do schoolwork. They had jobs and kids. Many of the adult ESL students bowed to me as their greeting and farewell. Bowed to me. Such an honor. They brought me dinner. They respected teachers. I was not the enemy.
I had a lot to learn from these adults. My first night teaching adults ESL, I asked them to complete a name card. I wrote my name on a folded index card to provide the visual model. Strangely, all of my students had my name! If they could write at all, they simply copied the letters as best they could. These were adults who had never attended school in their home countries, or if they had gone to school it was for a minimal amount of time becuase they had to work. Some of them were not familiar with writing utensils and few were familiar with the American English alphabet. A new alphabet is just plain scary.
We started learning English with something easier to manipulate and master than letters and phonemic sounds: money. Play money. How to count it. How to spend it on groceries in a food store ad. How to make sure you get the correct change. Important lessons because they were using money in their daily lives. And, we played "Millionaire." As a conclusion to each lesson, there was a million dollar question based on new content. The winner received a fake million dollar bill with the question and answer on the back, as well as his or her name, the date and my signature. Of course, everyone clapped for the winner ending the class on a very positive note. I wonder how many of those valuable play million dollar bills are still on their refrigerators at home?
We set-up a restaurant using a simple cooking griddle. I put on my chef's apron and hat and cooked pancakes. Students walked through the cafeteria line asking for their drink of choice (some kind of juice), how many pancakes they wanted, butter, syrup, eating utensils, and napkin. Oh, and please and thank you. What fun! Just as Mr. McCourt's students shared a cultural banquet in the park, we shared foods from our home countries during our last class when personal certificates were awarded for attendance, participation, effort, and achievement in areas such as best cashier, best calendar gal or guy, best doctor and other roles played during our practical lessons. Toward the end of the class, I video-taped their patient-doctor role plays. They requested to view and review their starring roles on TV.
Like Teacher Man, I failed as a doctoral student, several times. My mind does not tolerate numbers well, so research totally confused me and gave me a headache, also a heartache because I knew that if I did not get research and do original research, I would never earn that doctoral degree. So be it.
I had several opportunities to be an adjunct faculty member teaching seminars in education and supervising teacher education candidates. Like Mr. McCourt says, this is the lowest level of teaching in college, but the students were mature, listened, and didn't throw things. Well, they didn't throw things.
Mr. McCourt came alive in room 205 where he was given the freedom to teach creative writing. I loved teaching creative writing, although I don't think that you can teach that subject at all. I gave students opportunities to write and invited them to write and I wrote with them. They surfed through the picture file for inspiration and responded to this visual eye-candy by filling in poetry patterns with their own words that expressed their own thoughts about their personal interests. Sometimes they strayed from the given patterns, yea. Sometimes, they just wrote. Much student writing was published and shared.
While I have more respect for those who have escaped the classroom to higher positions than Mr. McCourt seemed to have in his tale, I have been known to "talk back" to supervisors and professors. Professors may have lectured to me about teaching, but I learned how to teach in the classroom with my students. Supervisors have criticized me for using "unorthodox" methods to get students to attend class, pay attention, participate, or just behave. I was scolded for "over-stepping my boundaries" in defense of students who got class schedules that doomed them to failure or consequences that had nothing to do with teaching but were pure punishment to make the "victim" feel better, in other words, these consequences were given to hurt the student or to get revenge for the teacher. Discipline means teaching, not torturing.
When I was teaching adults ESL, our classes met in an old community school building. I don't mind teaching in old buildings, in fact, many of them have great woodwork, big windows, character, and potential. However, this one had been woefully neglected. It was dirty and depressing. When I complained to the "Instructional Leader" aka Principal about the dirty conditions and told her that my adult students did not fit in the old wooden desks designed for elementary students, I was ignored. In fact, one of my female students got stuck in one of those desks and did not return to class, ever. When I noticed that the instructional materials were old workbooks, that there was an absence of manipulatives, and the two overhead projectors were broken, I was ignored. So, I bought my own manipulatives and overhead projector. When I asked for a screen for the overhead projector to project on, I was told that there was none to be had, so I used a bedsheet. When I complained that the cockroaches were partying during class and that the students were complaining and that roaches were marching across my desk when I was packing up to go home at night, I was ignored. Enough.
I e-mailed the Instructional Leader's supervisor, and I was comforted with words, but no actions followed. So, I wrote an e-mail to the community leaders and board of education members about these unhealthy and disrespectful conditions. I was called into the Director's office to meet with her and the Instructional Leader. No niceties. I was told that adult education is the unwanted step-child of the public schools and there was little support for it and less money. My success with the students was complimented, but perhaps my expectations were too high and wouldn't I be happier teaching elsewhere? I'll stay thank you. I've invested much of my own money and time into teaching this basic literacy class and I'd like to continue. Neither was pleased. In fact, I'm sure that I had been summoned to be fired, but my success rate with students was exceptional. Most of the students I had taught had finished the class and moved up to the next level or chosen to repeat the class to learn more. I had 21 students, the class is supposed to be limited to 10, and 17 had completed the course and decided to continue their study of English. One of the "lost" students was the woman who got stuck in the pint-sized student chair.
Because of this success with my students and the shortage of teachers in this field, I was allowed to continue teaching this course and was given an afternoon class to add to my schedule the next semester. I volunteered to help with registration. Motivated adults paying a tuition fee to take a class to learn English lined up in the hall, down the steps, and outside, in the summer heat. I took several older folks and one very pregnant woman inside to a table to sit and wait for their turns.
The screening process consisted of completing forms and taking a paper-pencil test, in English. Those who could not speak English, showed their papers and folks helping with registration completed enrollment cards for them. ALL were then directed to a classroom where they were given the paper-pencil screening test. One Hispanic woman kept saying, No English. Her words were ignored and she was handed the test and a pencil. She stared at the paper. She held the pencil too tightly. When I walked by, her fingers were bleeding. I took her to the main office to find a first aid kit. She washed her hands and put band-aids on her wounds. I told her to come back on Monday, pointing to a calendar, at 6:30 PM, pointing at the clock. She smiled and departed. I took her test and circled the blood stains and wrote in big letters across the top, NO ENGLISH.
During the first staff meeting for the new semester, I was told that my two classes would meet in two different classrooms. This was not acceptable to me because I had spent my own money, energy, and time on weekends cleaning up and decorating that first classroom. I put boric acid in the cracks to kill the roaches. The Instructional Leader told me that the boric acid was blown around by the fans during the morning classes and caused some itchy eyes and discomfort. Don't do it again. I did a bulletin board that had not been done for decades. I had asked the morning teacher if this would be OK. She told me not to do anything extra because we did not get paid for that. I wanted to use the manipulative materials that I had bought and I did not want to transport them up and down the hall between the afternoon and evening classes during my dinner break.
I called the Instructional Leader and asked her to allow these classes to meet in the same classroom, preferably the one that I had cleaned and decorated. She said that it was too late to change the schedules. I told her that I would post the change on the classroom doors, meet the students, and we would travel to the other classroom together. She said that this request was more complicated than this. How can I help? Just accept your assignment without complaining, she stated. I quit. On the Friday before the first day of classes on Monday, I just quit. I would not be dismissed and disrespected. Yes, I felt terrible about the students, but my self-respect was at stake and I had had enough. Too bad because I really liked teaching adults ESL and the students learned and enjoyed the class. Although I was sent a letter that stated that I would never be rehired in that system because I had caused undue hardship for the Instructional Leader by quitting without notice, I will teach ESL to adults again elsewhere, hopefully somewhere the students and I are treated with respect and dignity. First, do no harm.
Most recently, reprimanding fingers wagged when I publicly, through letters to the editor in local newspapers, condemned standardized testing requirements as impossible for some, too stressful for others, and just plain torturous for students with reading disabilities. If you can't read it, you can't comprehend it and you certainly can't answer questions based on unread content. Requiring students with diagnosed specific reading disabilities to pass the on-grade-level standardized test slaps the kid in the face and screams to everyone just one more time that this kid can't read well. We know this already. This is a cruel and inhumane practice being done to many students in public schools everywhere. First, do no harm.
As for parents, most of my students' parents were on my side because they knew that I cared about their children as people and I expected them to learn. I made efforts to contact them with positive news and to include them in problem-solving when there was a conflict. But, there were a few who did not want to hear the truth as I saw it with their child and they were quick to complain to the authorities about me. So be it.
Like Teacher Man, I've been told I should write a book. I envy published authors. I read and re-read Susan Ohanian's works. I read books by Mel Levin, Alfie Kohn, Thom Hartmann, Ed Hallowell, William Glasser, William Ayers and everything by Torey Hayden. Wish I could write a book like any one of them. Wish I could put pen to paper and "Sing my song, dance my dance, and tell my tale."
There are some differences between Teacher Man and me. I would never even attempt substitute teaching (or driving a school bus full of kids). Substitute teaching is tougher than teaching. You are expected to be someone else, or just baby-sit. Neither task is possible with teenagers who are too old to be baby-sat and who do not tolerate imitations or fakes.
I think that I had a sense about or a gift for teaching from the beginning because I knew the importance of "We." Late in this book, Mr. McCourt says to his class, "We're in this together." I knew this from day one and believed it through my last day in the classroom. We can and will learn, and we did.
On page 255 in Teacher Man, Mr. McCourt writes:
Find what you love and do it. That's what it boils down to. I admit I didn't always love teaching. I was out of my depth. You're on your own in the classroom, one man or woman facing five classes every day, five classes of teenagers. One unit of energy against one hundred and seventy-five units of energy, one hundred and seventy-five ticking bombs, and you have to find ways of saving your own life. They may like you, they may even love you, but they are young and it is the business of the young to push the old off the planet. I know I'm exaggerating but it's like a boxer going into the ring or the bullfighter into the arena. You can be knocked out or gored and that's the end of your teaching career. But if you hang on you learn the tricks. It's hard but you have to make yourself comfortable in the classroom. You have to be selfish. The airlines tell you if the oxygen fails you are to put on your mask first, even if your instinct is to save the child.
The classroom is a place of high drama. You'll never know what you've done to, or for, the hundreds coming and going. You see them leaving the classroom: dreamy, flat, sneering, admiring, smiling, puzzled. After a few years you develop antennae. You can tell when you've reached them or alienated them. It's chemistry. It's psychology. It's animal instinct. You are with the kids and, as long as you want to be a teacher, there's no escape. Don't expect help from the people who've escaped the classroom, the higher-ups. They're busy going to lunch and thinking higher thoughts. It's you and the kids. So, there's the bell ... Find what you love and do it.
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