by ALISTAIR BOMPHRAY & JESSE SCACCIA
There are a lot of people in this world who don’t love what they do. You can identify these poor saps by the resignation in their eyes, the frown lines around their mouths, and the stink of death that follows them like an anthrax cloud. They slither to and from work, go to great lengths to avoid real conversation, and are in bed by nine.
Here’s the scary part. Some of these people are teachers. I’ve seen them. One teaches down the hall from me now, a sloppy looking history teacher named Mr. Fish. He is one of the most miserable creatures I’ve ever shared a copy room with. He kicks at least three kids out of class per period. He mumbles when he speaks. He walks with his head down as if he’s scouring the ground for quarters or a sign that it’s time to return to the mother ship. The idea that he was once a human boy is unfathomable to me.
When I see him I want to shout so loud the whole hallway can hear, “Let’s give this teacher the biggest group hug north of the Rio Grande!”
A problem bigger than Mr. Fish’s unhappiness is the way it affects his students’ view of history. When students say they hate a certain subject, more often than not, that is teenage code for hating the teacher. We are not just vessels for our subjects; to the kids, we are the subjects, personified.
Good thing you’re different. You teach your subject because you love it, and to some degree, you live it. As an earth science teacher you see the world through the perspective of a scientist. As a history teacher you read the newspaper every day and, without trying, trace the stops of history that have led us to today. Or as a teacher of geometry, your world is a living, breathing, 3-dimensional piece of graph paper full of angles, shapes, and equations.
You’ve got to find a way to communicate that love to your students. If you’re a physics teacher, it might be through doing a cool lab, or studying scenes from movies from the perspective of a physicist (remember that scene from Speed when the bus jumps over the gap in the highway?), or wearing a mad scientist wig on Fridays. If you’re having fun, they’re having fun.
Make your lessons personal. Rather than the sterile, far-away examples from the textbook, make them specific to your life. A lesson on different types of clouds becomes a story about a fishing trip you took to Maine when recognizing an approaching low-pressure front saved you from getting drenched. Your introduction to the Pythagorean theorem, rather than a bunch of shakily drawn triangles on the board, can be an analysis of a football play.
We forget that the point of school is not school. The point of school is preparing students for life. Unfortunately, the confines and systems and general vibe of your average high school make this easy to forget. School becomes about grades and getting through units and getting through days.
It is easy to forget that we, as teachers, distribute wonder.
Language and visual arts are the poetry that makes our lives worth living. Science and math are the blueprints behind the magic of every day; lightning, reproduction, the combustion engine. Political science and history are evidence that no person stands alone, that we are flotsam in an ever-changing, all-powerful system.
You and I know and believe this. Your freshmen don’t. Share your love for your subject and the world for them will be forever changed.
You guys make me want to be a teacher. Or one of your students. It is certainly a shame how many people are bogged down with the daily grind of their lives and forget that each day is a gift and should be treated with respect and excitement. Teachers should have more utilities (like your book) for reminding them not to get caught up in the same formulaic “phoning-it-in” style of working. If you dread getting up every morning to go to work, something needs to change. And it can be as simple as your attitude and approach.