Chasing your Tail Isn't as Fun as it Looks; or, An Emperor Sits in Church

Education...I have a really good friend, goes way, way back, told me once when I was getting my M.Ed., “don’t ever call yourself an educator.” He went on about the type of teacher who refers to himself as an educator. I didn’t know what he was talking about. He is more wizened than me. He’d been around the block, many more blocks than I had. He’d dealt with reputable folk….me not so much. I’ve spent most of my life carving no powerful connections.

Like I said, I didn’t know what he was talking about. What’s wrong with referring to yourself as an educator? Nonetheless, I decided, from his tone of voice and anecdotal evidence, I would always say I was a teacher. Since…I’ve come to find myself more as an instructor. I still call myself a teacher when people ask, but in my CV I say I’m an instructor.

I probably shouldn’t admit this, but it’s a fundamental problem—an inner conflict—something I’ve always thought—I don’t really like teachers. I’ve said from the beginning of my career as a teacher… “just promoting the fraud.” And I still believe this.

When I first started teaching I could never sustain the fraud. By the end of the second week, students had lost faith in me. As the years went by, I learned to stretch this space of faith longer and longer into the school year. I remember, my fourth year teaching was the first time I was able to sustain their faith in me until the end of the year.

I call my students by their last names. This tactic helps tremendously. Mr. So-and-so, can you tell me what part of speech this word is? How does this help understand context Miss Such-and such? I’m also brutally honest with them. I think of two instances in my life as to why I am truthful with my students. Mr. Barge, my 9^th and 10^th grade English teacher, who broke down in front of us one day, and more recently, Atticus Finch’s advice to his brother Jack… “Kids see through your bullshit.” Or something to that effect.

Most teachers are well intentioned. I shouldn’t need to remind people the road to hell was paved with good intentions. Most teachers went to high school and were successful, then straight to college, then back to high school to teach. They’ve never had jobs. This is a fundamentally flawed system. Teachers don’t know what the world is like. A friend of mine recently told me his daughter came home excited about having to learn cursive writing. He was befuddled at the notion that teaching hours would be wasted on such an archaic skill. It’s a beautiful truth. Why on earth are we still teaching kids to write in cursive. The only justifiable reason that even approached sensible I’ve heard is to sign your name. But, upon further reflection, teach them to sign their name and move on. Other reasons I’ve heard: They need it in high school. They need it to read other people’s cursive writing. They need to be able to read their teacher comments. All of these reasons are self-perpetuating. The only reasonable rationale is to be able to read other people’s writing, which is debunked as soon as you realize that all…and I can verify this…all, forms and documents of official nature, academic, business, government or otherwise are either in print form or word processed.

When is the last time you read a memo in cursive, let alone in paper form. It’s a preposterous skill to teach and a waste of time. But, ask a teacher, and they will stand on ceremonious hyperbole defending the silly skill. Teachers have no ability to see their positions objectively.

I have encountered more teachers of the variety who would kill themselves before admitting what they’re teaching is obsolete than I care to admit. We are teaching students to analyze literature in a world where nobody is reading books. The average time spent reading is 15 minutes as an adult. 20 years ago, I remember having to learn about art. Having to write about it. We used to laugh…who in the fuck is going to care about this? We’d ask each other. Care about why DaVinci’s Mona Lisa is smiling oddly…this is about as helpful as understanding Raskolnikov’s need to taunt the police chief.

Yes, these are interesting quandary to ponder. But essentially valueless. We are more interesting people because we’ve thought about these things, but there’s no value in it. This is the core of my problem with educators.

Every English teacher fancies himself or herself a writer. I do as well. This is important because you can’t teach writing or analysis of texts without understanding the writing process yourself. Trying to get an English teacher to share their writing is like trying to get a 7^th grader to share something they’ve written personally. I’ve come across more than a handful of students who want to share what they’ve written and I always enjoy reading what they’ve written. I’ve learned students just want to hear that I liked their story. I think English teachers are the same, with the added baggage of years of experience. The vast number of students whose writings will never see publication; ratio-wise the same is true of English teachers. So, in both cases, why should we read these writings with such a critical eye. We would do better to allow the authors’ stories to exist within the lives they’ve been created, and not “make suggestions.”

Of course I have a different approach for essay writing. I will have students write stories and then analyze each others’, and hopefully provide authentic critic/creator experiences. It’s difficult to persuade kids they have as much right as anyone in the world to make judgements on texts bound in published books. To a kid, the act of picking up a book carries too much weight.

For example: You give out the next book to your class. The Outsiders. Maybe 4 or 5 have already read it and love it. Another couple of students have friends who’ve read it and can’t wait to read it. Then there’s a handful who’ve heard about the other class that’s reading it now and have heard how cool it is. There is weight in these expectations. And then, as English teachers we tell the kids we are going to create an argumentative thesis that speculates on what message the author is trying to deliver. That’s a best case scenario, things start to spiral down fast once you start including things like…what’s the effect of literary devices on tone or atmosphere, or how does diction convey point of view. To a seventh grader, this must seem like a preposterous and utterly pointless endeavor. To a senior, you can take away the preposterous, but the pointless aspect of such an obscure task still resides inside the psyche.

So give a task like write a short passage wherein the student must convey an emotion about a gift they’ve received. The challenge is to convey an emotion that is “not cliché” but maybe for the younger kids, “not normal.” Then students share documents and analyze how their friend expressed the character’s emotion…i.e., what emotion is it and what language delivers the emotional connotations.

This will help students see how often these literary “tricks” often rely upon one or two phrases, and many times one or two words is all it takes. Examples can be made of subtle and exaggerated approaches. This can parlay into dialogue and sharing verbally and hopefully generate deeper understanding. Do enough of these and then slip in an excerpt from a famous story and have the students do the same thing.