Remember the perky and pretty young teacher from Leave it to
Beaver? She was the quintessential
combination of charm and firm hand.
She lead her students to the Brook of Learning, kept a tight lid on the
shenanigans of Larry and Whitey, and had the unwavering adoration of her
students, the Beaver included.
She’ s not real.
Hate to break it to ‘ya, but perfect teachers exist in the
land of unicorns and Barbie.
I cannot speak, of course, for all teachers everywhere, but
it seems to me that many of my coworkers are in the same little paddle boat as
me – just trying to make a little headway against a very strong current of long
hours, endless meetings, professional development demands, disgruntled
parents, money spent out of pocket for classroom supplies, and not enough time
to plan for the thing we most want to do – teach.
When I was a kid on vacation at one of many lakes south of
St. Louis – an annual tradition for us – I once had the brilliant idea to walk
from our cabin down to the dock where my parents were fishing. My genius challenge to myself was to do
it with my eyes shut. I planned to cross a
narrow bridge over open water with my eyes tightly closed. I was a child prodigy, really… so far
above my peers intellectually.
This little story is proof of that. Anyone could do it with their eyes open.
I was home free too.
I could hear the voices of my parents and the lap of the water against
the weathered boards of the dock. With
one foot in front of the other, carefully, slowly (this sort of thing was
better left to we professional blind lake walkers), I made my way to my parents
side, who would be overwhelmed with my daring-do and spirit of adventure. They would know beyond question that
their oldest daughter was no ordinary child. There would probably be a fish fry and homemade ice cream
that night in my honor.
Suddenly, my Ked-clad foot felt only air underneath it and then
the cool of the water was a shock against my skin. Oh yeah. I
forgot to mention one little wrinkle in my adventurous plan. I couldn’t swim. Or COULD I??? Suddenly my little legs were instinctively kicking for all
they were worth, my head that housed my enormous Einstein brain just barely keeping my nose
above water. Scared? Uh…yeah. Terrified, actually.
I could hear my dad’s voice shouting to “KEEP KICKING!!” Then he was
beside me in the water lifting me to the safety of the sun-warmed dock, where I
lay shivering and retching. It was
not my finest hour. He probably
said something to my mother later along the lines of, “She’s not very bright,
is she?”
Teaching feels that way to me now. I love teaching.
I LOVE teaching. I love children and imparting knowledge to them. But actual
cIassroom instruction is only one facet of this demanding job. Many days I feel like I am expending all of my energy just to keep my head above water. I won’t even tell you how many hours I
put in during a standard week.
It’s ridiculous. My husband
and daughter could tell you. And
to be fair, it is my choice to work those extra hours. I didn’t really process
it in those terms the first year or so, but I have my teaching sea legs under
me enough that I am seeing my profession with a little more clarity. It’s like seeing the one you love in a
bad light for the first time. It’s
a little heartbreaking.
Here’s where Miss Landers-envy rears its green
head. I think the educational
world of Beaver and Wally’s world was less complicated than the world I stepped
into two short/long years ago. I
think teachers showed up a comfortable 30 minutes early, wandered into the
teacher’s lounge for a cup of Folgers with their comrades, perused the daily
newspaper, graded a few papers, put in their day of work, entered their grades
into their grade book when the day was over, sent the kid with detention out
the door to clap the chalky erasers together (I would only know this because I
did lots of chalky-eraser-clapping in my day), thought through the next day’s
lessons, and then walked out the door thirty minutes after Judy had swung her
braids down the white tiled hall.
Mr. Dahl and I are in the middle of renovating a house to
rent out. As John ripped out walls
and literally tore the thing apart in order to start over, he found a myriad of
papers that had been in the old house for decades. One of them caught my eye. It was a teacher’s contract dated January 21st,
1957, fifty-four years before I
signed my contract – almost to the day.
This amazing teacher agreed to teach three grades simultaneously while
earning the shockingly large sum of three hundred dollars a month. God bless her.
Under the Duties of Teachers heading, there were clear
expectations of flying the U.S. flag without fail, strict instructions for
observing Temperance Day, and dire warnings about gross immorality. Obviously times have changed.
I think teachers are suffocating under a blanket of
administrative bureaucracy. It’s a
complicated beast – I’m smart enough to recognize that. But No Child Left Behind and proving
academic proficiency has created an atmosphere of educational mushing for the
student, and prodding for the teacher to produce spectacular standardized test
scores.
I must confess to being a little disillusioned at the
moment.
I don’t know that teaching is more demanding now than it used to be first hand. I am a new teacher in a middle-aged body. I can only base this opinion on
conversations with those that have been in the profession far longer than
I. To a person, they claim that
teaching has gotten more demanding.
In some ways, this is probably a good thing. And yet, the students in the day of my yellowed contract
were the generation to send men to the moon and win the Cold War. Somehow they learned enough to be the
precursors to the digital age. The
factory model that public education was fashioned after served its purpose well
for that time. Does today’s
student receive a comparable education?
Is it better? Worse? That of
course, is bandied about by minds greater than mine.
But here's the core question of this rambling tome. Are things out of control in a teacher's world? Where is the line between teachers truly honing their craft
through professional development and the endless meetings and assignments being an annoying disruption to being competent teachers? Have we crossed that line? Will things equalize eventually? Time will tell.
I do not foresee it happening anytime soon. I can’t fix it, I just ask the questions. It's a gift.
I had to laugh when I pulled a slip of paper out of the
envelope entitled, “Hot Dish.” How
did that get in there? Maybe
instead of health insurance, they got recipes.
I have this mental image of the teachers in The Beaver’s
school sitting in the teacher’s lounge at the end of the day, smoking Lucky
Strikes and asking the very same questions I ask here today. Other than teachers actually smoking in
the building, maybe things haven’t really changed all that much. Maybe teachers will eventually take a collective
breath and say, “Enough already.
Let us get back to the business of teaching.”
I think Miss Landers would lead the way.
