Thank You, Taylor Mail

Education is the miracle, I’m just the worker.

--Taylor Mali, from "Miracle Workers"

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Opening Day Eve has passed, as has your free time to watch movies. The time for inspiration is over; it’s school time! Any “free time” now is most likely spent planning, grading, sometimes even getting an uninterrupted night’s sleep.

But if you want a quick breather and to put a smile back on your face, especially on a difficult day, I recommend a quick hit of YouTube to the tune of Taylor Mali. Taylor is a poetry slam champion, a passionate advocate for the joy of teaching, and a wonderful performer who will make you laugh, challenge you to think, and then make you laugh again.

“What Teachers Make” is the most obvious choice from his catalog of poems. This rant against the audacity of a party guest asking about a teacher’s salary, as if that is the big draw to the profession, has made the rounds of teacher chats and blogs.

This was one of my first YouTube finds and has remained one of my favorites. It never gets old, and if you haven’t seen it, you’re in for a treat.

If you like that, try out “Totally Like Whatever” and “The The Impotence of Proofreading.”

I’ve shown the first one to students and some totally get the satiric send up of the imprecise speech and annoying verbal habits of today’s society, not just the youth. (Did you see how “whatever” and “totally” made the 2009 list of most annoying words? Anyway, at the end of the day it is what it is.)

As for the second poem, well, few things make me laugh out loud like this comical imagining of over relying on a spell checker. But make sure no one else is around while viewing it as the unintended results of a misspelling can be hilariously and embarrassingly inappropriate (we’ve all been there, right?). Guilty pleasure.

One of the most advantageous things about these gifts is that the rules of the poetry slam say that each entry can be no longer than 3 minutes. That means you can view one in between classes, if the need arises.

And it usually does. Enjoy!

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‘Are we going to watch a movie?’

Sleeplessness, sickness and other teacher Opening Day Eve rituals

To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?" Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play *goes on* and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?

--Robin Williams in Dead Poet’s Society

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If you’re just starting your first day as a teacher, let me let you in on a little secret. Prepare for a restless night.

Oh, and feeling like you’re going to throw up is not uncommon either. (That morning sickness may actually continue for the first week. Bring mouthwash and a change of clothes to work.)

I’ve been teaching for more than a decade now and the sleepless, sick feelings of Opening Day Eve have not gone away yet. It took me years and a few stories from other teachers to convince me I wasn’t alone in this.

Ah, but there’s something else you should know. The first moment in front of your students. That’s where the magic begins. And all the sleepiness and sickness will be forgotten as you turn on and try to flip their “on” switch also.

Of course you’ll be exhausted and sick again the second night, but that’s another story.

Ben Franklin said that “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” You’ve done all the lesson preparation. But have you prepared yourself for the marathon-length sprint that is the 180-plus day school year? I’ll share my own ritual to give you ideas if you don’t have one (or if you want a new one).

My annual pre-school ritual consists of studying the greats of education, or at least my greats: Charles Edward Chipping, LouAnne Johnson and John Keating. That is, a movie marathon consisting of “Goodbye, Mister Chips,” “Dangerous Minds” and “Dead Poets Society.”

I can’t recall how I came to choose these three movies, but they’re always in the same order and they never fail to get me in the right mood for the year.

Goodbye, Mr. Chips

This 1939 tearjerker sees Robert Donat playing the reserved teacher everyone calls “Mr. Chips.” During his long career dedicated solely to perfecting his craft and his students, he aspires to be headmaster of his boarding school for upper class students in WWI-era England, but is always passed over for promotions. He finally finds himself coming out of retirement to lead the school as many younger teachers – and former students – have gone off to fight in the war. He mourns with the rest of the school the daily remembrance of students and teachers who have died, and celebrates with his school as he announces the war’s end.

I always enjoy seeing the younger Chips coming to the realization, with the help of his wife, that teaching is about more than strong content and discipline, but getting to know the individuals in the seats.

This year’s viewing was especially significant in light of recent calls for school reform. At one point, the headmaster asks the senior Chips to retire for failing to conform to the new teaching methods. Chips sticks to his guns and stays on long enough to convince the headmaster that the old ways are just as valuable in molding boys into fine young men.

The movie becomes Kleenex fodder when Chips, on his deathbed, responds to people empathizing that he never had children saying that is untrue; he has had thousands. And as his life flashes before his eyes, what he sees is the long line of students he has served, punctuated by the last student he helped saying “Goodbye, Mr. Chips.” Sniff.

Alternate choice: “Mr. Holland’s Opus.”

Dangerous Minds

This 1995 movie adapts LouAnne Johnson’s book about her early teaching experiences, “My Posse Don’t Do Homework.” Michelle Pfeiffer plays the ex-Marine who finds it difficult teaching in a poor inner city high school until she employs what one IMDB.com critic called “unconventional teaching tactics”  -- like getting to know her students (see Mr. Chips) – to help them find success.

The part that always gets me is when Pfeiffer visits the mother of two students who haven’t shown up in days, only to find out the mother had pulled them out of school.

“I saw what they were bringing home: poetry and (expletive deleted),” the mother tells the flabbergasted teacher. “A waste of time. They got more important things to worry about…. I ain’t raising no doctors and lawyers here. They got bills to pay. Go find yourself some other poor boys to save.”

I don’t see myself as a savior. But this scene reminds me that our students have a life outside of school, sometimes a difficult one, and we can’t forget that as we try to teach them things from which they see no immediate payoff.

I’m also struck by the ironic reality of education when Pfeiffer asks a veteran teacher for supplies to help her challenge the curriculum, and she’s told they’re out of copy paper and art paper and low on pencils. “But we have a lot of students so that about makes it even,” the sarcastic vet says.

Alternate choice: “Freedom Writers.”

Dead Poets Society

This 1989 film was one of my favorite films before I even thought about switching careers to teaching, but it took on greater significance afterward. Robin Williams plays an energetic English teacher at an all-boys New England school who teaches the importance of the classics, but more so includes life lessons on going against the status quo and living for the moment (making the Latin phrase “carpe diem” famous).

This one has more favorite scenes than I have room to describe (for those of you who’ve seen it, I can just abbreviate it thusly: standing on the desk, ripping pages from the “J. Evans Pritchard” poetry anthology, walking in the courtyard, kicking soccer balls while reciting poetry).

But the thing that gets me fired up, and why I save this film for last, is when he kneels in the middle of the class, huddling his students around him, and telling them why we read and write poetry.

We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?" Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play *goes on* and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?

Between this and timid student Todd “sounding his barbaric yawp” with an impromptu poem in front of the class, it shows me the awesome possibilities of teaching.

Alternate choice: None. There is no substitution for this one. Enjoy it on its own.

So to all the teachers out there, good luck for a good Opening Day Eve and for a good year. And to paraphrase Mr. Keating: Carpe diem, teachers. Seize the day. Make your lives – and those of your students – extraordinary.

What rituals do you have on Opening Day Eve? Email me your story, name, school and how long you’ve been teaching at unknownteacherTU@gmail.com for possible inclusion in a future posting.

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Entering the Unknown

I sing of the unknown teacher…. She communicates her own joy in learning and shares with boys and girls the very best treasures of her mind. She lights many candles with, in later years will shine back to cheer her. This is her reward.                                               

                                                                                   --Henry Van Dyke            __________________________________________________________________________________

Quick. How many of the teachers you’ve had can you name? I’ll give you 30 seconds. I’ll wait.

(… Ms. Smith – really! Mr. Jackson. Ms. Paintin. Mr. Wright. Mr. Hopper. Mrs. Meeks. Mr. Hoke.… Drat! Time’s up.)

How’d you do? Odds are you too failed to reach double digits, unless you have a photographic memory (and probably even if you do). Give yourself more time, even 30 minutes, and you’ll probably get only a few more on your list.

Why? Let’s face it, when it comes down to it, it doesn’t really matter.

Being a teacher, I understand the natural desire to be liked and the professional desire to have a lasting impact and to be remembered. But having students remember us is not why we get into this gig. Not one lesson plan ever has a TSWBAT (The Student Will Be Able To…) for this. What we want students to remember are the things that we teach them – the skills, the knowledge, the life lessons – and the confidence in their own self efficacy as learners and as doers in “The Real World.”

In many respects, it’s like being a parent. We spend our time preparing our children for life, and then watch them go. We can brag about their accomplishments, share in their sorrows, maybe even watch them become like us. Some will come back, but some never will. And that’s okay. As much as it may hurt, ultimately it’s about them, it’s not about us.

And then there’s the time limitation. In most cases, we have them for only 180 days, and in the upper grades for no more than a few hours a week. (Of course, when I think about it, that’s sometimes more time than a parent gets working two or three jobs to make ends meet for their family.) As with your own child, every moment is valuable.

So I don’t get too bugged when a student addresses me simply as “Mister,” or even mispronounces my name.

And that brings me to my edu-blog, for which I created the nom de plume The Unknown Teacher. The idea was inspired by ‘70s comic Murray Langston, best known for performing his stand-up routine with a paper bag over his head. Reportedly, he started the Unknown Comic gimmick because he was embarrassed about accepting a job on The Gong Show.

Unlike Langston, I am never embarrassed about my job. I love it, despite its faults and shortcomings. And I realize, after more than a decade in my chosen profession, that we need to discuss what works and what doesn’t to make education better for everyone. And yet, the reality is that it is easier for a teacher to teach about the 1^st Amendment than to practice it. Everything that you say and do in such a public position can come back to bite you, especially if it runs counter to the ideas of the parents, the school administrators and/or the community.

For these reasons, plus the hectic nature of the school year, we’re left hearing most about education from those who are not – or never have been – a classroom teacher. That’s what we need to reform. We need more teacher voices in the public conversation, rather than confining them and their voices within the four walls of their classroom.

And as we teach students to be the change they want to see in the world, I decided this year that I need to practice what I teach, and use my writing voice to give what I hope will be a realistic and different perspective on the realities of education today. A teacher’s perspective.

The difference here being that I don’t put my name on it. But when it comes down to it, does that really matter? Reporters put their name on their writing every day. Take the opening quiz again and see how many of them you can name.

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