Thoughts on Teaching in Public Schools

I am about to enter my second year as a teacher. Some in education believe that the idealism and motivation to succeed as a teacher dim after the first year. Not a surprising perspective, I might add. But while I am more realistic about what the job entails, and what the results will sometimes be, I feel neither my idealism or motivation about the job has dimmed. If anything, I am more prepared and motivated, and feel I will thus do a better job than my first year. I don't think I did a bad job my first year, but I feel that the quality of how I teach can only go up (it does for most teachers after their first year). To put it another way, I feel the quality of how I interact with my students can only go up. Relationships and interaction with students is what teaching is primarily about.

I find it interesting in today's debate about education reform how so many individuals believe that if we had greater experts in content areas in the classroom, students would be learning more and scoring higher on tests. I suppose it is natural to think that a person with a PhD in math would make a better math teacher than someone with a teaching degree. And certainly, we want math teachers to have a significant amount of knowledge on math, just as we want any teacher to have a significant amount of knowledge with the subject they teach. But one of the first things I learned when entering my teacher training program is that knowledge of and passion for a specific subject is only a small part teaching in public schools.

Teaching in public schools isn't like teaching at the college level. Unlike college students, there will be plenty of students in public schools who do not want to be there, and could care less about the subject they are learning. And if a college student doesn't feel like going, they can simply skip class, whereas a student in a public school has to be there or they will be considered truant. However smart a person may be when it comes to the knowledge of the subject, they will be lucky to teach one single student without a great understanding how to interact with students. Teaching in a public schools is not only about having good classroom management skills, but also getting to know what motivates students (ALL of them). Will you necessary reach all of the students? No, but you try your best. Otherwise, you are not doing your job.

Kenneth Bernstein has just written a really good post about teaching. Specifically, he gives quotes from different teachers about what it means teach. These quotes come from a book called Conversations with Great Teachers, by Bill Smoot. Looking over the quotes Bernstein publishes, they all one thing in common: none of them are about the knowledge or passion for the content area. My favorite quote is the one Bernstein leads his post off with from a special education teacher in Florida:

"One of my mottos is, 'There's nothing special about special education. It's just good education.' All the things that work in special education work in regular education. It's figuring out what works best for each child, how to motivate kids. And how to get them involved."