Vocation and Paralysis

The first question listed below by Jim Stenson is this: Do I have a sense of "vocation" about my teaching career? Do I strive to be an excellent professional, enjoying (as Aristotle put it) "the full use of one's powers along lines of excellence"?

My answer, written while sitting crosslegged on the curb of our parking lot, cut off from the flowering trees on the green and lovely lawn abutting the concrete roof of the nearby reservoir by the active sprinklers, is as follows:

Do I have a sense of "vocation" about my teaching career? Not particularly … well, yes and no. Sometimes I feel that I became a teacher because, if I ever have wanted to become anything, it is a writer, and as I don’t know what else I would do otherwise, and I haven’t become (or made myself) a writer, I might as well teach the writing I’ve read. That said, what else is writing but teaching your readers about politics, beauty, love, God, or whatever subject you take up? In addition, I genuinely enjoy discussing and exploring literature, sharing my own insights and theories and debating others. And even though I have not made myself a true literary scholar, have not engaged with the writing of others as deeply or widely as I should have, perhaps through cowardice or laziness or that mysterious inertic death urge that I let overcome so many of my plans, I still enjoy it.

Do I strive to be an excellent professional, enjoying (as Aristotle put it) "the full use of one's powers along lines of excellence"? No. I am not sure if I am lazy or simply perverse, but ever since I can remember, anything I objectively ought to do or subjectively think I should do, is distasteful to me. As a boy, I found the history book fascinating, butnot the part I was assigned. The Nazis fed my curiousity when the Aztecs had no flavour, but when I found the wars of religion putting me to sleep, those empires of the undiscovered Americas suddenly became bright and interesting. As an adult I am the same way: anything that smacks of obligation I am loathe to do. For this reason I was doubtful when the pedagogy pedants told us that one of our chief duties was making our material interesting through relevance. But, “Relevance be damned,” says the callow youth, “What will it cost me not to do it?” I am overstating my case, I suppose, smearing others with my own extrapolated perversity, and I know from experience that some teachers inspire and some dispirit, but I never wrote the papers of even my favorite classes until the night before.

I strive now and then, and put work into this and that, surf on sudden surges that carry me at their crest for an evening, a day, a week or sometimes more.

More was planned, but you know how reflection time is during teacher orientation week: it's not exactly a week at the Abbey of Gethsemane, or a lifetime in the desert, is it?

Off to grade summer papers - a drudgery that I sometimes enjoy, but I can hardly admit that, even to myself.

Questions for Reflection

Our new Head of School asked us today to do some reflection, around forty minutes, on our vocations as teachers, giving us a list of ten questions he has adopted from the materials of some chap named Jim Stenson. I'm going to post the ten questions as material I can work on in the future, as well as the answer I gave to the first question. If Jim Stenson, or whoever owns his work, feels I am transgressing on his intellectual property by posting these questions in a group, I hope he will let me know so that I may rectify the situation.

Here are the questions:

1. Do I have a sense of "vocation" about my teaching career? Do I strive to be an excellent professional, enjoying (as Aristotle put it) "the full use of one's powers along lines of excellence"?

2. How do I expect each of my students to change for the better, and for life, as a result of my professional service? How am I working to improve their character strengths of sound judgment, sense of responsibility, tough-minded perseverance, self-mastery, and heart (i.e. compassion & magnanimity)?

3. To look at it another way, what am I doing to help them internalize lifelong attitudes and habits essential to their later success and ethical uprightness – integrity, powers of sustained effort, realistic self-confidence, regard for others’ rights, respect for learning and intellectual accomplishment, a spirit of service and collaboration, ideals of professionalism, etc?

4. Do I foster a sense of collaborative accomplishment (“We…”) in our classwork? How do I convey a sense of progress to them – namely that they are growing steadily in some powers that will benefit them and others throughout their lives? Do I help them project their lives forward toward the challenges of the next 50 years?

5. Do my students know what is expected of them? Are my rules reasonable, clear, and fair? Am I quick to admit mistakes and make apologies where necessary, showing that I value truth and justice above my pride?

6. Do I reflect deeply about the strengths, unsuspected gifts, and possibilities of each student, especially those in the middle of the class who are often overlooked?

7. Do I try to maintain reasonably frequent contact with the parents of each student and see this as an essential part of my professional service?

8. What works would I recommend to parents and gifted students who wished to know more about my field of interest?

9. Do I make every effort to see the good in each student? When discipline is required, do I consider that its first and foremost aim is to form students and not necessarily to punish them?

10. As part of my professional advancement, what attempts have I made to learn more about my subject matter, pedagogical trends or the psychology and development of young men? Have I attended conferences or workshops, made site visits to other schools, taken graduate courses or simply set aside time for discussion with my colleagues?

SmartBoard, Smart-ass Students

Among the lines that I have heard from kids while I've been using the SmartBoard recently:

"Well, at least we know the school is putting the tuition money to good use!"

"Good thing we have the SmartBoard, since you can't use the white board for that!" (Said when I write on the SmartBoard with styluses (styli?) that look like colored markers.)

"Good thing we have the SmartBoard, since you can't use the projector for that!" (Said when I type notes into the computer from my desk and have them appear on the SmartBoard.)

All this means, of course, is that I have to come up with better ways to use the SmartBoard - but I already love that I get to save my daily notes and so have something to look back at when I try to remember what the hell I was talking about. I don't have to spend the extra time recording my recollections of class after the fact. (No, I don't plan very well - that's for another post.)

Smart Board, Stupid Students

Just got a SmartBoard today (I'm sure there's supposed to be a little TM after that - as convinced as I am that it's one word), and don't really know how to use it, but I'm enjoying the process of learning. I'm a first-year teacher at this school (sixth-year overall), which raises the question how I earned this privilege. I didn't do it by buttering anyone up, or by conniving and telling lies. I think the process had three steps:

1. Mention the SmartBoard in your interview as a way of looking up on the latest classroom technology.
(a). Do so when making mention is relevant, i.e., when they ask you how you would like to incorporate technology into the classroom
(b). Do so honestly - if it is the case, say you have never used one, but would love the opportunity, because you could imagine the number of uses to which it could be put.

2. During the first few days of in-services preceding the beginning of classes, pester the science teacher who's been strong-armed into being the tech coordinator (you know he's actually happy to have been strong-armed into this position, don't you?) to let you practice with the SmartBoard after hours, even though it's sitting hooked up in the library, not in your room.

3. Never ask for the SmartBoard to be put in your room, but never say you don't want it when they offer it. Do suggest that, as a first-year, perhaps others should have the opportunity to get the first SmartBoard in the school in their rooms - but don't be insistent.

4. Schedule time in the library to use the SmartBoard, even if you only do it once because, not knowing how to use it particularly well yet, you find it not to be all that useful.

5. The day you show up for school planning on using the regular board, only to find an uncalibrated SmartBoard sitting on top of it, don't complain. Start messing around with it, learn how to calibrate it on your own (it's not too hard - if you can't figure it out, just type your notes into the notebook page), and start earning a reputation as the most tech-savvy teacher in the school.

6. Plan to bring a gun, or many detention sheets, to convince students not to press the SmartBoard at the beginning of class when you're trying to use the computer at your desk but your projector is still on. Also useful for convincing students during study not to stand up, while you're looking at the SmartBoard, and place their hands in front of the projector.

That's six steps, for those of you who don't teach math. Also, step 6 supplied me with my post's title.

Computers our Saviors

I can't wait until the time when all my student work comes to me via computer, and the moment it's graded is the moment it's entered into the gradebook and returned to the student. As an English teacher, however, I'm going to require the ability to write easily on a screen, for there is nothing at all smooth or naturalistic about the few editing systems I have tried. This observation is occasioned by my effort right now to enter a few hundred papers into the grade book, in a completely haphazard and disorganized manner. The "Final Grade" column looks like the scene of a massacre right now, with victims either dead or holding their bowels in. It'll clean up eventually, though, as I get through the sadly disordered pile. The good students' work will be in there, and will be recorded accordingly, and the poor students' work will be generally missing, with a few exceptions, and grades will come out to be what we thought they'd be all along, with, again, a few exceptions.

Of course, when it comes, if it comes, this technology will not save me. A long-ago graphic from Time Magazine survives in my brain, of a soldier laden with modern weaponry. Bullets and guns are certainly more powerful and apparently much lighter than the old wood and iron monsters of ages past, but this has not decreased the soldier's load, for now that each newer and lighter bullet does the work of however many heavier and older projectiles, his superiors simply multiply the number of bullets (and other improved items) he is expected to carry, bringing him just up to the point of collapsing under the weight, where all his predecessors marched before him. In the same way, the faster I am able to dispose of my duties, whatever they may be, the faster the expectations will be loaded on my back, and on I will trudge as before.