Perspective Gained in the Mundane

During my week break between quarters, a man on my flight asked me, “So what do you do? How do you make a living?” Like most people, in the silence before answering I contemplated: do I really want to talk right now? How long might this take? Then I’ll need to politely ask what his profession is… should I tell him what work I do (some random part time jobs) or that I am studying to be a teacher? Wait, if I mention the word “teacher” will I simply open the floodgates for his commentary on American society, globalization, the failures of education, etc.? I chose to be honest: “I am a graduate student completing a Masters in Teaching.” He did unleash a host of thoughts as I had feared but his typical, mundane question brought perspective to the highly academic, micro-level discussions on “education” I participated in the quarter before.

Due to always being placed at a school while also taking classes, I benefit from simultaneously being a student and teacher during graduate school. These two contexts provide a good reality check since many people like to talk about teaching until they actually attempt doing it, then they are terrified.

Why? Why do we expect teaching to be easier?

Our society is full of people who like to tell people what to do and how to do it, with or without any experience or knowledge to offer. We like to appear strong, to give answers, to help people, but we also like to see change take place, preferably ASAP. I have found that many cultures use botanical imagery to illustrate teaching because it is more complicated than it looks and there is always a bit of a mystery to it. But pop culture and typical conversations promote the notion that teaching is a last resort, or at least a Plan B career. The idea that someone actually would feel a need to go to graduate school to learn how to teach is laughable to many-after all, how hard could it be to input new information into a somewhat empty mind (a hunt for the infamous “Matrix”)? At best, we think teaching requires high motivation, good motivation and minimal expertise. At worst, it requires ordinary skills and language on par with babysitting. In most of my conversations with strangers about teachers, two emotions come up: mockery of their profession and frustration with them not changing the world.

Why?

Teaching is admittedly complex, just ask anyone outside of a classroom setting or anyone involved in any relationship and they will tell you that people are not simple. To see them as such is to discredit them. So why do we tend to think of teaching in school differently? There are a host of reasons but the ones I most often hear are that student learning requires student involvement (they cannot be passive), students are forced to be in school (until they are 16), and that all of us have spent thousands of hours watching teachers teach (K-12 at least) thereby becoming “experts” on “how it works.” Whether it is adults walking into their workplace or kids into their classroom, some close the door to learning before even opening the door to the room; especially if they have to be there. It can be a blessing and a curse but the more you are in a certain context, the more that environment seems simple to you. By having some of these reflections before I started the teacher education program, I am grateful for the years and diverse contexts in which I was very aware of the difficulty of both teaching and learning. Random experiences come to mind: teaching a kid to ride a bike, learning to speak enough Hindi to catch the right train, and training my replacement at work. Developing knowledge is always exciting and scary because you know it must not only be thought but practiced. When I teach, I see students as people and people are affected by multiple layers of character, context and expectations. Students come with a host of questions: why should I even be here? What will we learn today? How will we learn it? Why are we learning it this way? When will I get to participate? What is expected of me? I need to not only know my discipline but also my students. Before words are even spoken, I have to think before acting: remembering who I am and what I am called to do, determining how I uniquely can share both, considering alternatives, organizing a plan, identifying an aim, and choosing a path towards that goal…yet always being willing to adapt and learn from my students. That is what is difficult about teaching, and that is what makes me thankful to be in a teacher ed program.

Though classwork can be wearying and the task of teaching overwhelming, I have enjoyed it all. I have enjoyed it because years ago I began to ask three questions:

1. Who am I?

2. What are my passions?

3. How can I use and develop both of those answers in the world around me?

Different word pairings have come to mind: responsible stewardship, professional humility, relationally inquisitive, bold engagement. Last quarter we were given questions to ask during our placements in various middle schools: who are our students? How do people learn? What is the school context? What are the risks I need to face? From day one at my middle school I dove in head first and it was refreshing to take familiar strokes in new waters and rewarding to learn strokes on the way. At the school and in my courses it has been affirming to see the value of incorporating my three questions into other questions. Our class knows each other better now and this quarter we are asking bigger questions about the role of education and the teacher in society, in a multicultural area, and in a multi-lingual classroom. Like all students, answering those questions gives flesh to the structure of education. Our discussions thus become both messy and beautiful since our stories, values, passions and fears are being revealed, both implicitly and explicitly. I am encouraged by the risks people are taking and the relationships that are being formed. I will be student teaching most of next school year at HS3 (Health Sciences and Human Services High School) on the Evergreen Campus in the Highline School District, two miles from where I grew up. As I continue to ask my three questions among many other questions, I am grateful for space to contemplate an answer to that simple, mundane question from the man on my flight: what do you do?