The Teaching Game

photo by:Austin Fraser-Jones

The school councilor told me about a discussion she had with third graders about their fears. Surprisingly, it was not about violence or bullies. What they really wanted to talk about was their fear of never being good enough.
I think my students are great…but I’m not sure I’d ever say that they had nothing to improve upon. On several occasions, I’ve made them rework assignments that didn’t, in my opinion, show their best efforts.
At what point in academia do we say to our students, “that’s good enough”? We are constantly pushing kids to earn better test scores, read more, do harder math, etc,. It seems like we are just contributing to them never feeling like they are good enough. Are our schools producing adults that can never truly feel like they’ve “made it”?

Photo by: Edward Langley

One of my guiltiest T.V. pleasures this winter is the reality show Dance Moms. I’m completely captivated by the show’s enigmatic dance teacher protagonist, Abby Lee Miller. It’s hard to look away from some of her questionable teaching techniques. In a recent episode, “Miss Abby,” resorted to referring to an 11 year-old dancer as, “Hey you,” after the dancer’s mother had upset her. Regardless, one can’t argue with the short-term results of producing top-tier dancers.

Here are my:

Top Five Teacher Takeaways from Dance Moms

Be clear and communicate about your goals and what you have to offer
Abby’s objective as a teacher is really clear. She produces professional dancers, who can make a living and survive the business of dancing on Broadway. She is candid with the moms that this isn’t a soft-skills warm and cuddly studio. If they want that, they should go somewhere else. For the most part, teachers don’t have the luxury to tell their parents “where to go.” But, we do have the opportunity to be clear about the vision we hold for our students and communicate this with parents.

Don’t let fame go to your head
Despite their continued success in dance competitions, Abby is adamant about her students remaining humble. I’ve noticed how notoriety can turn some educators into self-absorbed monsters. They loose perspective that education and innovation  are a community endeavor.

“Save the tears for your pillow”
I’ve talked before about the concept of not letting emotion interrupt professionalism. I’m not sure how well it applies to kids, but for adults/educators, she makes a good point.

“Everybody is replaceable”
This is the go-to quote for Abby whenever she is displeased with a student or visa versa. Everyone really is replaceable. There is always someone, smarter, less expensive to hire, faster, more creative, etc., waiting in the wing. Never think that you are so special that you can’t be (easily) replaced and forgotten.

Expect a lot from your parents
I would contest that the dance moms work twice as hard as Abby. If gluing sequins to costumes at rapid rates were the only way to save the world, these mothers would be the first ones I would call. Abby makes the clear correlation between student success and parent involvement.

photo by:Robin Danehav

I asked my father if he could repair a broken foot on an old wooden toy chest so I could use it as a coffee table. What I thought was going to be a bit of glue and a couple of clamps turned out to be a three-day antique analysis and repair class.

I have known for some time that my father comes from a generation where, “good enough” never existed. It’s a quality that I admire. Yet I question it’s over arching usefulness.   Don’t get me wrong. If a doctor is going to set a bone, I want to make sure that “good enough” isn’t the mantra.  I’m still convinced though, that there is a place for “good enough” in our world.  We are not all doctors or bridge builders. In most cases a mistake in our work or thought process doesn’t have dire long-term consequences.  We can fix modify and improve.

Simply put, there is room to be wrong. When you release something (a blog, a lesson plan, a business idea) in a “good enough” state, while holding a beta mindset there is less ego attached to it. In the process you may discover that your idea sucked to begin with or you may end up with a vastly superior result.  Either way, you’ll be far ahead of trying to convince everyone it was the finished product.

I thought I’d ask the simple question: “What am I learning?”

How to do it differently
No matter which school you go to, the real problems, the ones that get under your skin, tend to repeat. I can safely say that I haven’t seen anything this year that I didn’t see in 2003. The difference for me is, that I’m finally learning from my mistakes. I’m actively trying to address the same problems in a different way. I can’t say that all of my new approaches have worked. Nevertheless it is a great experiment. Something has to be different in order to get a different result. Right?

How to stick to what feels right for the long term
I use to think that one of my best qualities, as a teacher was my ability to “read” a class and instantaneously adjust to what needed to happen in the moment. It was a trick that worked for individual class periods, but often interrupted in the continuity of course. I’ve worked harder to get to know my students on a deeper level and understand when they are just having a “moment” and when something fundamentally needs to change in the curriculum.

How to enjoying things I create
I think as teachers, especially those involved in the whizziness of Twitter, there is an underlying idea that if you are not constantly innovating you are falling behind. For the last almost two years, I worked really hard to develop a grades 5-8 curriculum. This is the first trimester, where I’m not simultaneously teaching and developing it. It feels amazing to live in something that I created. I’m enjoying it and resisting the urge to immediately pull it all apart for the sake of being “innovative.”

As a government major, I waited until the absolute last minute to add 19^th century political philosophy to my course load. Nothing about the thoughts of dead beardy males appealed to me.

I headed into my first day of class with dread. The professor of the course didn’t help me feel any more assured. He “didn’t care if we were in the hospital dying. A paper that was due at midnight was due at midnight. If we were going to be late to class “don’t even bother coming…ever again.” In the middle of his egocentric tirade, a classmate’s cell phone rang. The professor answered it.  He proceeded to say something snarky to the caller and slammed the phone on the desk. “And no cell phones!,” he screamed

The date of that class was September 11, 2001. The caller was our classmate’s daughter who worked near the towers and was fleeing the city.

The next time the class met, the professor, who had subsequently learned about the circumstances behind the call, was a different man. It wasn’t that he changed his strict rules. It’s just that they were no longer the focus and the defining characteristic of his course or who he was.

I always think of this first day as I head into a new school year. It is a reminder to call upon empathy as my first emotion and that it’s impossible to know the complete story of our students’ lives.