Why We Really Teach

Why We Really Teach

I was once nominated for a university-wide teaching award, and part of the portfolio I was required to create included my “Philosophy of Teaching.” You all write your philosophies at the beginning of your education program, and you probably revise them during your career. My philosophy currently reads:

Philosophy of Teaching

I have several philosophies that guide the way I teach. By modeling these beliefs as I teach my students in the teacher preparation program, they will understand their importance and transfer these values to their own future teaching practices.

Evident in my teaching are the following beliefs:

*Life-Long Learning

I believe that teachers need to instill in their students the importance of life-long learning by reading and staying current in their profession, and by modeling that learning for learning’s sake is fun.

*Teacher as Facilitator

I believe that teachers must be facilitators (rather than directors) of their students’ learning--guiding their students to become independent and self-directed learners.

*Providing Feedback

I believe that teachers are obliged to provide prompt and detailed feedback to students’ work—praising their successes and offering constructive criticism for their weaknesses.

*Mastery Learning

I believe that teachers must ensure that their students have truly learned the information by assessing them, and, if students were unsuccessful, by reteaching and reassessing until their students have met the course objectives.

*Collaboration/Cooperative Groups

I believe that teachers need to provide opportunities for students to work in cooperative groups, emphasizing the notion of pride in one’s “team” as they work toward the same goal.

*Higher Level Thinking Skills

I believe that teachers ought to require students to work at the upper end of Bloom’s Taxonomy (analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating).

*Integrating Technology

I believe that teachers must have a repertoire of technology-based teaching strategies and require their students to integrate technology into their work and assignments.

*Practical Application of Theory

I believe that teachers need to base their instruction on theory, but provide practical applications of that theory for their students to comprehend the relevance of the information.

*Reflective Thinking and Action

I believe that teachers must continually and persistently seek to fine-tune and improve their teaching.

After rereading that document, though, I realize that I speak to the pedagogy and the practice of teaching, but I don’t speak to the heart of teaching. Before I taught at the university, I taught elementary school. I taught third grade for four years, and I taught fifth grade for two years. It was during that time that I realized that the real reasons we teach are many. This is why we really teach.

We teach for Ryan, who, after I tutored him after school to prepare for what was then the TAAS test, wrote me a letter saying he appreciated my support, saying, “I love it when a good teacher believes in me because it helps me believe in myself.” He passed the TAAS test, but I think he learned much more than just academics in those tutoring sessions.

We teach for Jeff, who practically vowed to despise classical music, but he participated cooperatively in my unit on classical composers. Jeff was a big, burly football playing third grader who was almost my size. A few weeks later, he came in to class humming Vivaldi’s “Spring,” [hum a few bars]. When I looked at him with raised eyebrows, he said, “What? I LIKE it!”

We teach for Brenda, who confided in me. She asked me to come to the bathroom with her one day. Once there, she lifted her shirt to reveal bruises that engulfed every inch of her back and arms--brutally beaten into her by her mother who that morning had threatened to kill her. I called the authorities, who took the call very seriously, and they removed from her home that very afternoon and took her to the Round Rock Baptist Home where she could be safe.

We teach for Jerald, an avid deer hunter, who learned in sex education that AIDS is transmitted by blood. He panicked and asked, “Can you get AIDS from a deer? Because if you can, then Oh My God, I’ve got AIDS.” I was able to give him the reassurance that he was healthy and probably AIDS-free.

We teach for Rachel who wrote a letter to next year’s fifth graders, right before she began sixth grade, to tell them that they’re going to have the best school year of their entire life, and that they will learn a lot and that they can trust their teacher with any secret that they may need to share, and that if you get in trouble it’s because you deserve it because Ms. Pate is “firm but fair.”

We teach for Emily, who after a unit about the Holocaust, summarized the most important thing she learned from her studies by saying, “I learned to not let injustice continue; and next year, in middle school, if I see something that’s not right or not fair, I will tell a teacher—even if it does make another kid or kids mad at me. We can’t sit idly by and let bad things continue.”

We teach for Stacey, who could often reteach a lesson to Jerald (remember the deer hunter, Jerald?) and who probably taught more of the curriculum to Jerald than I did. Quite frequently, after I taught a lesson and explained everything, Jerald would raise his hand and say, “Ms. Pate, I don’t get it.” I would reteach in a new and different way, but quite frequently, Jerald still didn’t “get it.” For awhile, Stacey would ask me if it I’d like for her to explain it to Jerald. I said, “Sure.” And, every time, Jerald got it. Eventually, after I would unsuccessfully reteach something to Jerald, Stacey would just give me that knowing look and take care of it. I moved to fifth grade after that school year, and two years later, Stacey and Jerald were both in my class again. On the first day of school, Stacey said, “Ms. Pate, do you want me to sit next to Jerald this year?” I said, “Absolutely!!!”

We teach for Hunter, who daily said, “Thank you for teaching me so much new stuff, Ms. Pate.” He also had a crush on me. I didn’t encourage the crush, but I must admit, it’s nice to have someone admire you so much!

We teach for Greg, who had a question about abortion. The question didn’t come out of the blue. It was an election year, and we were learning about the candidates and their platforms. One day Carly asked, “I know it’s an overgeneralization, but is it right that Republicans are pro-life and Democrats are pro-choice?” I told her that it was, indeed, an overgeneralization, but that basically, that was correct. Greg said, “What’s abortion?” Lauren immediately began to give a back-alley definition which I managed to squelch before it got too gory. I proceeded to delicately answer Greg’s question as scientifically yet as vaguely as I could and then said, “Anything else you want to know, you’ll have to ask your parents,” to which he replied, “Why would I ask my parents anything? I ask you questions every day and you answer them every day and I never ask my parents. This isn’t any different.” I did inform the principal of my impromptu lesson that day. She supported me, and we never heard from any parents. Later that week, I spoke to Greg’s mom about the incident. Greg hadn’t brought it up at home, and she was perfectly satisfied with my answer.

We teach for Colin and Jack, two extremely bright boys who tended to act out a bit. When they accidentally broke a lamp in my classroom tossing pillows back and forth while I was working with another student, I told them to choose their own punishment (because I was at my wits’ end with them—this was not their first somewhat rambunctious incident). I told them they had the rest of the week to decide what their punishment would be, and they should just inform me then. The next day at lunch, they asked me to stay in the cafeteria for a few minutes. They had arranged for the music teacher to set up the microphone and speakers in the cafeteria. In the middle of fifth grade lunch, Colin and Jack got on the microphone, asked for everyone’s attention and publicly apologized to me for breaking my lamp, and for their misbehavior in general, and they promised it wouldn’t happen again.” On top of that, they fixed the lamp.

We teach for Brandon, whose only safe place was school because he was abused and neglected at home. I told him a story about a time when I was a child that someone had hurt me, and he began to trust a few adults. Even though he was academically behind and rarely mastered new skills, he got what he needed the most, and that was love.

We teach for Alexandria who was willing to use her double black belt in Tae Kwon Do to “take care of” Nathan. Nathan had broken my jaw by crashing into me as he ran from one side of the room to the other. Alexandria confided in me that she had taken a vow at the beginning of her Tae Kwon Do instruction to never use it except in self-defense, but she went on to inform me that “I could kill him if I needed to.” I told her I appreciated it, but it wasn’t necessary. It’s not a coincidence that my daughter bears the same name as this bright, caring, and tough young lady.

We teach for Boone who was so smart and so bright, he did not want to get “stuck” helping the other kids. He did not want to be the gifted kid who helped the other children who worked more slowly than he or who didn’t get it at all. He said, “I got it already, why can’t I do something else.” So that’s exactly what he got to do!

We teach for Kristin who did not succumb to peer pressure or allow her mother to succumb to the parental peer pressure and buy me a “fancy” Christmas gift. I taught in a district where some of the folks were rather wealthy, and some of the parents (and kids) tried to outdo each other in their teacher appreciation gifts. But rather than give in to that pressure, Kristin handmade a crude sculpture of a bird from clay. It is a treasured possession to this day.

We teach for Brian and Randy and Carly and Heather and Colin and Jack (remember Colin and Jack who had broken my lamp) and countless others who, once they had moved on to sixth grade, came back to the elementary school Open House with their parents and their younger siblings just so they could say hi and tell you about their sixth grade accomplishments.

We teach for Rachel who had the confidence in herself to actually send off for a patent. She had created a beach towel carrying device that allows you to safely carry your towel while riding your bike. She asked me if she should do it. I told her to go for it. I even helped her fill out forms and mail them. She didn’t receive the patent, but she had the courage to follow through with her desire. Now there’s a life lesson.

We teach for Carlita, who mentioned her third grade teacher in her salutatorian speech at high school graduation. Carlita moved to our school in third grade in February. She was the first African-American student that I think our school had ever seen. When she arrived, we were studying Rosa Parks. I worried that there might be issues. Here we were studying African Americas who stood up for their rights, but my students had never seen first-hand the reality of the injustice that many African Americans face. I went on teaching about Rosa Parks, and during that unit and for the rest of the school year, the students learned a lot from Carlita. And she learned a lot from them, too. It was a very harmonious school year. And third grade made an impression on Carlita—she said so in her speech nine years later.

We teach for Charlotte, who was just a gem and came up with notable quips all the time like, when explaining how to summarize, she just said, “Put it on a bumper sticker—that’s what my daddy tells me to do all the time.” The student and I and she knew that she was a bit long-winded, so the bumper sticker comment was perfect—but it stuck with my students, and every time they had to summarize, they said, “Put it on a bumper sticker.” I have every confidence that this world will definitely see Charlotte again in some type of powerful leadership role. Look for her, perhaps, as this country’s first woman President.

We teach for Kristin who stopped my husband in the airport. She had been watching us (me, mostly) stress over getting two babies’ diapers changed and prepared to board a day’s worth of plane trips for a two-week trip to Maine. As I took yet another trip to the bathroom, she approached my husband and asked him if I was Ms. Pate. He said that I had been Ms. Pate at one time (then he told her I had a different last name and a different title now). She told him that I had been her third grade teacher and that she was headed to college in the fall. I returned from the bathroom and Tim said, “Do you know this girl?” I said, “She looks familiar.” She said, “I’m Kristin. You were my third grade teacher, and I loved you!”

Teaching is THE BEST career on the face of the earth. You often hear about how the children are our future. And they are. But it’s teachers who lead them there. And that’s why we really teach.