Yes, Ms P.

I've been thinking quite a bit about teaching in the last few days. I have just started my Spanish course (yes! for anyone who has been following my adventures, I did, in fact, get into the Spanish course offered at our local university, and started my class on Friday). I enjoy watching the professor teach the class. As a retired high school teacher, I find watching teachers at work incredibly interesting; it's amazing how many do a good job at it, but how few excel.

When I was a teacher, I used to mentor student teachers fairly regularly, and it only took a day or so to determine whether or not a particular student had 'it' and would not only survive the classroom, but actually motivate and excite students. Most student teachers knew their material well enough, and lots of them had enough presence to keep their students, who generally only want their teachers to do well, engaged. What too few of them had was the imagination and organizing ability keep individual lessons interesting and the course focussed.

I use the term 'organizing ability' with some care. Anyone who knows me even slightly knows that I am not an organized person. I forget important dates, run out of kitchen staples, miss deadlines, lose keys, (and have been, since childhood, in imminent danger of losing my head if it weren't screwed on, according to my mother--quite the omen, when you think about it). But I do have the apparently rare ability to organize. I can break a project down into manageable components, or, on the other hand, see the several possible repercussions of a decision, when others don't. I'm the one who asks the question that goes to the heart of the matter, or the one who summarizes the seemingly random discussion of the past hour. ("So, what we're saying is..."). I'm good at the big picture, and am pretty able at seeing how to achieve it. It's a major reason why I've been successful in directing theatrical productions, and why I tend to be elected chair of things. A lot.

I used that ability in the classroom throughout my career. Designing curricula was one of my favourite parts of teaching: selecting the material, determining suitable and varied methodology to excite and motivate, working out appropriate assessment...jargon phrases for finding ways to get students to learn particular stuff. I found the problem-solving interesting, and I was often rewarded by seeing one of my lesson plans, or assignment sheets, or tests, having circulated around the department and the school, ending up being used, and shown to me, by a teacher somewhere else, unaware that the material was 'mine'.

Don't get me wrong; I had lots and lots of faults as a teacher, too. I sometimes moved too quickly: I could see where my students were going, and I too often jumped in instead of letting them get there on their own. I used humour in the classroom, but it was sometimes too dry, and (I'm sorry to say) sometimes bordered on sarcasm. I wasn't as open to my students as some other teachers were; I think I scared some less-secure students away. I know that I influenced and motivated some students (and deeply cherish the notes and cards I've received over the years) but I'm sure I alienated others.

I've always felt that students need to have all kinds of teachers in their academic career: those they get along with and those they don't; those that are 'easy' and those that are 'hard'. Those that are personable, and those that are more reserved. From one teacher we might get motivated by the material; from another, by the force of his or her personality; we might have to work at learning in spite of a third.


I was lurking around the webboards about Lakeside that I frequent lately, and saw a plea from one person looking for volunteers to teach ESL to Mexican children and adults. The writer pointed out that she had had no experience teaching before she volunteered, but that she found the experience incredibly rewarding. She was exhorting others to give it a try. I emailed her back; I'm going to see what I can do to help in the short time Rob and I will be down in December, and I fully intend to do more when we're down for longer periods in three years.


I guess it's in the blood. The Jesuits said, "Give me a child at an impressionable age, and he's mine for life." I think, "Once a teacher, always a teacher." Ask Rob. He often smiles, indulgently, and says, "Yes, Ms P" when I find myself using the 'teacher' voice on him. But, you know what? It works.