Brian Cohen
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Teachers are Forever?

2/2/2011

4 Comments

 
It’s the thing all things devour:

Birds, beast, trees, flowers.

It gnaws on iron, bites steel;

Grinds hard stones to meal.

It slays king, ruins towns,

And beats high mountains down.

What is it?

Answer: time
---------------------------

I’ll be the first to admit that I spend way too much of my day focused on school at this point in my life. Like many other teachers my age with my inadequate level of experience I get to school early (about 50 minutes)and stay late (usually about an hour) in order to get my work done or help students. Then, I come home and get back on my computer to grade, lesson plan,and research cool things to do in my classroom. All this shuffling makes me wonder: can I really do it forever (like this guy)?

A good friend rightly commented on my first post, “How can we make this line of work sustainable when those above us are constantly undermining our efforts to serve our students?”

Many of my idols in teaching went through hell in their personal lives in order to be a good educator. Jaime Escalante (of the film Stand and Deliver) was a math teacher in Los Angeles when he suffered from an inflammation of his gall bladder. Erin Gruwell (of the film FreedomWriters) was an English teacher in Long Beach and got divorced from her husband for spending too much time with her students.

With the current demands of teaching and the accountability movement, how am I going to balance my teaching, my family (present and future), my friends, my sleep, and my sanity?

Recently a Teach For America educator protested how the bureaucratic nature of the School District kept her from being the best teacher she could be. The response from Superintendent Ackerman was less than elegant, and did not help the teacher gain the support she needed. If we wantto keep our enthusiastic young teachers in place, we are going to need to support them more than that.

So where do we get that support? In my limited experience thus far, the best place to find it is from fellow educators. At my school we have a program called Critical Friends in which we observe each other’s classrooms, critique, and listen. In this setting we can be frank without fear of reprisal. And, we can share day-to-day experiences with someone who is experiencing them in the same way. While formal observations are important, I have not found them to be as beneficial as my colleagues observing me. With this feedback, I can learn, grow, and become a more efficient and effective educator.

With more of this kind of program, I think it is possible to balance the educational needs of students and my own personal needs. I just hope others get the same level of support.

4 Comments
J. C.
2/1/2011 09:13:15 pm

Support needs to come from all those around you. Your peers are one of the most important sources of support, I agree. However, you need to surround yourself with friends who understand why you work 60 hour weeks when you're not being paid for 30 hours of overtime. You have help your family to understand why you keep going back to a workplace where you're told that you suck on a daily basis and put out hundreds of dollars a year to continue sucking at it. The only reason I did not quit during my first year of teaching was my family. I spent many mornings sobbing on the phone with my mom next to my fiance swearing that I was going to quit. They helped me realize that I would hate myself if I did, that I was not teaching to please the administrators or friends or even myself. I do it for the children. So many days I have wanted to walk out and not return because it's just too much for me to handle. Then, one of my students will say something that seems insignificant to them, but at the same time it warms my heart and I remember why I struggle through these days. If you really want to teach in an urban public school. Those moments of clarity with support from friends, family, and other teachers will be enough to get you through the hard days. But sympathetic ears will not pay the bills or help you make AYP. We're in a tough position and no one seems to want it to get better except the teachers and students.

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The JJ
2/2/2011 01:56:25 am

Brian, raise my kids.

Reply
Brian Cohen
2/2/2011 12:22:49 pm

@JJ Awkward @J.C. You are a great teacher - that's why you feel these things. Feel free to vent anytime!

Reply
Kate
2/6/2011 02:14:33 am

Thanks Brian for the insight and the Crit Friends nod. And for guiding me to the Notebook article of the TFA encounter I missed.... My New Mantra: “If my students do not learn the way [my district wants me to] teach, then I will teach the way they learn.” Let's thank Ackerman for giving us the lee way we have long been looking for, in spite of herself, as always.

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    I am a math teacher in the New York Department of Education. I infuse technology and real-world problems into my curriculum in order to prepare my students for the future. I would love for people across the country to recognize we teachers can't do it alone. If you don't believe me, come visit my classroom!

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