“Tell us your name, and something special about yourself,” asked the instructor of the curriculum class. “Why do they always ask this?” I wondered. No one thinks they are special; everyone thinks they are pretty close to average. These days the extraordinary is not spectacular; instead, it is an accumulation of positive ordinary actions over time, rippling outward and onward through society.
One of our curriculum textbooks makes the point that school conveys values. It is part of the implicit curriculum. For example, we say the Pledge of Allegiance every day, students are encouraged to address teachers with honorific titles and to refrain from offensive language. I could add many more examples. The point is that every working day I am a steward of society; all teachers are. Not all teachers are equally thoughtful in their stewardship. Being thoughtful means every day includes challenges that are moral as well as educational.
We hear of teachers who drive to students’ houses after school, organize and pay for activities on their own time, and buy books or shoes or clothes for their students. I am not one of those teachers. Early in my career, I confronted the challenge of just how far I would go beyond what I was paid to do. My decision was to be what I characterized then as a “B” teacher. “A” teachers do that stuff, but as an “A” teacher I would not last long in the profession. Doing my best at work and in my preparation at home, but not devoting my whole life to work is my definition of “B” teacher. I believed, and still do, that I could better influence more people for a longer time if I maintained a fulfilling independent personal life.
My thinking at that time was influenced by the death of a colleague. Vance Porter worked a long career in our district. When he died there was not enough room in the cathedral for all the friends, colleagues, former students, and parents of former students who wanted to pay their respects. Vance’s death was sad, but his funeral solidified in me a determination to stick in one place and have an impact over time. I am now in my 29th year of teaching English at Massabesic High School.
Over those years, I have valued attendance. As Woody Allen said, “80% of success is showing up.” In my early years I was only absent about three times a year: blessed with good enough health, only one was a sick day, another was for professional development, the third for a personal day. When I became a parent I needed more days, and as I age I need more sick days. However, I usually show up, because consistency is important.
In the classroom and in the hallways I provide students with an example of courtesy, tolerance, caring, and service. I believe, as John Wooden says, that "Young people need models, not critics." When I see trash on the floor, I pick it up. When a kid spills something, I do not yell at them; I get what they need to clean it up. I speak with them politely and respectfully. I fist bump, high-five, and shoulder pat. I smile (twenty-five years ago a colleague told me my serious face scared kids and I need to smile more: the best advice I ever got).
Back then I decided never to expect to learn directly about the influence I had on students; I never told any of my teachers how much they influenced me (later I had a chance to and did, though this summer when I said it to one, she punched me in the arm -- both of us being facetious). I remembered Dick Gregory telling about protesting outside a theater for a whole evening with no reaction from anyone. Only years later did a young activist tell him that seeing him there had influenced the course of that activist’s life. That’s the story I have told myself and other teachers.
Early in my career, and for about ten years, my conscious social stewardship led me to advise our school’s Civil Rights Team. The Civil Rights Team Project is administered by the State Attorney General’s office. The mission of the Civil Rights Team Project (CRTP) is to “increase the safety of elementary, middle level, and high school students by reducing bias-motivated behaviors in schools.” The Attorney General’s office realized that bias-motivated violence is invariably preceded by escalating hate speech. Civil Rights Team members and advisors speak out when they hear biased language. In our school, the CRT has been joined by a Gay-Straight Alliance, and a group working to reduce domestic violence. Like many school systems, we also have an explicit anti-bullying curriculum. I added Speak, a book about a girl who is raped before her freshman year in high school, to our freshman English curriculum, using it as reason to bring in educators from Sexual Assault Response Services of Southern Maine, since one out of six women will be a victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime.
As a teacher of Advanced Placement Language and Composition, I have a chance to teach and model the power of language and the importance of logic while engaging students in conversations about significant social issues. War, beauty, the death penalty, religion, the idea of America, and the development of a personal philosophy are subjects we regularly confront. One assignment I often give with ulterior motives is for students to imagine they have lived 100 years and write their own obituary. I say 100 years because I want students to imagine a long life for themselves and think about what they will do with it. The obituary assignment asks them to clarify their values and imagine how those values will be shown in their life. I want to activate the power of visualization for them, to have them see the life they might live.
To show the possibilities of life, I keep the bulletin board near my desk covered with stuff that shows my personal enthusiasms: numbers from races I’ve run, photos from places I’ve been, cartoons, art prints, an autographed picture of Paul Pierce, a poster of Bob Dylan. I want students to see me as a rounded person, not an automaton labeled “English Teacher.” I show them all my enthusiasms, talk about mutual interests, share my observations. I admit to my mistakes and let my feelings show.
Part of my understanding about staying in teaching and in one place for the long term, alluded to above, is taking care of my emotional health. My operating metaphor, one I share with friends and colleagues experiencing stress is the emergency talk flight attendants on airplanes give: if the oxygen masks come down, you need to put on your own before you help someone else with theirs. You cannot take care of other people unless you take care of yourself first. I learned that in my professional life when some of my best friends left. Several retired and several more left for other schools or other careers at once. I realized I had spent a miserable year barely teaching, sitting alone in my classroom, minimally interacting with colleagues.
Stewardship of society is not only by influence on students. I picked a couple colleagues who always lifted my spirits and made a point of checking in with them regularly. Then I tried to emulate them, to be a colleague who lifts others’ spirits. I stopped into other teachers’ rooms for brief talks. I joined social activities among colleagues that I might not have in the past, contributing to wedding or baby showers, participating in our Secret Santa, bringing food to staff potlucks and department meetings.
We have a program for mentally challenged kids. About once a month they make a lunch and will deliver it to your room. Part of the purpose is for them to practice making change. I like to buy the lunch: it’s a break from my routine, it supports the kids in the program, and I enjoy talking with those kids and the aides who accompany them. I also use it as a chance to invite my colleagues to have lunch in my room. We do not talk about work. I play music or project a short video. Once last year we talked about a short story, not anything anyone was using in class, just a story by an author we all like.
I’m not extraordinary, but day-by-day, hour-by-hour, kid-by-kid, friend-by-friend I try to skew life to the positive side. If enough of us do that, what is today considered extraordinary could become ordinary, and life can be better for us all.
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