Preface to WTM by Daniel Boster

Preface to What Teaching Means: Stories from America’s Classrooms, Daniel Boster and Marni Valerio, Editors

(Rogue Faculty Press, April 2012)

What We Say We Love by Daniel Boster

In the fall of 1999, I was teaching English at Dominican High School in Whitefish Bay, a lakeside suburb to the north of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was my third year of teaching, and time for the fall open house. It is a private school, so, of course, recruiting is important. Open house was a time not only for current parents but also prospective students to visit the school. The administration teamed new teachers with veteran teachers. My partner was long time science teacher, Bernie Schreiner. Mr. Schreiner had taught there for over twenty years, and he was one of those teachers who had become a fixture of the school. He had outlasted several principals, gone through myriad “new” teaching methods, earned a meager amount of money for years, and said farewell to many, many graduating classes. Like many teachers who stick with it for a long time, he was a paradox. Perceived as grumpy, yet respected by his peers. Feared and loved by students. “Old school,” yet innovative.

                So, at open house, Mr. Schreiner and I were sitting in my classroom waiting for parents to arrive. I was tired from grading A.P. English essays about The Stranger and trying to figure out ways to help the struggling students in my “remedial” British literature course understand Brave New World. My wife, Marni, and I were in the process of buying our first home. The difficulties of balancing teaching and life were bearing down on me.

When parents weren’t in the room, we talked about various things; Bernie mentioned that he preferred talking to students rather than their parents. We discussed the coming weekend’s football games, the weather. Finally, our conversations turned to our shared students, the school itself, and teaching in general.

I was a little afraid of appearing foolish in front of him, so, for the most part, I kept quiet, listened, and nodded. Finally, near the end of the night as the hallways were clearing out, I asked a series of questions along the lines of: how had he taught for this long, at this school, when he could have made more money elsewhere? Why would a young teacher decide to keep doing this? He talked a bit about dedication, the fact that his kids went through school there, and the other typical reasons that a person stays in one job for a while. He trailed off. All that sounded pretty good, but I’d heard things like that from other veteran teachers. He got up and began gathering his things to leave, and I started to do the same. As he walked to the door, he turned around.

                “I suppose that all sounds like bullshit to you.”

I didn’t know what to say. “Nah…O.K., sort of…”

                “I can see that. Well, I guess I look at it like this. You love literature, right?” He pointed around the room. “You love talking about all these books.”

                “Sure.”

“Well, Dan, you get paid, maybe not a lot, but you get paid to talk about what you say you love, every day. If you aren’t lying, if you really love it, that seems to me like a pretty good deal. See you tomorrow.”

I suppose that some would hope that this short conversation turned into long term mentoring relationship like something out of one of those teacher movies that the public loves so much. You know…old conservative science teacher teams up with rookie liberal literature teacher to save the school from closing while partaking in witty banter and pulling off slightly rebellious acts to inspire students to rise above the odds of abusive or overbearing parents, to overcome drug use or gang violence, to cope with occasional rejection letters from Stanford, and so on. Didn’t happen. Bernie and I never spoke of anything of consequence during the rest of my time at Dominican. I left the school, and Marni and I left Milwaukee after the next school year. He would likely be surprised at the impact of his words. He probably doesn’t remember the conversation, and might even wonder why I do.

                A dozen years later, I think about his words again. I have thought of them hundreds of times during my career, have repeated them to pre-service and young teachers I’ve worked with, have used them to make it through particularly tough days now and again. Lately, I’ve been thinking even more about why people do this work, what it means to be a teacher. I think that what Bernie Schreiner said to me that fall night in 1999 has a lot to do with it. Love, indeed, has a lot to do with this project.

***

The idea for this book started as one of those "wouldn't-it-be-cool-if" conversations that often happen when teachers are drinking coffee together. In the winter of 2011, I was troubled by disputes about public sector unions in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Nebraska, and other places, which led to the disparagement of teachers and teaching. Watching all of the news stories from state capitol buildings and the steps of schools all over the country last winter was upsetting but also inspiring. I heard a chorus of people calling teachers “lazy” and “greedy” and accusing teachers of “taking advantage of the system.” All my experience told me these things weren’t true. It suddenly seemed urgent that more people hear teachers’ stories. I decided I wanted to know what was happening in the nation’s classrooms.

A few months before, two of my colleagues, Jeff Lacey and Calvin Banks, had started their own publishing company, Rogue Faculty Press, to, in the words of their mission statement, “seek out projects that celebrate teachers whose talent might be ignored or overlooked.” They believed that teachers’ intellectual work deserved a home. They thought that they, as teachers themselves, would like to provide this home. Simply put, I believe more people need to hear about what teachers do each day, how our students and their experiences affect us, and how much we love what we do. So, with all of this in mind, I figured that someone should just ask teachers to tell their stories. Jeff and Calvin agreed to publish the result, and we got started.

***

I know I am biased, but I have always found most teachers (even before I was one) to be kind, funny, and interesting people. I wanted to be a teacher because I thought teachers seemed really cool and happy. I remember watching them talk and laugh in the hallways of my high school and how some of them would get these faraway stares while explaining Hamlet, Manifest Destiny, or polynomials. I thrived when I was around people who clearly loved what they were talking about and cared deeply about sharing that passion with their students. I even started wearing sweater vests in high school—and still do—because Mr. Hays, my favorite high school English teacher, did so on occasion. (I didn’t realize at the time that sweater vests weren’t really a hip look for a teenager.) The point is that I admired these people; I wanted to be like them.

My experience in a few different schools confirms my impression that most teachers are truly dedicated to teaching and their students. Naturally, like any profession, there are exceptions. Teachers aren’t perfect. As is the case in any profession, there are a few people who don’t do a good enough job. Some go into teaching for the wrong reasons. Of course, I hear all of the negative stories about teachers that seem to catch the public’s attention. Too many of these stories are about predatory teachers who abuse their positions to manipulate young people. These stories sadden me deeply.

But, there are also stories of teachers doing great things that seem to go mostly unnoticed. I recently read that some teachers in Pennsylvania have agreed to work for free since the district ran out of money. Teachers, students, and parents discuss all of the positive things that happen in their schools every day. However, most really do care about their students and love, like Mr. Schreiner said, the ideas that they share each day.

I also believe that teachers and teaching are often misperceived. There seems to be a pretty simple reason for this: once they leave school, adults have very little interaction with teachers. People don't hear our stories. Most teachers love to talk about their craft, the growth of their students, and all the other cool things that happen in their schools, classrooms, and communities. However, most of the time, the only people who they tell about these things are other teachers. Thus, What Teaching Means. We wanted the stories—the funny ones, the sad ones, the inspiring ones, the strange ones—told and available to a wider audience.

***

Many people are struck by the fact that teachers’ voices are often absent from the public dialogue about teaching and education. Politicians, corporate interests, and pundits tend to have the loudest voices, and they control those conversations. Again, there are reasons for this. Teachers’ opinions aren’t often solicited, and, when teachers do enter the political realm, the public often finds their involvement distasteful. While some educators make it a point to be involved in politics by working through local and national educators’ associations, most teachers are simply too busy. Often, we don’t have time to set aside our work as teachers to join the political fray. We don’t hire our own lobbyists. Frankly, most of us would rather be in the classroom with our students.

But when teachers fail to tell their stories, something crucial is lost. Wisdom wrought from experience is neglected. Like most teachers, I read dozens of articles and books about teaching every year. I look for ways to improve my practice and better serve my students. I continue to go to school myself and am involved in conversations with teachers all over the country. I have learned a great deal from all of this, and I am a vastly better teacher for it. However, for the most part, I, too, am guilty of not speaking out enough. This entire project is an effort to allow teachers’ voices to be heard.

This started as, and continues to be, a grassroots effort, and we are especially proud of that. News of the book spread by word of mouth, and we received stories from dozens of teachers in twenty-seven states. We heard from teachers in small towns, big cities, and everywhere in between. The submissions ran the gamut from kindergarten teachers to college professors, from retired teachers with forty years in the field to first year teachers, from principals to graduate students. Clearly, many educators felt the desire to share what they’ve realized about teaching. We asked teachers to tell stories that would illuminate their students’ humanity and their own. We included many stories that do just that. However, we also heard from teachers both past and present, who were inspired to simply reflect on our core idea: what does teaching mean?

***

We believe that this book will speak to people who are considering teaching as a profession, those who feel the “calling” to teach. As I mentioned above, the stories in this collection chronicle a diverse set of experiences at different types of schools all over the country. We didn’t want to pretend that all teachers tell their stories with one voice. These stories are as varied as the people and places they come from. A reader of this book will quickly realize that these authors don’t necessarily only explore the great days in the lives of teachers and students. The teachers in these stories disappoint their students sometimes. They don’t always say the right thing. They struggle with administrators and parents. They don’t necessarily have all the answers. Some no longer even teach. In short, the stories are real. We don’t pretend that they represent all the “best practices” or pedagogically perfect methods. More important to us is the recording of the deeply human stories playing out in schools everywhere.

Nonetheless, people who are considering being teachers can perhaps glimpse into what happens in our country’s schools every day. There are a lot of people having a great time. There are stories of growth and death, new jobs and shuttered schools, blame and redemption. “Oh no” moments and “a-ha” moments. The quiet loneliness of not quite figuring it out and, finally, the lovely, and sometimes chaotic, noise of understanding. There are teachers who learn more than they can ever hope to teach, who receive more than they ever give. And, mostly, there are teachers who find a way to reach out to their students and embrace everything that teaching means, day after day, year after year.

***

Finally, I want to say a few things about the arrangement of the book. Unlike most books, we decided to include the authors’ biographies with their stories. We did this because we believe that where teachers have taught, how they got to where they are now is crucial to understanding their stories.  We hope that readers will see this book as an invitation to add their stories to this book, to explore what they think teaching means.