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| Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society |
When I was a student teacher, my supervising teacher, Ms N, upon getting a hug from a student, said “That’s what makes it all worthwhile.”
I don’t know why that bothered me. The smugness, perhaps, and the rift between us that was widening with each class bell. (I wanted to teach, she wanted an acolyte. I needed a good recommendation, she needed a sub while she took a vacation.)
But only within the past few years have I realized that writers write for the same reason they breathe and eat and make babies and other biological imperatives.
Saying a hug from a student “makes teaching worthwhile” is like saying “coming up for air when you’re swimming makes breathing worthwhile.”
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I realize that when two folks don’t get along, it’s rarely the fault of only one person, but Ms N’s pedagogy was atrocious. (She read grades from the front of the classroom and favored attractive and intelligent students.) I would have liked nothing more than to explore wild and crazy ideas with her to get the kids excited, but my nonconformity was (I think) regarded as disrespect.
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| Clarence’s Grey Poupon award from his teacher education days. |
One of my education teachers gave me her Grey Poupon Award (a large empty Grey Poupon mustard jar; only one student got it each year, and that year it went to me; I have it still and it’s pictured here).
It’s been many years, but I think that teacher was Professor Arden Post. She told me, “I expect to hear great things about you.”
I’m afraid that was not to be, at least not as a teacher.
(You can learn more about Prof Post and her wonderful work with young readers in the Alexander Literary Experience here >)
[2014-04-16]
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