I spent this evening at a local university speaking with graduate students in education on the topic of the Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) at Gowanda. I had the privilege of joining Marvin L. Henchbarger, Executive Director of the Gay & Lesbian Youth Services of Western New York.
Readers may remember earlier posts on G-Town Talks about the evolution of this group, and more specifically, the evolution of my thoughts on the subject. Some might say it’s curious that I spoke with any authority on this topic when a few short months ago I was saying “I’m not sure what we’re going to do, but here’s a way that our students say they need us.” Marvin and I presented our ideas, we answered a few questions, and we talked to students at the end of the session.
What struck me tonight was the importance of the subject versus the relevance to the audience. I’m remembering Will Richardson’s recent post,The Next Generation of Teachers, that generated a terrific comment conversation concerning graduate students and the hope that they’ll take the lead with technology. As Marvin and I shared our experiences and thoughts on the GSA, I kept looking at our audience and thinking “they just want to get jobs, they’re not worried about the GSA or the use of technology or taking any risks. These kids just want to get hired somewhere and earn a living and they don’t want to do anything to screw that up.”
Again, I go back to the model of a teacher that we all have in our minds. I’m more convinced than ever that teaching requires risk takers, people with passion about something outside of the classroom, like their hockey team, the band they’ve been playing in for years, or fish. Teachers who want to challenge thinking in their students, who want them to think deeply. Teachers who ask hard questions and better yet, help students find the answers to questions none in the room can answer.
I just heard a collective gasp. What’s she thinking? Risk takers, challenging thinking? What if these new hires push kids to think differently than we do? What if they disagree? What if they find an answer that differs from mine? What if they’re inappropriate? And for my friends to the very near north, what if they do something just plain wrong? What if they lead kids astray, in the wrong direction?
Who decided what the right direction was anyway?
A few questions came, more out of kindness to the speakers than anything else. One young man, an English teacher in the making, asked what to do as the student teacher, in the cooperating teacher’s classroom, to stop “hurt comments”. I told him to step up, take the initiative, develop a presence, tell them you won’t have them talking like that on your watch. Others suggested he play it safe, don’t make waves. I understand why this was suggested, I truly do, but I still hate it. I just heard the collective gasp give way to the sound of those new teachers falling into line.
So there I stood in a room full of potential hires, waiting for the questions, the curiosity, the initiative, the spark. Those who didn’t have it need not apply in G-Town, because that’s what I’m hiring. Those who only want to play it safe, to keep their heads down, to do things the same way we’ve done them for the past 100 years, apply elsewhere. The teachers I have in G-Town are as willing as I’ve ever seen to at least “give it a go”, I can’t afford to hire new teachers who say “leave me in the status quo”.
My favorite quote by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich seems to fit nicely wilth this blog:
“Well behaved women rarely make history”.
It wasn’t so long ago that I was the education student sitting in the audience, praying I would find a job. I am now a new member of a faculty and can say that the balace is tricky when working for a public school system; the balance of staying true to my beliefs yet the understanding that I must also follow the beliefs of the community with which I work. I’m probably going to swallow my ideas once in a while and “go with the flow”, but I can assure you that I will “rock a few boats” along the way, too (I think I already have!). I hope that the new-hires in that audience remember their passion and quiet their fears of getting tenure during the first few years of teaching. It’s something that I have to remind myself to do, too.
I was giving advice to my student teacher as he was embarking on his next placement–middle school!!! And when I shared this with his supervising teacher, I thought she was going to have a heart attack, saying…. ohh, well, only if the teacher will let him do those things. She seemed almost irritated that I challenged his thinking.
While we are on the subject, what is with our local college’s need to put so much emphasis on their students lesson plans being in the right font, and length, and article BEFORE response order, and all the stuff that we never worry about when we have a job teaching. I’ve heard this from all of my student participants and student teachers. Why aren’t they truly preparing these young candidates for what the job is really like? I’m sure they are turning out GREAT lesson writers, but are they turning out GREAT teachers who can deliver those correct font, length, and format lessons?
I was one of the student teachers at the presentation yesterday, and I was happy to learn about your school’s efforts to support its students, especially having read so much over the past few years about schools going out of their way to prevent GSAs from forming and meeting.
I definitely appreciated hearing from both you and Marvin, and I wanted to let you know that not all of us who failed to ask questions afterward were uninterested in what you had to say. We could have done a better job showing it (myself included, obviously, since I didn’t ask any questions), but I know many of the people who were in that room are committed to teaching for change. Of course, time will tell whether we actually follow through on those beliefs, but it’s encouraging to know that there are some administrators out there who will be supportive. Just don’t give up on us yet! 🙂
I’m with you on this one Kim! I left my classroom in part because my risk taking and passion for kids was not a fit for the district’s new administration. But the question is – how do you determine this in an interview? I have sat through many, many interviews where we thought that we had the ideal candidate, only to see them fold under the pressure of “needing tenure” or needing to “fit in” with their department or teams. Our BOCES has moved to behavioral based interview questions and I am hopeful that this will let us get to the heart of who a candidate is – but it continues to be difficult, sometimes too difficult, to encourage those folks who aren’t as they advertised to move along. I think we need strong administrators who have the same passion and more importantly, courage, to work with those who once they have the position think the hard work is done.