Jan 17, 2008 1:58 PM
There are as many types of teachers in New York City’s schools as there are neighborhoods: The academic-at-heart who aims to infuse college-level material and ideas into her children; the teacher who simply loves kids and education but needs to brush up on his own knowledge of U.S. history and spelling skills; the management guru whose kids quiet at the raise of a hand; the first-year rookie befuddled by students turning classrooms into wrestling rings; the frustrated cynic; the pragmatic optimist. In all, the motivations and abilities of New York City’s schoolteachers range as wide as our students’.
To improve our city’s schools we must focus on teachers’ knowledge and strengths, encourage teachers to share materials and ideas and build positive networks to overcome the tide of cynicism.
And to do that successfully, teachers must share their knowledge and experiences with colleagues, and principals must foster a community where teachers delight in this practice. In my school, I have found myself assisting other teachers in their teaching of fractions while I look to others for a way to develop an engaging unit on Columbus’ “discovery” of the Taino Indians.
I am still learning how to hang charts in an aesthetic manner while sharing with veteran teachers my philosophy on incorporating team-building activities into our curriculum. We need to utilize such things as teacher knowledge of engineering and business to support our math teachers and those experienced with publishing to engage our literacy teachers.
The reality is that few New York City teachers are masters of both their content and their presentation. When teachers are isolated from other teachers who can support their teaching we are bound to find gaps that leave our children behind. But within any school there exists the talent to help fill those gaps.
Filling those gaps and building the knowledge and skills of teachers will require a fundamental shift in the way teachers view their own learning. For example, the best professional development I have experienced happened informally during lunch breaks. That’s when I learned how to do a WRAP reading assessment and how to use pattern blocks to teach equivalent fractions ,and worked out the kinks of my positive-behavior classroom management system.
My school has also created opportunities for teachers to offer their classrooms as models for other teachers to come and observe particular teaching practices. This includes observing morning meetings and other community-building activities (my school is committed to Responsive Classroom) or a teacher modeling a Wilson reading lesson. Our profession requires us to continuously acquire new knowledge, and it must be professional practice for good ideas to flow freely amongst us.
Change happens best when people are networked. I have been fortunate enough to discover several organizations that support my educational ideals. Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound, of which my school, PS/MS/HS 27, is a member, puts a major emphasis on staff relationships, authentic learning projects and character development. Two other organizations, the Coalition of Essential Schools and the New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCoRE), host conferences, lesson-planning gatherings and e-mail list serves that bring the best ideas in education into our city’s classrooms. Members of these and other progressive educational communities must continue to grow in number in order to strengthen the overall culture of education in New York City.
Beyond sharing resources, I believe continued idealism is essential for our city’s school system. Too often, conversations with my colleagues in school and in graduate classes break down into the predictable and unconstructive talk about student behavior and school politics. What teachers need to be discussing instead is the creation of a challenging curriculum and classroom techniques that we can immediately apply.
I may seem like a wide-eyed idealist, not yet seasoned with experience working in — or being worked by — the system. Certainly, from my first summer of teaching summer school to my current second year as a CTT teacher, I have run across a number our profession’s cynics. But I think it is important that we recognize the need for us as a society to be hopeful again. Through small gestures of support, through positive networking and through conversations about teaching our children, not managing them, we can begin to move our city’s school system in a direction our students deserve.
My purpose in writing this is to stir up the many teachers out there who I know share these sentiments; who, like me, may feel they lack the voice or connections to join, shape and lead the conversation. I hope I have modeled here some ways that we can influence and inform others.
Now go find something useful and drop it in a teacher’s mailbox.
Dan Lilienthal is a second-year Teaching Fellow. He teaches 5th-grade special education at PS/MS/HS 27 in Red Hook, Brooklyn.