May 22, 2008 2:16 PM
Do you remember a teacher or guidance counselor telling you that your grades were not up to standard? Did your parents have to sit through that hot-seat of a teacher conference in the principal’s office where they were told you might not be promoted? Was your math score a bit below the standard for all the other kids in your grade?
Now, many years later, you seem to be doing OK, have a mini-van, a few kids, and now, as an educator yourself, you are helping your students to be the best they can be.
Don’t get me wrong. I think students should enjoy reading, be able to write a letter to a friend or add up their checking account so that they don’t get taken in by all the fine print at the car dealership. Eighteen-year-olds should aspire to graduate from high school, enroll in college or perhaps pursue a technical degree to prepare for a good paying trade.
But as a teacher and administrator for more than 33 years, whenever I meet a former student, I usually am asked something like, “Hey, weren’t you my English teacher at Tottenville HS in 1977?” Or, “Remember the day you brought in that Vietnam Vet who spoke to us?” One former student once told me, “Thanks for helping me out that time my dad was sick and you let me slide on a few homeworks.”
In all these chance meetings, I have never heard a former student say, “Boy, I’ll never forget that 5th-grade reading score I had in 1969! I still have it framed next to my diploma and my autographed glossy of Derek Jeter.”
Ask any teacher what kids really remember decades later. Former students will tell you about those teachers who guided, encouraged, mentored, listened to, even scolded or gave that “teacher look” to awaken the real student buried inside who was capable of so much more.
We remember special teachers who changed our lives, caring people who put aside their own problems and gave us a concerned ear and listened to our problems. Maybe lent us a dollar in the lunchroom when mom forgot to put the lunch money in our pocket.
They gave us time and also an arm around a shoulder when we needed a bit of encouragement when our world was crumbling all around us.
I recall that my 8th-grade teacher at PS 45, Mrs. Humphries, signed my autograph album on graduation day in 1960 and wrote, “I hope you straighten out,” and “Glad to see you move on.” I was not her favorite and as class clown during her grammar lessons diagramming declarative sentences, I did give her a few gray hairs.
But eight years later, after graduating from Hunter College, there I was, a novice teacher at IS 27 on Staten Island, punching a time card next to — you guessed it — Mrs. Humphries, now my colleague.
I recall her upraised eyebrows as she saw me that brisk September morning in 1968.
“Oh, Robert, is that the boy who gave me fits a few years ago? And now you’re a teacher? Well, haven’t we grown up?”
Years later, in an elementary school, I saw a poster on a principal’s door that showed a photo of a youngster’s smiling face. Below were the words: “All young people, like good photographs, are just developing.”
If we are stuck with high-stakes testing in reading and math, let’s try not to forget these prescient words. Aren’t we all developing even as we grow older into our 40s, 50s and beyond?
I once took a high school class to a nursing home and a 16-year-old asked a spry 95-year-old, “Now that you are 95, have you achieved all you wanted in life?”
After a long pause, the nonagenarian moved closer to the teen’s face and said, “I don’t know, young lady, I’m not finished living yet.”
How do we put lifelong labels on 10-year-olds when they are having some trouble discerning a reading passage or can’t figure out how many nickels and dimes one needs to purchase a video game that costs $2.45?
After retiring, I taught a class at a technical school that had many military veterans. Every one of them had developed a clear work ethic and an ability to read between and beyond the lines. All of these men and women told me that they were not the best students 10 years earlier. Now, in their late 20s they were poised for success.
In many places of business, the doorman, the lady who cleans the hallways and those who serve the sandwiches in the cafeteria may have more social graces and common sense than the CEO who has an MBA from that prestigious business school. Do you know a plumber or carpenter who is well-read and knows more ancient history than your lawyer?
Reading and math skills are important. So are common sense, perseverance, patience and “reading the room.” Kids should also be exposed to the arts, music, languages, baking, as well as working with their hands in a woodshop. These “frills” seem to be dying in our schools along with the 20-minute recess to run around and play tag or jump rope. I guess tag is also on the outs because it will scar 6-year-olds for life.
As Einstein said, “Not everything that can be counted counts. And not everything that counts can be counted.”
By the way, Einstein’s parents were concerned about their boy not speaking until he was 4 years old. I guess the man who understood the universe would have been deemed below national test standards for his age.
Dr. Bob Pisano, a New York City educator for 33 years, retired in 2001 as AP at IS 7 on Staten Island. He is now an assistant professor in the education department at Rider University supervising student teachers.