A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.
Those words, from The Education of Henry Adams, are on my mind this morning. It is a Sunday. Saturday is the one day during the week where I do not focus on school - it is a day for family and household tasks, for time with the cats and with the spouse, and yesterday for finally doing my taxes.
Before I go to sleep on Sunday, I must correct any papers I have brought home with me, make up or modify any tests or exams being given in the next five days, complete my planning for the week, and update my web page so that my students will be able to plan their weeks.
I could take these tasks for granted - after all, I am now in my 15th year of teaching, my 11th at this school, my fifth of having 3 of my six classes at an Advanced Placement level. But each year is different, each week's planning affected by what has happened the week before, each class by the particular mix of students therein.
And if I am honest, what I do is clearly affected by each student who comes before me. It has to be, if I am to take the words of Henry Adams to heart.
I often write about teaching, as I did yesterday in a diary which talked about economics (and which as I write this is somehow still on the recommended list - who knew!). I understand that my experience as a teacher cannot be universalized: I am lucky to teach in a school that is highly supportive, I have great flexibility in what I do because of my record, and many of my students are highly motivated even before they appear in my classroom. Also, I do not face the economic pressures that burden some of my compatriots.
Still, there are things about my experience, about my life, that do connect with most of the teachers in this country, despite the pressures faced - economics, the amount of time and energy it takes to do the job well, the restrictions upon using one's best judgment, rigid curricular and pacing guides, the insanity of our approach to testing.
This morning, none of that matters. What matters is this: the realization that for better or worse I have an opportunity to make a huge difference in the lives of more than 150 young people each day I set foot in my classroom. I have an opportunity, and thus I have a responsibility of which many do not conceive. It is that opportunity and responsibility that opens the possibility of affecting eternity.
I have never taught elementary school, where I would spend the day with one group of children. Some might argue that it is with these, the youngest, that a teacher potentially has the greatest impact: helping a child learn to read, to hold a pen or a pencil, to begin to discover science, or music, or poetry - all of that may be true, but it is not unique to the elementary classroom. The one advantage is the time and the opportunity to experience the student across a range of domains or if you prefer subjects.
I have taught from 7th through 12th. Most of my current students are 10th graders, which carries a certain amount of irony for me. I almost failed to get certified because of my high school placement when student teaching, where half my classes were 10th grade. 10th grade, 1960-61, was perhaps the most unhappy year of my life. There were all kinds of family problems, it was my sister's senior year, during which she was doing spectacularly. I had just entered our high school (which began in 10th grade) and was struggling. I was socially awkward, and would not go out on a date by myself between our 9th grade class and Spring of my senior year, which as you can imagine was a kind of slow torture. I was one year ahead of myself, and was so miserable that at the start of my junior year I seriously explored skipping senior year to get away from the hell I thought I was experiencing. Thankfully I did not, for it was a teacher that year, 1962-63, in Advanced Placement US History who made a difference, who finally helped me begin to understand how I could and should use my mind, not in comparison to how others did, but for my own sake, with a responsibility to myself.
Thomas Rock is one of a number of teachers the experience of whom has shaped my own teaching. In college there were more: Frank Parker in Philosophy, who when the college was ready to kick me out for poor academics stood up for me because of how much I had improved for him. George Kennedy who turned me on to classical history and encouraged me to do independent reading on a systematic basis, and then was amazed when I read every book on his suggested list in two weeks (rather than doing the work in some of my other courses), and gently suggested that I needed to learn how to balance my passions of the moment with my overall approach to learning. John Davison, my freshman adviser at Haverford College, the college's first music major, who upon my final return to the college at age 25 would be my department chair and a close friend, who in his teaching showed me how every student, even when struggling, sometimes needs some small measure of affirmation in the work s/he has assayed, even if it is still in need of improvement. He was beloved by the college, and passed away too young, but remains a part of all who knew him.
I cannot name all of the teachers who affected me. Some did so in an unfortunate manner, and it is best that I neither mention them nor the hurt that they did. I can still feel my face burning as I think of one episode in which I was unnecessarily ridiculed.
A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.
That influence can be positive or negative. I remember that embarrassing moment that still makes my face burn. I think how an experience like that can cause a student to shut down, not merely in that one class, but in all classes: after all, the embarrassment was public, those who saw it were in other classes with me.
As a teacher, I know that I will not succeed with every student. The age of those in my classes is such that I face a delicate balance, because part of what I must help them with is taking responsibility. As cruel as it might seem, for some the best thing I can do is to let them fall flat on their faces - better for them to experience that perhaps early in 10th grade so that then I can reach out and offer to help, to provide the assistance they need to pick themselves up. For others such a fall would be so devastating that I cannot allow it to happen unprepared. The problem is that I cannot always be sure which approach to take. And if I am wrong, I am haunted by the 2nd part of the words from Adams, he can never tell where his influence stops.
Some would say my responsibility is limited to the assigned content of the course, the material on which they will be tested. All of my students must pass a state end of course exam to graduate from high school. My AP students are supposed to sit for the AP exam. I cannot imagine anything more boring, more draining of enthusiasm for learning than so narrowing the class experience, and I refuse to do it.
I have found that my students do far better when they are given a chance to connect what they are studying with their own lives and experiences. Sometimes that can mean going very far from the assigned material, but if it provides an opportunity to see into the mind of a student, it enables me to find a way to connect her to the material that she must learn. It also provides an opportunity for the student to learn how to make connections on his own. That is an important part of the learning process.
Or to put it another way . . . yes, I have a responsibility to ensure that the students have a chance to learn the assigned content, but it is far more important that they learn how to learn, to organize information, to know the limits of what they do and don't know, and how to find information on their own. Every class has had the experience of someone asking an interesting question and my refusing to answer it. My response is, "that's an interesting question, why don't you look up the answer and get back to us? Since I have four classroom computers for students, as well as my school-issued and personal laptops, often a student will go and immediately research the issue while it is fresh in her mind. In the process he will learn that the teacher - or the textbook - is not the only source of information.
No teacher can know for sure what impact s/he has on students. In some cases we immediately recognize when we have made a mistake, and if we do we have a responsibility to fix it immediately. Recently I unthinkingly criticized the slipping performance of one student in front of his classmates. I needed to confront him, the occasion came up, and because it was important and I was too narrowly focused I spoke immediately, rather than looking for an occasion to pull him aside. As I drove home that evening, I realized the harm I potentially had done, not only to him, but to the others who observed the exchange - it might make them fearful of what I might say about them. Unfortunately, that happened on the last day before Spring break, in the final period of the day, and I would not see that class for 11 days.
I had been thinking about doing something, and this convinced me. I sat down and wrote out an index card for every one of my students. In some cases there was something for which to thank the student, perhaps now regularly doing her work. In others, it was to acknowledge that there were things more important than my class, such as one young lady who just gave birth and was struggling to balance her responsibilities as a new mother with her attempts to graduate from high school this year. I offered my perceptions, which might be incorrect and thus would give the student a chance to speak with me and explain. And, like that student in 8th period, in some cases I expressed disappointment or offered a challenge.
The students got their cards the day they came back. It was the first thing. We talked generally about it. I explained that I had a responsibility to communicate with them, but I also needed to do so in a way that gave them control over who else experienced that communication. Some shared their cards with friends, others did not.
And in 8th period I apologized to the young man, because having acted inappropriately in public, the apology also needed to be in public, not only for him, but for the sake of the relationships with the other students.
Perhaps that is the most important lesson I can offer. We will all make mistakes. We need to accept when we are wrong, then do what we can to make it right. Some of my students fear making academic mistakes. As a result, they do not learn all they could. They need to learn it is okay to take intellectual risks, not to be devastated because they get something wrong. School should be a place where we encourage intellectual risk taking, for it is only by experiencing the dimensions of that risk taking that the students will learn to self-monitor, to realize when the risk is not sensible, when there might be another way.
I don't know if that makes sense to anyone not in a classroom setting. Perhaps it is one reason I do not like the kinds of tests we do. They require convergent thinking - there is one right answer and everything else is wrong, there is no opportunity to explain one's choices, and thus little opportunity to use the experience to see where in the reasoning one went wrong.
I am rambling. That happens in my classroom as well. Yet we do get through the required material, because despite what may seem to be side paths, we are working on skills and understanding, we are connecting what we study with our own lives, we are learning to experience one another as human beings, full of promise, prone to error, fallible, and yet still exciting the potential that is still before our lives, even for almost 64 year old geezers like me.
A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. Thinking about that could paralyze those of us who teach - what if we are wrong, what damage might we do?
But is also empowers us. Our influence is not restricted to our limited knowledge. If we admit we do not know all, and help our students believe in their ability to go beyond where we can take them, our influence breaks the boundaries of our personal limitations. We will not claim ownership of the success of the students, but we can feel a quiet satisfaction that we were a part of the process.
I will be 64 in a few weeks. I know I am teaching next year. I begin to feel the limitations of my age - declining physical energy has become a factor these past few years. As the possible ends of my career and my life approach, I also think about other things I still hope to do. Yet each time I consider leaving the classroom I find myself drawn back. In part it is because the students help keep me young. In part it is because they connect me to a future I will not live to see. Having no biological children, they are my legacy. It is the only way I will have a continued existence, and somehow that seems to matter.
But that matters less than seeing the possibilities available to them, wanting them to be empowered, not restricted.
I cannot judge what my impact has been, or may yet be. I can remind myself that I have the opportunity to make a difference in a way that few ever experience, because of the number of young people who pass through my care. I read those words of Henry Adams, and they serve as a challenge, an inspiration to keep going, for the sake of those students, and thus for the society I will eventually leave behind.
A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.
Which is why I am proud to be a teacher.
Peace.