Which Teacher Inspired You?

This week’s article summary is What Teachers Can Do to Boost Student Engagement.

As I read about the teacher qualities that support student the development of agency (sense of self) and a growth mindset in students, I kept thinking about the type of teacher most of us remember as the most influential in shaping us as adults.

We probably recall a ‘tough and strict’ teacher—an intimidating,  no nonsense task-master who took no slack, suffered no fools, ran his/her classroom in regimental fashion, and was kind of scary and frightening. This teacher introduced us to the ‘real world’ and taught important life-lessons about hard work, effort, and responsibility. 

It’s interesting to me how in hindsight we think that the teacher’s strictness shaped us. Often I hear from both parents and teachers that this is the type of teacher that children need and, if we had more teachers like this, education and today’s youth would be better served.

Educational pundit Alfie Kohn refers to this as the “Listerine Effect” of education: the belief that growth and progress require suffering and even misery (or in the case of Listerine, its bad taste lets us know that it’s killing germs).

The reality, as the article attests, is that a different type of teacher shapes and influences our sense of self and belonging.

My inspirational teachers were Mr. Podmore (in a self-contained 6th grade classroom) and Mr. Coe, my 7th grade American history teacher. 

They helped me grow as a student and as a person, not by making me fear them but by encouraging me to look inward and to see the value of my thoughts, feelings, opinions, and individuality.

Their classrooms were alive with student ideas and opinions. We had lots of class discussions and, especially in 7th grade history, tests were principally essay questions that began with the words “Why do you think…” 

Mr. Podmore and Mr. Coe made me think and form opinions, using content as the springboard, not the goal. They pushed me to justify my ideas with supporting evidence.

At Trinity, we talk about the importance of student empowerment and deeper learning, and these teachers fostered both in me. 

They helped me begin to see that the world was complex with much grayness and ambiguity, that truth has many dimensions, and that my opinion was one of many perspectives.  

They valued my classmates and me as individuals, not as one large group. 

My sense of self began to take shape in those years, and, as a result, school became more interesting, relevant, and even fun to me. 

6th and 7th grade for me were seminal school years,  6th grade being my culminating year in a public elementary school and 7th grade being my first year in a private Quaker school.

Moving from a public to private school was daunting--being a new kid, trying out for football, having to wear a tie and jacket at school, having a different teacher for every class, getting much more homework, having to take notes and study for tests. 

Yet Mr. Podmore had helped prepare me for this transition. In my new school, I felt that I mattered, that I had to speak up and advocate for myself, that I had something to say, and that I could think, not just memorize and repeat. 

And every day Mr. Coe’s history class buoyed these emerging personal revelations. 

I can trace becoming a teacher to Mr. Podmore and Mr. Coe. Beyond admiring them, I wanted to teach just like them.

It may be more common for us to reflect back on teachers who were strict (and I had some of them too), yet our true models and influencers are those teachers who live to the 7 standards below.

I hope you had a teacher like Mr. Podmore and Mr. Coe and that we as educators inspire our students the way they did for me!

Joe  

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Below are the 7 Cs of Teaching to boost student agency and to foster a growth mindset

Care: Be attentive and sensitive, but don’t coddle

Confer: Encourage and respect students’ perspectives, but don’t waste class time with idle chatter

Captivate: Make lessons stimulating and relevant while knowing that some students may hide their interest

Clarify (clear up confusion, lucid explanations, instructive feedback): Take regular steps to detect and respond to confusion, but don’t just tell students the answers

Consolidate: Regularly summarize lessons to help consolidate leaning

Challenge (require rigor, require persistence): Anticipate some resistance but persist

Classroom Management: Achieve respectful, orderly, and on-task student behavior by using clarity, capitation, and challenge instead of coercion