City Views - eCommons@Cornell - Cornell University

'Constant examination and revision of
approach—not packaged answers to
packaged questions—make the better
teachers among us the best.'
an extra dimension of reality to what
was happening inside that room. How
many times had I made the same thing
happen in my classroom now that I
was a teacher? None. I just hadn't
thought of it.
2) Times when, as students, we left
the classroom on assignments or field
trips. Γve never forgotten the time
when a group of us was taken to Philadelphia
to hear Eugene Ormandy and
the Philadelphia Orchestra. For the
first time in my life, a symphony
became something more than the
theme music from a motion picture.
And now that I was a teacher,
how many times had I gotten my
classes out of that room into the surrounding
world? Once, to write a composition.
At the end of that day I was
asked not to do it again. Students in
some of the other classes had watched
us going past their windows, had begged
their teachers to let them go out
too, and the resulting teachers' complaints
had caused a problem for our
long-suffering principal (who later let
me do it again anyway).
3) Times when things we did, as
students, had an audience beyond the
teacher. When I was a mediocre eleventh-grade
student, Jack Tyrer, an
English teacher whom Γve never forgotten,
was enthusiastic about a composition
I had written for his class. He
helped me polish it for submission to
our schooΓs literary magazine, and it
was accepted and published. I think I
watched every day for that magazine
to appear, and when it finally did, I can
still remember taking a copy to my
room and sitting there alone, holding
it, for what must have been an hour. I
sent copies to members of my family
and gave copies to my friends.
That single event—more than
any other—changed my school career
and had an indelible imprint on my
life. I hated school. My grades had
been so terrible that year that the
scholarship I had had was taken away.
And then I was published. I
wasn't an idiot after all. I was an author.
Wanting to be published again, I
labored over compositions that until
that time had simply been hollow exercises
without meaning or reason.
Some of them were printed. Grammar
suddenly had utility, and it began
to make sense. The labor of other
authors and poets and journalists
came to life and took on new meaning.
I studied their styles. My grades
underwent a slow but steady change
as I saw myself as someone with
potential. Near the end of the year, the
headmaster saw me walking across
the quadrangle, came over, and said,
"I wanted you to know that I just
finished calling your father to tell him
that your scholarship has been reinstated
intact. You've earned it."
In what ways, as a new teacher,
had I created opportunities for my
students to have that affirmation that
could bring to them a new and serious
sense that the work we were doing
together could have utility and function
and worth and purpose and the
potential for reward far beyond an entry
in my grade book?
None.
4) Times where we, as students,
were given responsibility of an adult
nature, and were trusted to fulfill it.
Because of the success I had had with
writing, I was made an editor of the
literary magazine and our high school
newspaper—a no-nonsense, professional
affair published on a weekly basis
that the faculty adviser—in what I
like to believe now was by enlightened
design—basically kept his hands off.
The articles that were written were
proofread a final time and, if necessary,
censored by him before being
sent to the typesetter in town, but beyond
that, it was our product, completely.
Headlines (painstakingly
written and rewritten to fit the space
allotted). Photos. Captions. Articles.
Editorials. Makeup and design. Everything,
weekly. No nonsense. No
bailing out.
We were on the line in front of an
audience in much the same sense that
members of the high school football or
basketball or soccer team are during a
game. The coach can shout all he
wants from the sidelines, but he can't
touch the ball. Is it any wonder, then,
that many high school ball players regard
sports and their team with more
seriousness—and give them more energy
and dedication—than their academic
work?
How many times had I created
opportunities for my students, in a
classroom context, to feel the thrill of
assuming responsibility and trust
(putting academic skills they were to
master in my class to work with competence)
in the same way they would
be asked to perform as adults? To
have the chance to practice, as it were,
in a situation where mistakes would
be treated as learning opportunities
rather than more fatal, career-damaging
errors?
Not once.
I had simply presented to them
materials I expected them to master,
and had scratched my head in bewilderment
over the fact that when I
gave them quizzes, many of the papers
didn't deserve a passing grade.
THE PLAN
For several weeks, we experimented.
Seasoned teachers, had
any been watching us, would say
we floundered, but I prefer the
sound of experimented. In fact,
the process of examining ourselves,
English and what it's for, school and
what it's for, and sampling new activities
is still going on. I have found that
it is the constant, unrelenting examination
and revision of approach—not
a package of answers to packaged
questions—that makes the better
teachers among us the best.
For purposes of this story, I've
compressed this introspection and dialogue.
Understand that there was no
Road to Damascus flash of enlightenment,
so if you try the same thing with
your classes, don't get discouraged if
it takes years. Believe, though, that it
will be worth it.
During our class discussions, I
had related some of my own school
magazine experiences to the group,
and as we continued to grope about,
some interest in that idea began to
Cornell Alumni News
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