Are we conscious of how hard good teachers work on a daily basis? Bad teachers seem to get all the press. Bad teachers don't work very hard. They do as little as possible to get through a day and go home.
Recently, a good teacher asked me to spend the day in her classroom. She was teaching a lesson on geometric transformations and she said that experience has shown that an extra set of hands would be beneficial. The class is a group of challenging seventh graders who have a tendency to get off task if anything out of the ordinary happens. The teacher knew that, although my presence would be considered out of routine for them, the amount of new materials (namely compasses) needed for the lesson would cause a disruption. I was excited to be able to spend a whole day in one classroom. My full-time position as a secondary mathematics resource teacher requires that I travel to 26 middle schools, sometimes 2 in a day. That doesn't allow for much one-on-one time with a teacher unless scheduled ahead of time.
I arrived in the teacher's classroom at 8:05 am. The teacher was already there and she told me that she woke up with a splitting headache. Although she had taken some ibuprofen, she said that they didn't seem to be helping. She had arrived at school at 7:30 and had prepared her classroom, boardwork and materials, for the day. The students started to arrive at 8:15. This is when a teacher has to be ready to "hit the ground running". Most every student needs a piece of the teacher's time. The reasons are endless and usually unique; ranging from personal to academic. Many of them just want to touch base with a caring adult before they start their day. This teacher genuinely cares for her students and wants to have this time available for them. This is one of the reasons why she needs to have all her preparations finished. She will teach three 90-minute periods in the course of the day.
The first class was basically receptive to the lesson although an outside observer would have thought they had arrived in the room for the first time ever. As the teacher carefully asked questions to access the students' prior knowledge and make connections among that previous learning and today's lesson, the students mostly stared blankly at her. Every once in a while someone would raise a hand and blather some inane response that had no relationship to the question that had been asked. The teacher never lost her cool. Mr. Lemov, who wrote the book Teach Like a Champion, calls this emotional constancy. This teacher is the master of emotional constancy. She knows that middle school students spend their days basking in drama but she doesn't allow it to take her from the objective. She smiles, rephrases the questions and moves on until the students give up the nonsense and get back on task. I think some of the behavior was for my benefit. A 13 year old always thinks getting attention from the new person in the room is a good idea even if the attention is garnered for all the wrong reasons. So, although the lesson moves forward in the allotted 90 minutes, it is obvious to me that the headache has not dissipated.
With hardly 4 minutes between classes, the next group of seventh graders arrives. The difference is that these students are more awake than the previous group. That means more interaction, more minutes since arrival at 8:20, and more issues with which to deal. For this class, the teacher sits down at the ELMO (a newer version of the overhead projector that displays documents) and tries to begin the process of accessing prior knowledge to begin the lesson. The students are not responding and I ask her if I can say something to the class. I ask them how they feel about their teacher and they overwhelmingly call out that she is their favorite teacher. (I suspected as much or I wouldn't have asked the question.) I then tell them that she has a bad headache and ask them if they would be willing to stop the disruptive behavior such as calling out and talking to their neighbors. They say 'yes' and stop for maybe 3 minutes. The rest of the lesson was about half as productive as the first class.
When the class ends, the teacher has about 5 minutes to report to lunch duty. She tells me that her headache is no better but it's too soon to take any more ibuprofen. If you don't teach, you have no idea what a middle school cafeteria sounds like. Try to imagine sitting in a bustling crowd with no noise buffers. Now try to imagine having a headache in the same situation. By the way, a teacher on cafeteria duty does not just sit on the sidelines. It is an active 30-minute duty from beginning to end. After cafeteria duty, the teacher has time to eat her lunch and grade some papers. I was able to have a quiet lunch with the math department chair. We had planned to have a conversation while we ate. This also gave the teacher some time to herself after cafeteria duty.
There is a third class before the day ends. The third class is an average between first and second. There are only about 3 students that attempt to run the show. By this time, the skin under the teacher's eyes has visibly darkened. She looks tired and I can tell the headache is still there. When the 90 minutes is up, I look at her and say that I bet she is ready to call it a day and go home. Before she can answer, about 8 girls arrive in her room. It just so happens that she is the girls' basketball coach and they have a practice today. After the rest of the giggling, excited girls arrive, they all head down to the gym. As I pack up my things to go home, I can only think, "OMG...a headache combined with how many bouncing balls for the next hour"?
Sometimes professionalism and dedication need a second look. And that day in a school made me realize how hard good teachers work everyday!
