I don’t know how many readers of Independent Teacher are fortunate enough to be dog owners, but I am. We have a wonderful standard poodle named Lily that we think the world of. She is friendly, playful, and affectionate, almost everything one could ask for in a dog. Almost! But she is also very willful — she barks her head off, eats only when she wants to eat, walks down the streets she decides to go down, and, if she prefers to play ball rather than walk, that’s what we do. At 60 lbs., Lily can exert a lot of force. I often wish that we could let Lily run free in the park with other dogs, but we know from long experience that she would never come when called if she had something better to do, such as chase a squirrel or a skateboarder. Every so often I find myself a little jealous of my dog-owner friends whose dogs are super-compliant, easily loping along wherever their owner wants to go and heading home without a fuss. When I think this way, though, I have to catch myself because I know deep down that I much prefer a dog with personality, one who knows her mind — Lily has “ideas,” as my wife says — despite occasional frustrations and inconveniences.
I bring this up because I don’t think this is too dissimilar from the classroom where, as we all know, some students can also be very headstrong. Instead of following instructions, some students are forever asking, “Why do we have to do it that way?” or “I want to do it this way,” or simply not listening at all. Years ago I had a student whom other teachers warned me about — “She’s sullen, angry, hard to get along with,” they said. To be sure she had her crabby moments, but I largely ignored them, and we got on fine. In fact, she was a bright student and a productive member of the class. As a young teacher, I had tried to fight students like her, to get them to be quiet, attentive, and, most of all, compliant. But around the same time that I realized that forcing student “makeovers” was a losing battle, I began to understand that these same students were often the brightest, most interesting students — students who added richness to the classroom.
Just yesterday I came across a good (if somewhat exaggerated) characterization of what I’m talking about. The main character in a novel, recalling his school days, says that each day he and his classmates were “quickly folded into desks in order to be tamed . . . a heart subdued.” While this boy attended school a hundred years ago, I think that even now, in our eagerness to have smoothly running classes, we sometimes forget about the importance of allowing students to be themselves, that one of our primary jobs as teachers is to promote the development of individual personalities, to make space for idiosyncrasies, rather than battle with students in order to “smooth their rough edges.” Much patience is required, but it pays dividends in the personal growth of the students and a livelier, more interesting classroom.
Welcome to the Spring 2016 issue of Independent Teacher. We are thrilled to be able to offer our readers, again, many terrific essays that span a wide range of subject areas and grade levels. For example,
- Faculty members of Bank Street College of Education write about the importance of teacher training.
- Middle school teacher Hannah Reimer discusses her Holocaust project.
- Teacher Michael Mitchell tells us “Why Your School Should Be Hacked.”
We hope that you will find one or more articles that will inspire and invigorate your teaching. As always, we are eager to hear what you think. Please send comments and reactions to [email protected].