This is an abridged version of my closing graduation speech I recently gave (and blogged about) where I work. Words to those entering the teaching profession. Something more heartfelt and personal.
Sorry for the bad audio but I did this in one take and without any notes…. just thoughts in my head.
Here are a few photos (I’m horrible about taking photos!)
“In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine.”
It is that time of year, time to say good bye. Time to close books and put away pencils and go on our way towards that “next thing”. End of semester, the bell rings one long, loud time. People come and go like ghosts, it is over. We await the “new” and September when there is rebirth and the cycle starts again.
And that’s how school is.
I’ve never gotten used to it. This saying good – bye. It is like a heavy mist that weighs me down all summer, all time apart. Where do the people go that were SUCH a part of my life? Why this hither and yonder and higher and lighter? Where do they all go? And why must I partake in it? Who clangs the bell that makes all this happen and keeps the circle spinning ’round? Who wiped away my sky?
“Anyone whose goal is ‘something higher’ must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.”
It is even worse for adventurous EFL teachers. We flit from one school, from one country to the next. We get to know students and the community but always remain on the outside because there will always be a time to move on…. we are always saying good-bye, everything shifts underneath us and there is no “terra firma”.
When I finished my second practice teaching session during Teacher’s College, my mentor teacher – Jim McClacherty at the end of the session took me for a walk on the pitch outside. He had a somber air to him and I though it was just because he felt burdened by some personal problem. He scratched at his beard as was his habit and kept chit-chatting as we walked on the field where he had once coached me as a teenager. Now here I was and he was trying to come up with some “wisdom”. Finally, he stopped and looked me in the eye. He said, “David, you are a teacher now. And there is some secret you have to know. There is a lot of pain in teaching. The hardest part of teaching, the most pain, is in saying “good-bye”. You are constantly saying good-bye to so many people/students that you gave your heart to. Your heart is broke a thousand times by this treadmill of human potential. It is the most painful thing, always saying good-bye. Nobody ever stays. ”
“And therein lies the whole of man’s plight. Human time does not turnin a circle; it runs ahead in a straight line. That is why man cannot be happy: happiness is the longing for repetition.”
I’ve so often thought of Jim throughout my years. The best teacher I had – the best because he was courageous enough to deal with the “heavy” stuff, the stuff that is seldom looked at but always there. And I feel that terribly this year, this semester. A lightness that comes from being “nowhere” and having so many teachers and students just pass through my life, like my life were some kind of magical treadmill. Where does the center hold? What matters? Do we just have to keep playing our part and our we mere players on the stage of life?
When Tereza came back from the dance floor with the young man, the chairman asked her to dance, and finally Tomas has a turn with her, too.
“Tomas”, she said to him out on the floor, “everything bad that’s
happened in your life is my fault. It’s my fault you ended up here, as low as you could possibly go.”
“Low? What are you talking about?”
“If we has stayed in Zurich, you’d still be a surgeon.”
“And you’d be a photographer.”
“That’s a silly comparison to make,” said Tereza, “Your work meant everything to you; I don’t care what I do, I can do anything, I haven’t lost a thing; you’ve lost everything.”
“Haven’t you notice I’ve been happy here, Tereza?” Tomas said.
“Surgery was your mission,” she said.
“Missions are stupid, Tereza. I have no mission, No one has. And it’s a terrific relief to realize you’re free, free of all missions.”
I have been searching my whole life for “lightness” and I’ve traveled the world. Yet, I find within me, a need, a sorrow, a melancholy that aches for “weight” and community/people and things that stay, endure and matter. What I’d give to not go through “a course” with its 15 weeks and then the repartee. It is like death itself! What I’d give to remember all the thousands (I’d even venture 10s of thousands) of teachers I’ve encountered online or off – what I’d give to have them in my life and as a whole and not some light breeze. I ask again, where does the center hold?
“The goals we pursue are always veiled. A girl who longs for marriage longs for something she knows nothing about. The boy who hankers after fame has no idea what fame is. The thing that gives our every move its meaning is always totally unknown to us.”
But maybe I’m wrong. I do know I still have a lot to learn. Something has pulled me into teaching and it gives me so much. I do enjoy the lightness too. I can disappear. I have no demands placed upon me, to a long term degree. I can be who I am and if not accepted, off to the next job, the next teaching position. I am the captain of my own ship.
Yet my ship has no rudder and the crew come and go with each new port. I’ve confused them all and all I remember are the faces. The destination? There is none, just constant harbors to get new supplies and rejuvenate – that is the teacher’s lot.
“We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.”
It is the end of the semester, so many students coming to my office and then going…..going off to god knows where. Lost in this world’s busyness. Lost to my ship, a fleeting memory of time and space. Lightness. Unbearable lightness. And one day I’ll meet a student on some street with no name and I will not know their name — only their face. I have to take faith that is enough. Such is the lot and the unbearable lightness of being a teacher.
“There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison. We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself? That is why life is always like a sketch. No, “sketch” is not quite a word, because a sketch is an outline of something, the groundwork for a picture, whereas the sketchthat is our life is a sketch for nothing, an outline with no picture.”
What to do? I live, I teach, I do my best. There is an ideal I long for but I seem incapable of finding it. Teaching seems contradictory to it. I want things to stay but nothing stays, life, my life, just keeps marching forward. I look underfoot but see no treadmill. Yet, everything keeps moving despite my protests. The moment won’t last nor linger.
I don’t know why but I found it deeply disturbing. So disturbing, I just couldn’t even write about it. So I let it fester and digest until I could better grasp what it really was that hit me so hard.
On the face of it, seems like a wonderful thing. Wow! A whole high school education paid for and not just any high school education – a private school education! A chance to get out of the ghetto and learn unplagued of social problems and the pressures of inner city urban teen culture. A chance to be valued for who and what you are and not your “rep” or your “image”.
Or is this so?
I really think we should be fixing the problem at the roots, not creating more “educational ghettos”. That’s what bothered me.
Call me a dinosaur but I’m a big believer in public education. A “good” public education for all — and how it really creates a society and allows through knowledge and learning, a democracy to survive. Call me a believer in civilization – not power.
I’ve spent a lot of time around boarding schools and the children of very rich kids. I value a liberal education and the opportunities these students have – opportunities to think, be challenged and grow intellectually. The trouble is, I don’t want that to be on the backs of a population that doesn’t get the same advantages. And that is what disturbs me – that this sort of thing, this education “by lottery” will further create haves and have nots. I’d much rather these gentlemen take their time and money (and don’t think for a moment this is all “charity” – but that’s another blog post) and work in the communities/neighborhoods of the inner cities. Work there to build an equitable and possible better tomorrow. We don’t need charity in education and we don’t need educational ghettos.
This week, I watched the following video of Chomsky answering a question about education. He outlines so well the problem of institutionalization and conformity in education. That those who succeed, those like the kids of the rich, are those most able to conform, obey and follow. They are smart enough to know that they just have to go through the “nonsense” of education to get where they can enjoy life. Many or most inner city kids don’t conform, and for very good reasons. They don’t need more schooling, they need more education. Let’s give them that, more freedom to be who they are and how they are – instead of keeping them in educational ghettos – be they Ivy league prep school or Washington Heights Public H.S. That’s the problem as I see and I thank Chomsky for reminded me about it (even if he did so way back in 1990).
How do you see it? How did this episode and “lottery” effect you?
** Not your ordinary, endless list – just what’s number 1.
How to Prevent Another Leonardo da Vinci
This post, written by a high school student (!!!!) says it all. How education, schools, teachers, the system fails students. Written in the form of a series of “murders” it is enlightening and a must read for anyone who will make a career of education.
Spring is here in this part of the world. Hope rings eternal. I call it “the filling”. The world replenishes itself and begins the cycle of rebirth. In a very significant way – teaching is this same “planting of seeds” and nurturing of the gift of life.
Over the last year – I’ve enjoyed reflecting on “teaching” through my forum collection, “The Tao of Teaching”.
Now, you can get everything as a presentation for easy browsing. Hope you enjoy and please comment on the forum and add your own thoughts!
Are you a subversive teacher?
A teacher is that rare individual who coaxes the existing knowledge systems of his students out of hiding, drags every last tentacle of the monster from the depths into broad daylight, hoses off the slime, wrestles it to the ground when it puts up a fight, and finally gives it a heart transplant. That’s subversion. That’s teaching.
- Thor May, Subversive Teaching
In my discussions with working teachers – those times we just let our thoughts take us places (and I try to do this every session, let them use their English in a free way) – in these discussions we always reach conclusions which contrast with the “official line”. We conclude that a lot of what we do is, “playing school”
This could be about curriculum. The teacher MUST teach the book but it is awful and boring. So the teacher is subversive and covers the book quickly while providing creative, effective instruction for students the rest of the time. The teacher brings the hidden curriculum to the fore but in a quiet, “unofficial” way.
This could be about assessment. The teacher MUST assess students but is not given the time or maybe has to use high stakes methods which really don’t give a good indication of the student’s effort, progress. So the teacher fudges the numbers and blends things – making sure that those students who don’t fit into the regular testing mould – get their due.
We might not go so far as Robin Williams and have students rip out the thoughts of J. Evans Pritchard but good teachers do similar things.
Teachers subvert. In our discussions we always talk about how we smile, nod and keep things pretty while doing some other things which we really know will help students learn. It is our classroom after all, despite all other pretensions. Good teachers know how to be subversive. Not in any rebellious or revolutionary sense but in a quiet way, a subtle way.
Without teachers doing these subversive things every day, I don’t think there would be a lot of progress in “official” education. I really do. Partly it is a coping mechanism but mostly, it is teachers being true to the real spirit of education which isn’t “a book” , “a curriculum” , a competition” but rather connecting with learner’s and motivating them to discover, to learn.
Two books that have influenced my thinking are now classics and they speak in a similar vein. Postman and Weingartner’s, Teaching as a Subversive Activity and Illych’s – Deschooling, I highly recommend both. They still apply today, these ideas of slowly changing the system through what we do in our classrooms, in education. (I especially love Postman’s thoughts about Teacher’s College and designing curriculum).
Are you a subversive teacher?
Sooner or later, every teacher who is around long enough, will be required to submit/produce/write up, their philosophy of education.
I really think it invaluable to make this “thought visible”. The process itself helps to solidify your already held beliefs and give you some “clear road” as a teacher (but don’t make it too solid…life is a highway sang one great Canadian crooner!).
So in this spirit, let me share my own below. See the longer version too, if interested (16 pages). Why not link your own and share it? It can’t but help us and help us grown as teachers….
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Statement of Educational Philosophy
David Deubelbeiss
“I’d rather Summerhill graduate a happy street sweeper than a neurotic prime minister.”
— A.S. Neill, Summerhill.
My philosophy of education has changed over the years. First, I thought teaching was about imparting knowledge. A classroom was a place to learn facts and subjects. A place to compare, judge and get marks. Then over time and with much reflection, teaching came to have a “softer” meaning. It was about guiding students and the art of discovery. It was no longer just about knowledge but about understanding and putting information to use. Now, after many years of experiencing the real thing, I think it is a much broader concept. Especially so with EFL teaching.
Education can’t be just “one” thing. We are all an experiment of one. There are so many people and so many teachers. The world is such a diverse place, it can’t be so. But I do think education can be minted into a few golden nuggets.
First and foremost, education is about “happiness”. As the A.S. O’Neill’s quote suggests, it is the teacher’s prime obligation to help ensure that the goodness of the child takes root and that the child’s happiness is the goal of education. Education is not just an intellectual enterprise but an emotional one. All our activities should be directed with this in mind.
Further to this, education to me is about “passion”, a kindling of a fire and thirst for “knowing”. The world never rests and it moves under our feet. We should prepare youth for change in general, not some specific point of change. Education therefore is about the process and involvement and not the product, knowledge. Education is not about teaching but about learning. This is something I constantly remind myself of.
Secondly, it is a teacher’s obligation to be passionate about their subject and through their own joy and curiosity, allow the students to be enflamed and educated. Much research has been undertaken on “good” teaching. Foremost on the list of what makes a good teacher is a passionate love of their subject. It is my hope to always be teaching in a contagious spirit that exudes joy and passion.
Teaching is much more about motivation than the subject/content itself. Especially in the EFL / ESL context, there simply aren’t enough hours in a classroom course to master a language. A teacher should be a great educational psychologist, knowing what buttons to push, to have the student(s) most effectively learn. We are guides and cheerleaders and counsellors in the modern process (rather than product) based learning environment. Teaching is “the art of assisting discovery”, as one great teacher (Mark Van Doren) once wrote.
Thirdly, education to me has a Deweyian like social agenda. Teachers are role models preparing students to meet the challenges of living together in a rapidly changing future. Particularly in EFL, education is about teaching tolerance and acceptance as we become a global community through the glue of the English language. EFL instructors are truly the missionaries of the 21st century. Education is about power – particularly the power of a person to create their own future and destiny. Teachers are often the key to that door into the room of power. We should always remind ourselves of this responsibility.
Finally, education to me means educating one person at a time. It means making a difference to one student, to one classroom, at a time. “Cultivez votre jardin” said Voltaire, “tend your own garden”. Education is about that special relationship between teacher and student. Trying each day to do the best job one can – to make a difference. I don’t want to ever be the teacher this student writes about in Brautigan’s fine poem, “The Memoirs of Jesse James”
I remember all those thousands of hours
that I spent in grade school watching the clock,
waiting for recess or lunch or to go home.
Waiting: for anything but school.
My teachers could easily have ridden with Jesse James
for all the time they stole from me.
Happy teaching and learning to you all who might read this.
David Deubelbeiss
Lately, I’ve been “evaluating” a lot of teachers for the new “Teaching English in English – TET program. Been rather frustrated along with many teachers and I really needed some inspiration today. I got it in this STERLING essay by a Korean writer. He really hits the nail on the head – he really let’s us know why we do what we do every day; plan classes, design lessons, council students, take attendance, research, go to meetings, call parents, check homework and yes – pick up our pay checks.
Enough of my boring introduction. Please read this! Also, this short text to speech video I made, compliments what he is saying…..
Back to the basics of education
Education in a democratic society should provide for equal opportunity, not equal results.
November 02, 2009
A heated debate has been brewing over the fate of private elite high schools – special purpose high schools and foreign language high schools. The presidential office has taken the issue into its own hands and hopefully, this time, we can see actions faithful to the fundamentals of education.
What is true education?
Education in a democratic society should provide for equal opportunity, not equal results. If education aspires for equality in outcome, it will only lock itself in its own limits. We have already tasted the ills of a uniform education policy. One might say the purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows. And offering room for creativity and diversity has been this administration’s idea of liberal education. The government has experimented with a wide range of school models such as free-curriculum and dormitory schools, all in the hopes of breeding many talents in various fields.
We need to shift our attention to the core of our education problem. We must return to the basics. When a couple confronts a crisis in marriage, they are asked to look back to their dating days. When an investigation hits a snag, it is best to return to the starting point of the event. The Renaissance was brought up by a retrospective movement back to the classics to seek wisdom to restore arts and literature. Returning to the foundation often solves problems. “Ad fonts,” a Latin phrase meaning retrogression or a return to the origin, can be particularly applied to our educational problem. Both the problem and solution of our education predicament lies in our public education. Strengthening education at public schools and making them competitive is the key to our education’s restoration and viability. Excellent teachers and pupils hoping to foster bright minds rather than intellectual success can revive public schools. Good teachers make good pupils. Educators of quality intellect, character and authority can help rebuild public schools.
Education authorities must concentrate efforts in training teachers and developing curriculum that nurtures the mind. Our teachers must think themselves the Johann Pestalozzi of our society, remembering their role is “to teach children, not subjects.” It cannot happen overnight, but when public education becomes strong, the need for private will gradually dissolve. The government should not make the mistakes like its predecessors of lacking patience and farsightedness in education policy. Parents will be willing to wait if the government works on rebuilding the foundation.
*The writer is a poet and former president of Sungkyul University.
Translation by the JoongAng Daily staff.
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2911957
by Kim Sung-young
Yesterday, during a teacher training workshop, I was reminded of a theory I had about “great teachers”. Long ago over many beers, in a pub in the Czech Republic, I outlined the idea that a great teacher was a “heretic”, a kind of rebel with a cause. Great teachers broke all the rules because they had first learned all the rules (to paraphrase Lao Tze). My theory was rooted in the tradition of Illych and his “Teaching as a subversive act” – I called it “The 7 Sensational Sins of Great Teachers”. Here it is fully described and with more clarity (or perhaps less…?) than a beered up brain might offer. A confession, may I one day need to get into the big retirement home for teachers in the sky.
#1 The Teacher as a THIEF.
A great teacher will do whatever it takes to help their students learn – this includes stealing. In many foreign countries, good, authentic English materials are at a premium. So what does the good teacher do? She steals! I would walk into all the 5 star hotels in cities around the world and calmly, with an air of authority, scoop up a stack of premium travel magazines. My students would have wonderful reading material! See some brochures laying around the travel agency? Scoop them up too! A friend has a book that is laying around collecting dust? Steal it – if it will help your students! (maybe leave a note, if possible). Great teachers STEAL. They steal words from others. They photocopy and STEAL ideas from others. They do whatever it takes to get their students learning.
#2. The Teacher as a LIAR.
A great teacher tells a tall tale and a good yarn. He makes the students believe that it is “real”. A great teacher twists the facts of his life and gets the students interested in “the story”. When teaching, I would tell my students fantastic stories of my day, my life. I kept them engaged with the language, who cares if it wasn’t “fully” true? A great teacher lies — tells their students things to motivate, damn the truth! Think about it – we do this, so let’s admit the sin and come clean.
#3 The Teacher as a TYRANT.
A great teacher controls EVERYTHING, despite the illusion of student centeredness and student control. She manipulates and gets what she wants to happen, not what might happen. A great teacher pulls the strings of students and merely gives them the pretence of randomness, choice, freedom. You are choosing who will present first? The teacher does the Ennie Meanie Minny Moe but always knows where it goes! The teacher organizes the classroom, says who can go to the washroom when, says, “Open your book” and commands “close your book”. The great teacher has a look that says, “Off with your head if you so much as even twitch!”. The great teacher is truly a TYRANT.
#4 The Teacher as a FRAUD.
The great teacher not only lies but also commits fraud. We pass out cheques that will bounce. We make statements that students will learn and speak English just like the queen of England if only they do everything we say! We are frauds! We cheerlead and exhort our students to study, no matter they won’t ever learn to speak much or have the opportunity to practice in an English country. We make English sound so easy just by speaking it so well ourselves! We fool them and ask them to pay, pay, pay….. We laugh all the way to the bank. We are frauds whatever little good we do eventually do! As a young teacher, I was told by all the ivory tower types I prayed and worshiped before – “be yourself in the classroom”. What poor advice! I quickly learned that I had to be whoever I had to be – to get the students to learn. It was a confidence game, it was a con game. I put on many hats, many faces, many costumes. Whatever it took to pull off the con, the fraud. Forget being yourself! The classroom is an artificial place where we sell the students on its “reality”. We make them believe that if they do it there, they can do it anywhere…. We aren’t much better than Barnum – “There’s a sucker born every minute”. We are the used car salesmen of education.
#5 The Teacher as an ADULTERER
The great teacher loves their students – really loves them. They are intimate with them, they look them right in the eyes with love and connectedness. They talk about the most intimate details of their lives with students. A great teacher shares all their thoughts with students, allows them into the most narrow corridors of their soul. Our spouses, girl and boyfriends are unaware how we break their hearts! How we share with our students and allow them into this precious corner of our heart. We will rush out at all hours to do things for our students, with our students. Leaving our loved ones cold and alone at home…. let’s face it – we are ADULTERERS in everything but the act alone.
#6 The Teacher as a BUFFOON
The great teacher is a performer, a trapeze artist walking along a tightrope of language. We laugh, we make faces, we do the most degrading things infront of our students. We will crawl on our knees and act like a baby as we “roleplay”. TPR? We sing and dance like a monkey. We have no dignity, we have no decorum. We are buskers, shaking our tin cup of change and asking students to pay the price with their “acquisition”. We dress up and wear wigs, masks, make up, props and puppets. We are clowns that hope through laughter, learning will last.
#7 The Teacher as a SLOTH
The great teacher is slow….. They pause a lot. They have the students repeat, repeat, repeat. She asks their students to copy things a million times and makes the classroom a place of review, review, review. She is a sloth that brings language to a slow breeze that can be easily enjoyed and felt by students. No storm here! Great teachers move slowly around the class and take their time. Who cares about the lesson plan! It’s about the experience, let’s slow down and savor it together. The great teacher is the greatest of sloths, a Frenchman slowly savoring each piece of filet mignon.
Caution: there is a lot of satire in the above. Use with more than a few grains of salt.
I usually stay on topic but more and more lately, I’m becoming a bit of a preacher in my workshops and lectures. It happened today and so I thought I’d share a bit about my philosophy of education and what I think is paramount for all teachers – English as a second or foreign language included.
When I first started teaching, I dotted every i, crossed every t and really was high energy. I had daily/weekly/long term plans and forms for even the smallest of things like “washroom signout”. I was ready. However, what I was really missing was a philosophy of education. Oh, I had one but it wasn’t rooted in real life experience, it was just your regular – Teachers should be conscientious, student centered, prepared yata yata….. (not to demean these things but they do begin to blend into each other. My students suffered as a result – I didn’t know what the priority actually was…..
What I was missing and eventually gained was an understanding of what life is about. HAPPINESS. I began to ask my students every lesson – “Are you happy?” and I suggest every teacher end their day with that question. It should also inform all teaching practice.
I don’t mean that happiness is everything but it is paramount. Other concerns can’t be realized, other goals will be left un or half met if happiness is not achieved or happening. And I don’t mean the smiley faced, cheerfulness that we usually call happiness. I mean, happiness as how we feel content within our skin. In my kind of happiness, I can still be a little sad but still overall happy.
A.S. Neill has a quote I’m fond of echoing whenever I need sustenance and perspective as a teacher. “I’d rather graduate a happy street sweeper, than a thousand neurotic prime ministers.” . A kind of paraphrase of e.e. cumming’s “I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than to teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.”
Let’s remember that the objective of education is a happy and well adjusted individual.(in Korea, this is even written into the Nat. Curriculum Objectives as “Hongik Ingang”) Kudos to all teachers who make sure their students go home happy!
Here’s a fav. poem about teaching that also relates to what I discussed above…. How important school is and how important consequently is our job….our job to bring “happiness”.
THE MEMOIRS OF JESSE JAMES
I remember all those thousands of hours
that I spent in grade school watching the clock,
waiting for recess or lunch or to go home.
Waiting: for anything but school.
My teachers could easily have ridden with Jesse James
for all the time they stole from me.
From: Richard Brautigan, Rommel Drives on Deep into Egypt
“Every journey begins with the first step”
I really truly, madly deeply, believe in the power of education. Not as a way to knowledge but wisdom — as a way of forming a proper relationship between yourself and that “outside”. Tat tvam asi” , the brahmin might say, “That art thou”.
Not to wax philosophically but I do think that as educators we should always carry this higher purpose within us and let it coat all the practicalities of teaching. I endeavour to do that and try, each day, to touch something infinite. Find out more about ME, here in this little presentation using THE TAR HEEL READER, an excellent tool for EFL / ESL educators.
So I hope in the coming weeks, months, years , to turn here and “shut off the machine” and write what my mind meanders. About education and the larger purpose of things. Also about the small things. I don’t know who wrote the book but I read it in teacher’s college and was enlightened, “The Reflective Teacher”. Let this space be my mirror.
I also want to speak here about the role of technology. So much change but so much potential! Lots I hope to experiment with, try, tweak, throw away in my language teaching future.
I’ve come a long way from my steelworking days! Keep tuning in and turning off your own machine!
DD
