The drama of learning begins

By Cindy Reitzi

I am not really a fan of those “based on a true story” inspirational teacher movies. Hollywood likes to portray teachers as the floor show -- exciting educators with boundless energy, holding students spellbound with their rhetoric and certainly never tired from grading mounds of papers the night before. Real teaching would not make for blockbuster copy: no car chase scenes (schools no longer teach “behind the wheel”), no martial arts to boost self-esteem (not in this budget) and no dance instructors who remotely resemble Antonio Banderas.

Is it any wonder there’s no teaching “reality shows”? What would they show in the behind-the-scenes segments – teachers inking up their hands and bickering when the copy machine breaks? Filming teachers grading for hours on end? Yawn. Real teaching is exciting; it’s just not Hollywood exciting and is difficult to depict on celluloid.

Real teaching is poignant, joyful, inspirational, frustrating human tragic-comedy juxtaposed with mind-dulling tedium and seemingly endless clerical bureaucracy when you’re not with students. At the same time, classroom dynamics offer the same elements of any good movie or novel: characters, plot, conflicts, themes, and their attendant questions and analysis.

Still, the first day of the school year is often one of those procedural days when teachers go through the necessary class expectations and syllabus while students fill out information sheets, from one class to the next, in triplicate.Yet even these “opening shots” can offer significant glimpses of the movie ahead.What will the conflicts be? Student vs. teacher (and viceversa); teacher vs. the supernatural bureaucracies; teacher vs. teacher; student vs. student; student/teacher vs. themselves; teacher vs. technology; student vs. homework; teacher vs. grading? How will conflicts be resolved or unresolved? What is the plot of this class? What larger themes will be addressed? Who are the characters?

I was recently called in on “procedure day” to substitute supervise (if that’s what you want to call it) while the student teacher taught the class. “Mr. E.”was the “floor show’”that day while I was the audience-observer. While some subs might find this a relaxing or even dull assignment, I’m a great believer that you make your own fun.While Mr. E. focused on “exposition” or setting the scene of the class with syllabus and class expectations, I studied the characters.

After Mr. E. plowed through tardy and late work policies with his freshfaced 9th graders, he wrote down contact information so students could reach him or his cooperating teacher if they needed to discuss concerns or needed help with coursework.He even shared home phone numbers. Not only was this important information for students to write down, but I thought it was equally important character information to observe.

Some of the recurring themes of 9th grade are: high school “counts” for real life, taking responsibility for yourself (re: absences, assignments, and the like) and advocating for your education by asking for help when you need it. Significantly, some students didn’t bother to write this information down and it raised questions for me: Would they seek help from a teacher if they needed it or would they refuse help for fear of looking stupid? Was this behavior part of a recurring theme of passivity? Would learning self-advocacy and seeking help be part of their coming-of-age story? Would they define or redefine these themes in 9th grade? Only time would tell…

The last class of ravenous freshmen met before lunch.As I handed out class expectations and the syllabus to help Mr. E, a boy in the first row complained about all these rules and snarled,“I hate school” – on the first day. Gee, I thought, couldn’t he wait for the second day of school to start in? Not a good omen. Even the most cynical kids usually have some sense of a fresh start. He didn’t bother going through the motions of glancing at the sheets and promptly deposited them on his folder on the floor. Predictably, it didn’t take long before his head wobbled down to his desk and he was in slumber, until I shook him awake with my best teacher voice to,“Lift your head off the desk, please.” When the procedures were done,we gave students a map to work on during the remaining minutes. He took one look, whined, refused help, and added to his heap on the floor.

Needless to say, this guy was all but throwing down the gauntlet on a future student-teacher conflict and I wondered if “I hate school”was one of his recurring themes.While there was, no doubt, plenty of back story to his attitude (or maybe he was hungry and really crabby), his choice of seat was significant. Before anyone had drawn up a seating chart, he chose front row, center – the “teacher attention” seat. Clearly he wanted some sort of attention, even if he wanted no help with geography. The plot thickens…

Subs don’t always get to see the parting shots from the beginning of the school year, the denouement of central conflicts, or the end of the movie.Yet, from some of these initial impressions and from a teacher’s curriculum, I sometimes start my year thinking,“Now that’s a movie I’d like to see.”

November 15, 2006