By DR. LARRY MOSES
No one asked me but… As the Clark County School Board of Trustees set out to find a new Superintendent a number of thoughts have come to mind.
One must wonder why a District with a million-dollar Human Resources Department has to pay an outside source $150,000 to conduct a search for a new Superintendent?
But the issue really brought my attention to the number one most important factor in the education of our children: the teacher. CCSD has grown so big that education has become merely another subsidiary of the CCSD. I would like to take a moment to remind the “powers that be” that their job is to support the efforts of the classroom teacher.
While other divisions of CCSD are necessary, the essence of what is accomplished is found with the teacher in the classroom. Everything should be done only in relation as to how it will affect the teacher and student in the classroom!
This brought me to think about the characteristics of real teachers.
Real teachers grade papers on the bus, under hair driers, during commercials, in assemblies and most assuredly, during faculty meetings. I was delivering a speech to student council advisors from all over the United States one July and a teacher was grading papers. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that school had been out for two months. Grading papers for teachers is like doing needlework for grandmas.
Real teachers don’t volunteer to chaperone the homecoming dance but are picked by the kids anyway.
Real teachers have a disjointed neck from writing on the board while not turning their backs on the students. (This statement may well date the retired teacher who functioned when chalkboards were still in use.)
Real teachers jump off their desks in symbolic suicide in March and then finish the year with a flourish.
Real teachers always react to the sound of a bell or buzzer but never stand by a door when classes are about to change. After thirty-one years in education, nineteen in the classroom, I am still regulated by the clock. A meeting that does not start on time and end on time leaves me frustrated. Those beginning and ending bells still ring.
A teacher’s years begins in September and ends in June. January is merely the half way mark. I still pride myself on the fact that my mental calendar is still set on these benchmarks.
A teacher can’t read a book without making marginal notes, or read a magazine in the doctor’s office without tearing out a really neat article to reproduce for their kids.
Any successful teachers could be convicted of violating copyright laws in spite of those memos from Central Office administrators who would quake at the thought of facing students on a daily basis.
It’s amazing how quickly administrators forget the survival instincts of the classroom teacher. A seasoned teacher never sits without checking their chair.
Real teachers call their principal by his/her first name and hold him/her accountable when he/she forgets they and the staff are in this together.
One day when I was serving as a principal, I was thinking the faculty was not paying much attention to my wishes and challenging all my rulings from on high. I put a sign on my door that said: “I am the Boss, that’s why!” When I came back from lunch, one of my teachers had written on my sign, “Your wife called. She wants her sign back.”
A good teacher is never too busy to listen to a student. When I was student council advisor, I had a girl say, “You’re a guy.” That in itself was an interesting evaluation. “My boyfriend is going to be 18 years old next week,” she said, “and I would like to give him something nice for his birthday. What do you think he would like?”
I told her, “Never mind what he would like, buy him a tie.”
It is the teacher’s jobs to educate children. They don’t train them. Training is for dogs.
The successful teacher knows that some students learn by listening, some students learn by seeing, and some students have to touch the electric fence for themselves.
Have you noticed that many teachers have a problem walking past a group of kids without trying to place them in an orderly line. It is in the blood.
Teachers know that they will never be paid what they are worth or be given the money they need for supplies but they do the job anyway. They understand that everyone feels teachers are under paid except during contract negotiation time.
It is not the curriculum or special programs that make the difference. It is the person at the head of the classroom. Teachers know that all learning is a one on one effort no matter how many students are in the classroom.
The successful teacher knows that it does not matter what a student is supposed to know when they enter their classroom. What is important is what the student knows when he/she leaves.
They know the fads of education will come and go, but the needs of the student stay the same.
Real teachers know that doctors bury their mistakes, lawyers send their mistakes to prison and teacher’s mistakes end up on the school board making decisions that are contrary to all real learning.
The frontline teachers have come to realization that most edicts from the Central Administration are merely examples of the unknowing, forcing the unwilling to do the unnecessary.
As parents and community members, we can hope our youngsters have the privilege of being in the company of some of these knowledgeable teachers throughout their educational careers. We can also hope the support personnel, up to and including the Superintendent, realize they are there to support teachers and act accordingly.
Thoughts of the week… For the students: “Respect your parents. They passed school without Google.” For the rest of us: “True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.”
— Kurt Vonnegut
