My ABC's of Teaching

My ABC's of Education

Whenever somebody asks me, "Steve, describe your philosophy on education" I always have the same answer.  "I'm glad you asked...but my name isn't Steve."  That may sound like an unexpected answer but life is full of unexpected things and being able to handle unexpected things is at the heart of being a great teacher.  That is definitely true but it is not my complete philosophy of education.  When it comes to education, I believe in the ABC's.

"A" is for "Accountability"
Everybody in education is accountable to somebody else.  Teachers are accountable to their administration, their colleagues, their students, and their parents.  That sounds obvious but what I am really referring to is the willingness to embrace accountability.  Everybody is accountable but not everybody embraces accountability.  When you embrace accountability you not only understand that other people depend on you, but you are driven to perform at your best because of the people to whom you are accountable.   You are willing to be vulnerable to others and you serve them with humility.  You serve by doing things for others and you serve by leading others.  Creating a culture of accountability in the classroom will motivate the students to perform and serve as well.

"B" is for "Bravery"
I don't mean the type of bravery that would cause somebody to step in front of a charging, rabid aardvark just to save another life (although that would be pretty brave).  I mean the type of bravery that allows you to take risks.  Too many teachers teach the way they always have because they are afraid to try anything new.  They say that their methods always worked in the past so if it ain't broke, why fix it?  First thing's first, "ain't" isn't proper grammar.  Second of all, is there a more useless phrase in the English language than "First thing's first"?  Of course it's first or it wouldn't be the first thing.  Third of all, you do not want to be stuck in the past.  Sure it worked out OK for Marty McFly but not all of us know an eccentric inventor with a DeLorean.  Now back to bravery.  Teaching is both art and science (like an Etch a Sketch) and success takes somebody who is brave enough to exploit both aspects of it.

A brave teacher eschews the outdated methods of the past and tries new things even if they might not work.  And when they don't work, the even braver teacher reflects, regroups, and retries (not retires).  To quote the wise teacher Yoda "The greatest teacher, failure is".  When a teacher is brave enough to try even with the risk of failure, the students will be brave as well.  Students will learn that sometimes effort leads to failure but they will see that failure as an opportunity to learn.

"C" is for "Compassion"
Great teachers have compassion for others.  Merriam-Webster.com defines compassion as "sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it".  I like that definition because it not only shows awareness of another person's situation but it comes with a desire to help.  Today's students face situations at home that many of us cannot imagine and yet we expect them to go home and concentrate on their studies.  I've taught students who had to take care of younger siblings, students whose parents were incarcerated, students whose families bounced around from place to place, and we wonder why they don't care about our homework.  Teachers cannot fix these problems but we need to be aware of them and have a desire to make things easier on our students.

During my first year of teaching I had a student that always seemed tired and never did any homework.  I was upset with him because he was lazy and showed a complete lack of motivation when it came to school.  I was speaking (OK, technically I was griping) about him with one of his other teachers and she told me about his home life.  I won't go into detail but I'll say his home life was "less than ideal".  I was no longer filled with frustration with this student and his laziness.  I was filled with compassion.  I knew that I could not change his home life but I could alleviate his distress.  I learned a valuable lesson from this experience.  I learned it wasn't my job to assign tasks and wait for students to complete them.  My job as a teacher was to design learning experiences for my students that would be meaningful and relevant to them.  By making learning fun and interesting I was not only making learning more engaging, I was also alleviating my students' distress and making school an escape from their home lives.  Most importantly, this differentiation was driven by my compassion for my students.

What About the Rest of the Alphabet?
Right now you may be asking me, "Steve, what about the rest of the alphabet?"  First thing's first (Ha!), please stop calling me Steve.  But seriously, I'm sure if I tried I could come up with cool words and stories for the other 23 letters.  Unfortunately that would be a very long blog and nobody would sit and read the whole thing.  Maybe I'll tackle that some day.  But for now, we will stick with the ABC's.

Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts.  I hope you were moved, entertained, and inspired to try something extraordinary because there's no room 4 ordinary. If you agree, disagree, love, or hate what I write please drop me a line at noroom4ordinary@gmail.com and follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/NoRoom4Ordinary.

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