QOD #4: It's all a bit overwhelming

EXCELLENCE
"Excellence is the result of caring more than others think is wise, risking more than others think is safe, dreaming more than others think is practical, and expecting more than others think is possible."

One of the requirements for my Intro to Teaching English class (in addition to a massive amount of incredibly daunting paperwork, in triplicate) is 45 hours of classroom observation. Last week I started sitting in on the classes of the 8th grade English teacher for GATE classes at Stanford Middle School. For those of you who are wondering, yes, he was my English teacher an astonishing 10 years ago, when he was but a lad of 29.

Mr. Tate is ridiculously energetic, constantly launching into cartoon voices, dropping terrible puns, and generally refusing to let his 12 and 13 year olds zone out. Here's one I particularly liked: acting as a paperweight in the box for late papers is a statue of a dragon. Why? "Because if your work's here, you must have been draggin' your feet."

Har har.

Generally, Mr. Tate is fantastic. Therein lies the difficulty, from my point of view. I can very easily look at his teaching style, especially after the third hour of sitting through the same prep, and see what it is he does that works and why. Certain jokes he makes entirely for himself, just to keep himself entertained. If a particular example or explanation or punchline worked well one period, he'll do it again the next period, and better. He's good at talking to middle school kids on exactly the right level: friendly, but not yielding a bit of his authority. It's really quite cool. And the whole time I'm sitting there thinking "Crap. I can't do this."

Now, I know I'm still a long way from being in a classroom. And Mr. Tate has been doing this for 16 years. But that doesn't make it any less terrifying. Maybe if I'd been observing a teacher who was less capable it wouldn't be so daunting.

Anyway. The quote at the top of this post was the Quote of the Day for today's class. Mr. Tate took it from an inspirational poster he saw advertised in an in-flight mag. (Reminding me of another gem. When giving the background for this quote Mr. Tate said, "I'll tell you where I got this. Here's a hint: I was 30,000 feet in the air." To which the first audible response was: "Africa!") Students had 5 minutes to write their reactions/reflections on the quote. Most of them seemed to be responding to the implied prompt "What does excellence mean to you?" than anything else, but there were a few who got into the nitty-gritty of what the prompt was actually saying.

One of the girls raised her hand and asked, "What does it mean: 'caring more than others think is wise'?" My first response was wonder at the gap in life experience between this suburban gifted pre-teen and others in her city, her classroom, and her gender. Mr. Tate's answer was interestingly Buddhist in its gist– people die, things break and get thrown away, and everything disappoints eventually. Some might say it's easier not to get attached.

The expected response, of course, being that that's not how you change the world. Prof. Bartchy and I had a number of arguments about this in relation to Buddhist views on social justice. His view was that "not being attached" equals "not caring." Mine was that the relationship is subtler than that, and it includes the analogy of a child in a pet store. If he hasn't already picked out the puppy he wants, he won't be upset when one gets goes home with another child. But he also won't be able to walk away if he sees a puppy getting beaten or neglected– he can't say "at least mine is safe" and leave happily.

I've got stuff going on in my family that's left me reeling a bit and, when coupled with the stresses of Becoming A Teacher, I've gotten a bit overwhelmed. I'm sitting on my couch right now and I so don't want to go to class. I want to stay home and worry about all the other things I'm worried about.

But, as sappily cheesy as that quote is, I guess I haven't stopped caring yet. So I guess I'm going to keep working.