Thursday, March 25, 2010

Melissa Moore-Call's Interview with an English Teacher

Early in my teaching career, I was fortunate to have worked with Janice Stallings (a pseudonym), a middle school English Language Arts teacher who brings a true passion for her subject matter to her classroom. Although Janice had originally intended to teach English at the university level, her plans changed when she was offered a position teaching seventh grade ELA in North Carolina. Janice earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from a small liberal-arts college in Virginia that is known for its stellar creative writing department. After Ms. Stallings completed her Master of Arts in English, she set her sights on teaching graduate level creative writing. Unfortunately, there are few job openings in MFA level creative writing programs and Janice had to reconsider her options. As luck would have it, Janice’s mother knew of an opening at the Middle School and asked her daughter if she would be interested in teaching seventh grade. Thankfully for hundreds of students, the answer was a resounding yes.

I interviewed Janice over the phone and asked her to tell me about her school. This Middle School, located in the suburbs of a very large and bustling business center in North Carolina, is a North Carolina School of Excellence. It is also, as Janice points out, “very white bread.” Approximately 94% of the school’s 1425 students are Caucasian; the other six percent of students are African-American, Asian, and Hispanic. Very few students qualify for the Free and Reduced Lunch Program; most kids at Crown come from middle class and upper middle class families. Many children at the school have parents who work for a large bank that is headquartered near Mint Hill.

Janice is known for her excellence in the classroom. When I worked with her, I was amazed at her natural ease for managing a classroom and for delivering instruction. Jan is very much a natural teacher. That is not to say, however, that she doesn’t face challenges in her job. Jan points out that her first year of teaching was “very rough. I had 36 kids in one class and 70% of them had 504s or IEPs [Individual Education Plans].” Like many first-year teachers, Jan admits to having felt overwhelmed. When I asked Janice how she coped with that experience, she replied that she simply did the best she could and that she relied a good bit upon the Academic Facilitators, who came into her classroom, observed her, and gave her feedback on what was working and what was not. Also, the Academic Facilitators ensured that Jan had real, concrete strategies she could use to teach struggling students. Janice also worked on her teaching skills by attending as many professional developments workshops and seminars as she could, where she learned about a variety of topics, including Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence Theory.

I mentioned to Jan that I try to visit other teachers as much as I can and see what is going on in their classrooms and not only English teachers. Jan admitted that she had observed many other teachers as well in her beginning years. (She has taught for a decade at this point.) Also, she says, “I leaned on my department members. I took everything I could away from English department meetings, any kinds of ideas, lesson plans, strategies.” Although this Middle is located in a district with a very detailed pacing guide, Janice points out that it is unrealistic for any teacher to be tied to a pacing guide that does not allow for any derivation. Jan had the pacing guide available her first year of teaching, but she felt that it was not adequate for her students' needs. Jan added that the district’s pacing guide does not allow time for re-looping or re-teaching concepts that students did not grasp the first time around. Furthermore, Janice continued, the pacing guide assumes that you are teaching a class of kids who are all reading and writing at grade-level. In many of Ms. Stallings' classes, this has not been the case.

I asked Jan what she does to meet the needs of all her students, as I know she has had a wide variety of students over the years. Most of Jan’s students are ability-tracked; they are grouped together in for English language Arts and Math, which means most of them end up having Social Studies and Science together, too. Jan responded after a moment that it is difficult to meet the needs of every student, but that is what teachers have to do. Jan knows that some students face bigger hurdles than others and she does what she can (often at personal expense) to level the playing field. I remember Janice buying coats for students who could not afford them when I taught with her years back. She felt was merely doing her job; no one could expect cold and hungry students to do their best in the classroom. Buying coats for disadvantaged students is a great illustration of who Jan is as a teacher. Her caring and empathy really speak to her philosophy of love and acceptance as a teacher. Jan cares for her students and it shows in and out of her classroom.

I asked Jan if her classroom had changed much since I last saw it when I taught with her, her classroom was always neat, tidy, colorful and welcoming. She laughed that it is probably a little more untidy than I remember and that she certainly has more books than she used to. Her classroom is set up to be student-friendly; she has a supply table with paper, pens, staplers, a hole puncher, and other necessary items in the back of the room where students can easily access it. There are several bookcases housing books of all reading levels; students are welcome to check them out and take them home. Janice groups her kids' desks in fours and arranges these groups so that everyone can see the whiteboard and overhead projector. Jan works hard to make sure the classroom is a place of learning and she arranges her room carefully. Ms. Stallings has several bulletin boards on which she displays photos of her students. This is a room where all kids are welcome.

In speaking with Jan, I was reminded that content knowledge is only one part of teaching. Jan and I have several graduate degrees in English and Creative Writing between us. Certainly, knowing one’s subject area and having passion for it is important, but just having that knowledge will not convey it to your students. You need solid teaching methods and practices. You must care about your subject and your kids; you must accept all of them and want all of them to succeed. Jan and I discussed the philosophy of meeting our students where they are and how important that idea is to remember when we are working with them. Yes, knowledge of our teaching area is important, but so is an understanding of how individuals learn. We must know our students, know them well, and have in our possession skills and strategies that will help every child develop as a learner.

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