favorite teachers

"Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good."

Teaching is a voyage of discovery. It is a cakewalk. It is a trial and a test of wills.

Teaching is 90% preparation and 10% inspiration, except when it's 10% preparation and 90% perspiration.

What makes a great teacher? The received widsom is an ability to teach the students what they're ready to learn - finding where they are, and getting them to where they need to be.

Teachers can't manage this through preparation, planning, assessment, perfect record keeping, access to information, and diligence alone. They need to have rapport with their students. They need to be a bit over the edge.

Think of your favorite teachers. Weren't they just a but nuts? Mine were. Rusty Swingle of Marin Country Day School had us acting out prepositions - a lesson I remember a quarter century later, and it's not the only lesson of hers I remember.

John Hasslinger at Homestead Elementary in Mill Valley used to throw chalk at us when we let our attention lapse, all part of coaching us - not very gently, either - into way above proficiency reading ability.

I TAed for Prof. Miriam Silverberg in Japanese History at UCLA, and remember surprising and illuminating details of her undergraduate lectures a decade later.

Sure, these were all professionals, well schooled in techniques, yadda yadda. The key was they loved their jobs, and they prepared the way artists and athletes do, out of pure enjoyment. Diligence is fine for a portion of what teachers do. And dotting "i"s and crossing "t"s - sure, important.

But inspiration is what makes teaching really work.

When I taught, I had some difficulty with students who really didn't want to be in school, had few tools for dealing with being in school, and resisted most attempts to be schooled. I had "taught" for two years before at a private school, the same grade level and subject.

But that wasn't teaching.

I only began to teach after figuring out what my new students needed, what they could handle, and how to get them from point A to point B.

And it came down to teaching procedures - empty of content at first. Then, slowly, as they mastered the motions of being students, I gave them content.

What I made sure they had was (1) clear objectives, (2) appropriate skills, and (3) multiple opportunities to demonstrate competence.

If there's any such thing as a formula for success in teaching, I'll nominate this one.