What Makes a Good Teacher? First-Year Reflections

By Victoria Nichols

Victoria Nichols, a former member of our team, has recently completed her first year as a middle school teacher in California. Last year, she shared her thoughts on the meaning of “good” teaching in a previous blog post. In this new contribution, Victoria provides some reflections on the difficulties of being at the head of the classroom and whether she feels she has yet become a “good teacher.”

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As of 2am on Friday, June 3rd, after a 12-hour field trip to Six Flags, I officially survived my first year of teaching. I teach English Language Arts to 8th grade students at a public charter middle school in South Los Angeles. And as rewarding as this first year was, it was also mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausting; at times, it was even demoralizing.

Thus, I have spent a good deal of time reflecting on what went well, what went wrong, and what I can do next time to become a better teacher. I have a strong background in English, psychology, and education, and graduated from an acclaimed Masters in Teaching program, but like so many before me, I was not prepared. I was not prepared to serve as innovative educator, pedagogical expert, Common Core specialist, disciplinarian, advocate, counselor, therapist, nurse, friend, enemy, confidant, and surrogate family member, all at the same time. This, of course, raises the question of where I may have went wrong, and more importantly, what really makes a good teacher?

According to the findings of the Good Work Project, work that is “good” is defined as excellent, ethical, and engaging. Teaching was, without a doubt, engaging. I was fully invested in teaching, meeting with my colleagues, calling parents, tutoring, grading, and planning, often from 7:00 in the morning until 9:00 or 10:00 at night. What I enjoyed the most, however, was finding new, innovative ways to teach concrete reading and writing skills to my often-apathetic students. From comparing Langston Hughes to Tupac Shakur, to analyzing commercials as an introduction to rhetorical devices, what I found most engaging was making the lessons engaging in turn for my students.

I am also confident that the work I am doing is ethical and that I have a strong ethical compass to guide me. My school’s mission is to educate future leaders who will transform their community by closing the socio-economic, ethnic, and gender gaps in STEM-related fields. The school places an emphasis on the importance of scholarliness, advocacy, perseverance, and kindness, in hopes that my scholars will one day return to their communities both academically and morally strong, thus ending the cyclical effects of poverty, racism, and sexism. I personally saw some of my students transform in the nine short months we worked together. One student, who began the school year striving to get kicked out of class every day by any means possible in order to avoid reading, sought me out at graduation to apologize for his behavior and to make a promise that he would seek help, not avoidance, in high school. I feel fully aligned with my school’s vision and am assured that I am having a lasting impact not only on my students’ lives but also on the community as a whole.

The question of excellence, however, still remains. What makes a master teacher? Is it experience? Or is it the grit, tenacity, and perseverance required to achieve that level of experience? Currently, in the United States, the majority of teachers quit before five years on the job, thus never reaching a true level of mastery. But who can blame them? Very few jobs ask one to accept the possibility of being screamed and cussed at, lied to, ignored, talked over, and even stolen from on a daily basis. You just need to decide if that thank you note from one of your most difficult students or being bombarded with hugs at graduation will be enough to sustain you.

For me, the fleeting moments of recognition, inspiration, and understanding far outweigh the drudgery of moderating teenage angst. Therefore, I hope that I can learn from the mistakes I made this first year so that I can continue to strive for excellence in teaching, and hopefully, one day, become a truly “good” teacher.

“Remarkably Narcissistic”—“Who Could That Be?” and “Who Can’t Say It?”

Note: In December 2015, I posted an extensive essay on the future of the professions, which received extensive and extremely thoughtful responses that elicited many further thoughts on my part. As a result, for the ensuing five months, I have posted my responses here. I also participated in an interview about Good Work in the law, conducted by Harvard Law Professor David Wilkins.

With this week’s posting, I re-commence the blog as it was originally conceptualized. I’ll contribute regularly, and I hope that others will comment and contribute blogs of their own. This week’s blog is a bit unusual because it focuses on events in my own life; some succeeding blogs will further consider various dimensions of what it means to be a professional—today, in the past, and, most importantly, in the future.

Several months ago, well before Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy was being taken seriously by most observers, a journalist from Vanity Fair asked me for my opinion about that candidate. We talked for a while, and at some point in the conversation, I expressed my view that Trump was “remarkably narcissistic.”

I did not think twice about this casual remark, and I was somewhat surprised that this two-word phrase was quoted prominently in the November issue of the magazine. I was even more surprised when I received a lot of email about this remark, found it quoted not only in the United States but also abroad, and even received an invitation to speak on the Glenn Beck show (which I declined). When I last checked, the phrase “Howard Gardner Donald Trump remarkably narcissistic” received over 18,000 hits on google, and “Donald Trump remarkably narcissistic” received 143,000 hits.

I’m not averse to publicity, and yet I regret having made this casual remark. Not that I think the remark is wrong—indeed, I’ve run into few individuals who would disagree with this characterization of the presumptive Republican nominee for President. (I wonder what he would say!)

The reason for my regret: within clinical psychology, the term “narcissistic personality disorder” has a technical meaning. Indeed, it usually foregrounds several features—for example, “believing one is special,” “selfishly takes advantage of others to achieve his own end,” and “shows arrogant, haughty, patronizing, or contemptuous behaviors of attitudes.” The official diagnosis entered into the Third DSM Manual (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders); and while its place and definition have been debated ever since, the phrase is still a “term of art” within the clinic and among clinicians.

I am not a clinical psychologist. Moreover, I was using the phrase in a lay way (after all, Narcissus peered admiringly at his reflection thousands of year before the field of psychology was born). And yet, it is not reasonable for me to expect other persons to know those facts. One reason I was quoted is because I am a psychologist, and so one can reasonably infer that I was using the term as a trained diagnostician might use it. And were I a clinician, I should not have invoked the phrase causally—I should only have so characterized Donald Trump if I had studied him carefully and, optimally, if I had examined him myself.

Why discuss this faux pas in a blog devoted to professional ethics? Because professionals should be held to a high standard of conduct. Clinical psychologist or not, I should have anticipated the ways in which my words could have been cited and accordingly declined to utilize any words that smacked of diagnosis whatsoever. And to the extent that I could delete my words—whether or not anyone else would notice or care—I should do that.

I’ve also concluded that, in general, when discussing politicians, we should focus on the truth or falsity of what they say and on the appropriateness of their policy recommendations, not on characterizing their personalities or engaging in armchair psychologizing.

This episode raises the broader question: to what extent should any professional speak to the press? Or email reporters? I do have colleagues who refuse to speak to the press altogether—either because they feel that they should not do so on principle (“I think it is not a good thing to speak to reporters”), or because they feel insufficiently informed (“I don’t really know enough about Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders”) or because they have been misquoted or fear that will happen.

In my view, professionals are often the best informed individuals on certain topics, and it’s unfortunate if they/we refuse to interact with the press. Indeed, if professionals do not, then amateurs certainly will! And yet I think that we have a special responsibility to be as Deliberate, Dispassionate, and Disinterested as possible.

Alas, the three Ds are rarely what an American journalist is looking for—rather it’s Drama and Hyperbole. Indeed, sometimes, in speaking to a reporter, I have been so frustrated that I’ve said, “For goodness sake, tell me what you want me to say, and I’ll let you know whether I agree with that.” That’s one reason why I typically answer by email, so that words cannot be put into my mouth or be distorted.

But just because some reporters do not behave in a professional manner, that’s all the more reason why those professionals to whom reporters speak should hold ourselves to a high standard. Yet we are also tempted to act in a less professional way, because it is the more dramatic remark that tends to be quoted and—as I learned in the Trump affair—requoted.

I hope that I’ve learned my lesson. I will not perform lay diagnoses of others. I will desist from providing dramatic headlines. And whenever possible, I’ll write for myself—as in this blog.

Bringing Digital Citizenship to Young Students

By Carmela Curatola Knowles

Carmela Curatola Knowles is a Technology Integration Specialist and experienced educator in Southeastern Pennsylvania. In this guest blog, Carmela describes her passion for early digital citizenship education and a book series that she created to help young students understand the implications of their online actions.

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The school year is coming to a close. Before we realize it, some children will be heading to camp, while others will engage in sports, arts, or other activities over the summer. One thing many children 10 or older have in common is that they have or will soon be getting their own cell phones to communicate with adults and with one another. But do they have the foundational skills they need to understand the responsibilities that accompany the use of cell phones and other devices? We have become a connected society, and our children witness our connectedness on a daily basis. However, we have a long way to go in teaching young people about how to use devices ethically and in a way that cultivates empathy towards fellow users.

In my own experience as a teacher, I find that kids in kindergarten and elementary school bring a lot of digital knowledge to the table. Some want to be cool like their older siblings. Others seem to delight in exploring the Internet and accessing content or platforms that may not be age-appropriate; I have had 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade students speak of being on sites that require a minimum age of 13! When questioned, they brag about changing the birth date on the sign-up form. What happens in the unfortunate event that a problem occurs? When difficult situations arise, where will these children be looking for guidance? These are the types of questions we need to address in digital citizenship education.

Almost ten years ago, my colleagues and I received the following charge from the Director of Educational Technology at our public elementary school in Southeastern Pennsylvania: “We want to develop an Internet safety unit for our educational technology program.” This project started with identifying the skills to introduce at the Kindergarten level and then building the necessary scaffolding from 1st through 5th grade. This was about five years before the FCC changed its funding policies to require that students in schools that get Universal Service Fund assistance must receive internet safety instruction, so we were somewhat ahead of the curve and had a lot to figure out on our own.

To implement the unit, we wanted to include authentic online resources. However, after surfing the web and searching extensively, we discovered that there was, and to a large extent still is, a major focus on providing resources for digital citizenship at the middle and high school levels but not at the elementary level, even as more and more children as young as toddlers and even babies are exposed to and use technology on a daily basis. Furthermore, the resources that did exist did a poor job of engaging and teaching students while also making sure not to instill fear.

In order to meet our needs, I created a series of books, The Learning Adventures of Piano and Laylee, that centers on a neighborhood of talking puppies and kittens of all colors and abilities from diverse families. In writing this series, my focus was to embed the notion of tolerance and acceptance through everyday children’s play experiences. I used this premise to write about key digital citizenship topics, including internet safety, cyberbullying, copyright respect, acceptable use policies, and netiquette. Each book was designed with a curricular unit of lesson plans, activities, etc. for teachers and home schoolers. At present, I have another five books “on the burner” concerned with digital “paw prints,” digital storytelling, online researching, videoconferencing etiquette, and a visit by the characters to a fictional Museum of Technology.

I’ve used the published books with my 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders, and I am continually surprised to witness their viewpoints about going online. In my Master’s research on cyberbullying, I found it incredulous that online users tend to think they are anonymous. Young people are oblivious to the fact that each computer has its own Internet address (IP address) and that police officials can actually identify a computer used to send harmful messages or other material. If we are not careful to educate young people about the rules and ethical dimensions of the online world, our children risk not understanding the complex interactive nature of the Internet, becoming desensitized to other people’s feelings and not taking respect, responsibility, or morality into account when engaging with others digitally.

So how do we know when our children are listening to us and thinking about being safe online? When they give us advice for being safe online, we know they are absorbing the concept that we each have a responsibility for cyber safety. One of my favorite examples involves a six year old boy who counsels his mom to refrain from using all capital letters while texting because he learned that it is interpreted that you are yelling at the recipient. Another more recent experience was a ten year old student who advised me sternly not to allow another student to go onto a certain online gaming program because strangers talk to the gamers, using inappropriate language.

Many adults say and believe that kids know more about computers than they do. But what we as adults need to remember is that our kids might know how to play games and watch videos online, but it is the exceptional child that understands how to navigate a computer: how to save a file properly so they can access it again independently, or how to assess available apps and software for a potential need without adult guidance. And this is fine, because they need to be coached in to understand technology just as they need to be coached to read, write, and perform mathematical operations. Yet what these young people need most is for trusted adults to be guiding compasses who can interpret experiences and interactions they will most likely encounter as Internet users and build a framework of trust and support. The purpose of starting these conversations at a young age is so we can foster continued discussions throughout our children’s growing years. As children become teens, an established foundational trust with parents/guardians is the inner voice that helps young people determine when it’s time to ask for help.

Next Steps, Including Positive Resolutions

“The world loves talent but pays off on character.” John W. Gardner
“A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” Paul Romer

In early December 2015, I posted to this blog a rather lengthy essay on the future of the professions. Initially, I had thought that I would get a few comments, respond to those comments, and then move on to the next blog. Instead, I received several dozen substantive comments, many of them worthy of a response. And so, revising my plans, I instead posted a series of responses at two week intervals, each one keyed to a specific theme. Now, while this series of responses is coming to an end (although the blog will continue), I’m offering some general comments on what may lie ahead in the professions.

From one vantage point, it may seem that the need for traditional professionals is on the wane. I reject this conclusion. Indeed, I think that we need more better trained and more thoughtful professionals of the traditional sort, not fewer. But whatever the supply and demand for traditional professionals—physicians, lawyers, professors, engineers, architects, etc.—there is every reason to believe that in the future we will need new and better kinds of professionals. The world may be getting smaller, but populations are getting larger, individuals are living longer, careers are more varied, and norms from diverse cultures are abutting and all too frequently crashing one another. It will take a soul far more optimistic than mine to believe that these challenges will take care of themselves.

Far more likely, in my view, that individuals with new forms of knowledge and expertise will be needed. And, just as is the case in the current milieu, we’ll need to be able to separate the experts from the pseudo-experts and, of course, from the ever-lurking charlatans. We may need to invent new professions or radically reconfigure and re-combine the existing clutch. Just as examples, we may need individuals expert in translating across cultures, in dealing with new phases in the life cycle, and in balancing digital and offline lives. We will need to adjust to a situation where professionals move readily between their chosen profession and the entrepreneurial sector—and this fluidity, while attractive to the individual, may pose significant challenges for the society that must do the sorting. (Is she a doctor, or the head of a start up? Or both?)

Of course, despite these changes, individuals need not—indeed they should not—abandon the traditional values and orientations of the professions. They can elect to spurn the attractiveness of a high salary and glamorous living conditions in favor of a commitment to a modest existence in which their energies are directed toward the greatest needs of society. A sense of “calling” can be powerful.

Moving beyond individuals, we can expect challenges to those institutions that must provide a home to a rapidly changing set of characters. As Eric Liu puts it, we need to invent new entities that ensure civic responsibility, vouch for quality and integrity, and have a distinctive culture as well as shared rituals across the generations. And perhaps, as well, there may need to be the dawning of a new, shared consciousness—call it religious, spiritual, or political in the ancient classical sense of that term. (Let’s hope that we don’t need to wait until a global crisis for this to happen.)

Since I am an educator who has been associated with a school of education for almost fifty years, it is appropriate to ask about the role of education in the preservation of the professions, in the training of the professions, and across the life cycle. Young aspiring professionals need to know the traditional roots and values of their respective professions, while at the same time become knowledgeable about the new pressures and myriad opportunities associated with professional life in the 21st century. Well-crafted media presentations may be helpful—not only ones that portray the occasional hero or the occasional knave, but ones that capture professional lives in their fascinating and idiosyncratic complexity. No doubt, some of this knowledge, some of this understanding, can be obtained on the job and, perhaps, online.

That said, from my perspective, there is no ready substitute for a “liberal arts” introduction to the professions in general, and to one’s aspiring profession in particular—and that can and should remain central in schools of professional education. Such a professional education will be much easier to effect—and to effect well—if we preserve a traditional liberal arts education of three or four years before the launch of avowedly professional education.

This aspect of professional education, sometimes called values education, is one in which I believe. It is most effectively assimilated through contact with individuals who embody those values—whether those persons are self-employed, belong to a partnership, work for a corporation, or teach at a professional institution. Individuals moved by the arguments put forth here can and should serve as role models for aspiring professionals. That said, I also believe that reading key texts—especially ones devoted to ethical dilemmas and the ways in which they have and could be approached—and having the opportunity to discuss and debate these texts is a valuable and in fact an invaluable experience. Courses for undergraduates on the nature and the importance of the professions could balance the current mania for courses on business, finance, and entrepreneurship. I hope that, in a modest way, my original essay, the numerous thoughtful responses, and my series of ten postings can contribute to a needed “education in and for the aspiring professional.”

Thanks to commentators Anne Colby, William Damon, Laura Easley, James Hunter, Mia Keinanen, Mindy Kornhaber, Charles Lang, Harry Lewis, Eric Liu, Seana Moran, Amelia Peterson, Peter Sims, and Dennis Thompson.

This is the tenth and final post in a ten-part series in which I respond to the comments received regarding my essay “Is There a Future for the Professions? An Interim Verdict.”

Other Perspectives: A Global (as opposed to American) View

In one sense, my original essay on the future of the professions, as well as my commentary to the respondents, is quite parochial. My personal experience has been largely in the United States, with a smattering of knowledge of other countries and continents. Both the positive characterization of the professional landscape and the various threats that I’ve delineated may not be relevant to other parts of the world. Indeed, even the textures of pre-professional eras may be quite different; for example, it would be helpful to understand in which ways were Chinese mandarins like American professors, or shamans in traditional cultures like contemporary physicians, or leaders of ancient tribes like lawyers of today. Choose your pairings!

An associated question: what happened when the American or European versions of professions affected (or, if you prefer, invaded) other parts of the world? After the Second World War, American variants of law, medicine, and journalism became models for much of East Asia. But the transplants were not—and probably should not—have been en bloc. Indeed, when it comes to journalism, American latitudinarianism far exceeds that found in most other reportage systems. And then there is the question of co-operation across borders, which is much easier when the same norms apply between countries, but more often than not, they don’t. What journalists readily report on in the United States could lead to a legal suit or an arrest in other parts of the world.

Another consideration: when out-sourcing of jobs enters the picture, one confronts challenges of training, judging, and combining expertise from around the globe—or, more likely, the challenges that arise when those different kinds of expertise collide. For example, imagine the situation if practices that are illegal in the United States are handled by a service call station in India, Brazil, or China; if there is not a strict algorithm in place for each conceivable situation (if there were, why use human beings at all?), there is little reason to think that any arising issues will be solved in the way that they would be in the United States (or in Western European countries). And in the case of legal disputes, conclusions reached in extra-territorial centers might be considered invalid by conservative judges, who (like the late Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Antonin Scalia) argue that foreign legal systems should not even be consulted by American courts.

While acknowledging the legitimacy of the critique that I have touched upon only a part of the contemporary professional landscape, commentators from other countries have put forth more hopeful pictures. Gökhan Depo, a Turkish citizen living in Finland, points out monetary considerations are far less prevalent among professionals in Finland and that, in general, Finnish society is characterized by far less inequality. The occupational landscape is much flatter; the phrase “winner takes all” is alien to most of Finnish society. And Thijs Jansen, a scholar working in the Netherlands, reports that professionals there are mobilizing to sustain the core practices and values of their chosen vocation. Perhaps, contra Justice Scalia, we can learn from these northern European societies.

Thanks to commentators Gökhan Depo, Stephen Gardner, Thijs Jansen, and Norman Ornstein.

This is the ninth in a ten-part series in which I respond to the comments received regarding my essay “Is There a Future for the Professions? An Interim Verdict.”