Teacher novel closes gap between knowledge and doing en
The practical experience that the New York teacher and writer Bel Kaufman incorporated in her witty novel 'De kick off' is still valuable. The 1964 book has now been published in translation. Colleagues' literature is a good opportunity for discussion about the subject.
Picture: Nina Maissouradze
Just like a doctor, police officer, lawyer or top athlete, a teacher is an experience profession: you learn by doing. But you can't just start teaching. Well, in the Netherlands they do, but in the rest of the world you first have to understand what you are teaching and know what we know about teaching. After that necessary knowledge base, practice in master-apprentice construction begins. After a period of study and supervised practice you obtain your qualification, the real learning in the profession can begin. Knowing and doing crawl towards each other while working. You get better, pleasure replaces tension, your confidence grows and you keep looking around. You talk to colleagues, read, get new ideas, innovation and routine enter into the internal conversation in your head. This is what the road to an increasingly better teaching practice looks like. But then what do you read?
Formal knowledge
Scientists have written extensively about the learning and working of teachers. Hundreds of articles of formal knowledge have passed me by. Some of them I have taken for granted. Take Carol Tomlinson's leading work on dealing with differences. In the US, the differences between students are great, my classes are grouped by level, Tomlinson is fine, but I can manage without it. The same applies to articles about the relationship between the teacher and his class. I come from a teaching family, live with and among teachers. What I do based on tradition is in line with what research shows.
Jere Brophy, who passed away in 2009, and David Merrill, on the other hand, help me with my lessons. Merrill teaches me that in organizing instruction, connection of new knowledge with reality and the previously learned is a necessary condition for success. Brophy examined students' motivation to learn in school. Motivation is then the product of the value of the content and the feeling of being able to accomplish the task. In converting subject knowledge to classroom learning, Merrill and Brophy direct my actions on a daily basis.
If you know who you are, you are stronger in the classroom
Work floor
Scientific findings float far above a workplace. Writing teachers bridge the gap between knowing and doing with experience-fuelled practical knowledge. Top performers in this genre are Frank McCourt and Daniel Pennac. Pennac describes in school pain (2008) himself as the impossible learner. From there he develops a strict mildness, with an eye for difficult adolescents and respect for their autonomy. Pennac does not want to change people, but he does want learning achievements. Frank McCourt, who died in 2009, known for the bestseller Angela's Ashes, does in teacher man (2005) same. The difference is that McCourt is more honest about his black side. It is only when he starts working at an elite school at a later age that he takes pleasure in the work.
Value zero
The book Kick-off by Bel Kaufman (deceased in 2014) fits into this list. It may have been written in 1964, but it is still widely recognized. Sylvia Barrett ends up at a high school in New York after graduating. A graduate of the medieval writer Geoffrey Chaucer, she received an education in preparation for the teaching profession, but she soon discovers that that knowledge is approaching zero. Or as she herself says about her teacher of pedagogy at the university: 'I have met adolescents in real life, Professor Winters apparently not.' The school organization that sends memo after memo also hinders her rather than gains her anything. McHabe's administrative affairs soon becomes Admiral Zak. And then there are the wise-cracking students who especially like themselves very much. The book is written in the form of letters to a friend, memos from the board and school management, cat bubbles from colleagues. A wonderful and above all funny book.
Practice shoddy
The question remains: why should a teacher read? Because formal knowledge forms the professional conscience from which he or she organizes and justifies the lessons. McCourt, Pennac and Kaufman add to this the interaction between knowing and doing, as well as the associated practical shoddy. The writing teachers also help in determining their position in the professional field.
Look, teacher is a role with many interpretations. At the extremes of a continuum, knowledge transfer is opposed to dealing with children. Within those extremes an identity is formed that in my case is closer to the subject specialist. You will not meet me in the street on a riotous evening to address students. That's what the parents do and if they don't feel like it, the police will arrange it, with the long bar. But I respect the colleagues who go out on a restless evening. And I will help them if needed.
Our differences, talking and reading about them, so that we know each other's views and qualities, make us more than the sum of our parts. Kaufman's book, which was published in translation last year, helps to initiate such conversations. Let that study afternoon go for a while, read this book, talk to each other about the experiences of this teacher in 1964 and what they mean for your view of the profession. Never forget: if you know who you are, you are stronger in the classroom.
