Teachers Like to be the Boss

Unfortunately, I had written this entire piece, and I made the mistake of not writing it first in Word and then copying it or at least saving it frequently as a draft. I don't guess I'll do that again. So now I will have to try to write this again from memory. I guess that is one way of revising an article. I did notice I moved back and forth from teachers like to be the boss to why I have performance anxiety. Maybe I had two stories at once. I know somehow I can retrieve the lost document, but I don't remember how. This is one good reason a first draft should be written in pencil in a legal pad.

3/17/2009

I should be able to begin again since what I was writing is something I've been living with all my life. I personally like to be the boss. I'm only talking about one teacher, and that is me. I was this way as a child. We would play school, and I would always be the teacher. As I've grown older, I realize I do better in a teaching setting, whether it is in a classroom or on a filmset, when I have the freedom to teach as I know best. I certainly can follow guidelines or lesson plans; however, when a parent, supervisor, or anyone else starts telling me that I should spend more time on one subject or another or to work on only what's assigned, I begin to get very anxious. I become more involved in watching what I do than what I actually do. I begin to suffer from performance anxiety and become very self centered. I forget my primary purpose which is to teach the child or children.

When I'm allowed more respect to do what I do best with the education and experience I have, then I function better; and I think I'm a better teacher. Perhaps this is one reason I'm not teaching full-time. These days there are so many reports to write, numerous supervisors observing you, parents with various demands for their children. It's more like teaching by committee. Even on a filmset when I'm the only teacher, there are numerous variables that affect my teaching. Parents may prefer only the bare essentials of education to get by the law or they may only want me to complete certain assignments. Most of teaching is more than what is in the book or the worksheet. However, the worksheet and test is the part that shows. It's like the part of the iceberg above water, whereas I may research several concepts online, teacher's manual or from my own library. I'm not one of those people who has a photographic memory that everything I've ever learned is right there when I need it in my mind. I have to study also for each assignment.

I have found that I particularly enjoy summer camp. I teach a couple of different kinds of classes with about six classes a day. There are no textbooks or requirements. I basically come up with the lesson plan and adjust each one to the class I'm teaching. Sometimes I feel like a farmer. When I'm teaching my cooking class, I may change the plan for the day if suddenly strawberries are on sale or a child brings in a particular recipe. With the acting class, much depends on where the kids go with a topic. They choose their play, often creating it in class, and I am more of a guide than giving them worksheets and tests and grades. I guess the "test and grade" would be the performance. Interestingly, I think they learn as much in the summer camp classes as if I gave them a textbook on the subjects, with all the objectives, rubrics, reports that a teacher does in a regular classroom.

It's sort of the same concept that Randy Pausch used with his classes at MIT where the students were playing games, but meanwhile they were learning ALICE. He mentioned this technique in his last lecture. Not that I pretend to be a famous computer scientist, but the same as natural food is usually healthier than what comes out of a can, teaching naturally as a part of a child's curiosity, input, and creativity often will accomplish more than any amount of standarized testing, parent conferences, report cards, homework worksheets. Maybe this concept only works at summer camp and MIT. However, maybe someday a graduate student will perform a study for his/her dissertation on the various modes of teaching.

For today, I will close. This is not the same piece I wrote earlier. Perhaps as I continue, the rest of the piece will come to me.