My Book Blog 8: Live an Interesting Life

              I was recently on an interview committee for full-time reading faculty positions at our school. Our very last interview question is: how do you want to improve yourself as a teacher? Our candidates gave various answers, some of which I did not find very meaningful. I have been pondering on that question since the interview and I was happy to find a couple of good answers in Routman's book.

            Chapter 12 of the book is titled "You Only Have So Much Time" and in this chapter, Routman gives some good tips on how to make our teaching lives easier and more productive. Her first suggestion is to live an interesting life. Do you often feel tired from work? Do you feel you never have enough time to do it all? Our time is limited and valuable. We have to spend it in the most meaningful, productive ways possible. Routman told the story of a teacher who was going to decline an invitation to an evening out because she had papers to grade. Routman advised her to go to the event and be an interesting person because you cannot come to work each day enthusiastic about teaching if all you did the night before was grade papers. We all want to and need to "have a life." As teachers, we are not only role models for learning; we are also role models for living. Staying late after school does not necessarily make someone a more effective teacher. Our students will not become better readers because we give them lots of paperwork and grade lots of papers. They will become better readers if they receive excellent instruction from us. Living an interesting life keeps us energetic and enthusiastic about teaching and therefore, we will be able to provide better instruction to our students.

            Routman's second suggestion is to spend most of your time thinking. Routman says that she spends a lot of time planning for her instruction, but it is mostly thinking and this thinking goes on all the time. She specifically mentions four questions that she has in mind all the time:

1. What do I want them to know and understand?

2. How can I help them know and understand it?

3. How will I know when they know and understand it?

4. What are my new expectations for students?

These four questions form a complete circle of learning starting with goals and expectations, going onto teaching strategies and learning activities, finishing up with assessment and evaluations. Then the circle starts again with new learning. To me, this kind of thinking and reflection is key to becoming a good teacher. Constantly doing this kind of thinking and reflection is how we can improve as a teacher. I also remember a conversation with a very experienced teacher. She says teaching never stops at the end of the school day or when you step outside of your classroom.

            So now if I am asked "how do you want to improve as a teacher", I would say first of all, I want to live an interesting life and then, I want to be constantly thinking and reflecting about my daily teaching practices.