Teacher Tips - More About Being an Inspiration

More About Tip # 6 - Be an Inspiration!
Frameworks for America's Past

Students Want Help and
Directions Along Life's Way

Some years ago a teenager I once had as a student walked over and sat down next to me at one of our middle school's band concerts. She had given a lot of teachers, including me, a pretty hard time when she was in seventh grade. I asked how she was doing. Very well, she said – she was in high school, liked her classes, and was now a junior. After an awkward moment of silence, she said “I’m really sorry for how I acted sometimes back when I was in your class. I did like your class. I guess I really just needed time to grow up.”

    Sad to say, that simple truth has often been neglected as our profession moved toward standardization of curriculum design, teaching, and massive testing. Well, sometimes standardization is helpful. But the fact is that children do not arrive in the delivery room or at our schools “standardized.” When they walk in our doors, they are very much individuals growing up – as individuals. They are each on their own paths with their own experiences, hopes, and challenges.

   I hope our profession will reclaim an appreciation of what “growing up” means to a young person of seven, or twelve, or sixteen. I hope we will reconsider what we can do to help our students along the path in that essential task of life.

   After thinking about what that might mean for teachers of my subject, I posted this item on my web site recently as part of the “Tips for Teachers” section:

As a teacher, your job is not primarily to create future historians or Ivy League graduates. A much more vital purpose is to help all students find meaning and purpose in their own lives through lessons found in the story of the past. Events and dates are important, but more important are lessons such as these that history reveals: that life is joyous; that life is a struggle; that we create our own destinies; that we are part of larger patterns inherited from generations gone by.

Share with students stories from the past that carry our civilization's values and point the way to a worthy life. Tell your own personal stories. Let people from America's past and present share their inspiring words with your students. Students want help finding the path to a good life - don't leave them hanging.

   So that is the message I would like to leave with you, whatever subject you teach: Students need help growing up, and they want to hear about the important things in life. They would love to hear you share with them how you “made it” through school and into adulthood, and what help you found along the way.

   Now and then, when the classroom moment is right, share a few photos and memories from your life’s timeline. Students do that all the time, and we can, too. Show that picture of you and your friends when you were a gawky 13 year old. Share a laugh and then a story about how you learned back then what friendship, or honor, or courage really means. Maybe add a photo from your graduation day, or a picture of you in your college dorm, or at your first job.

   Also, go ahead and share some of those short videos or memes your friends post on Facebook that get thousands of “likes” because they express very meaningful, or very beautiful, or emotionally powerful truths about the world and ourselves.

   If we just teach standardized test topics, and act as if it’s not important to share the great truths that life is beautiful and that life is worth living, why should young people believe it is?

   And if students fail to learn that they can grow up, and fail to find the way to a life of purpose and meaning, even the best standardized test scores will not help them.

   Good luck as the school year begins! Your students appreciate you more than you - or they - might realize right now.

David Burns
Social Studies Teacher
Remarks at retirement farewell
Springfield, Virginia