Recently, Coach Goode, a teacher I had in high school, retired. A Facebook page was set up where his former students for the past 25 years reminded each other of fantastic memories. High school was a while ago for me; however one of my best memories is of one of this teacher’s classes. Each time I have told the following story it has grown in grandeur:
One day I walked into his class and on top of the front table was a chair and some other objects. (In some of my versions, the stack of junk on the table towers almost to the ceiling.) After the bell rang, and all of us were sitting quietly in our seats (of course), Coach Goode came running into the room waving a large stick and screaming his head off. He proceeded to knock everything off the table, (in some versions he also does a little savage dance yelling “ooga booga,” but I digress), and then walked (ran, danced) out of the room. A few minutes later he calmly walked in and asked us to take out a piece of paper and write about what we saw. We then went around the classroom reading our accounts. Some students were very factual in the telling, others interjected their own comments and feelings.
The point of the lesson, “history is full of lies and so we must look at all accounts in order to get the most accurate picture possible.” In other words, one version of the story may not tell the whole tale, one way of looking at something may not give the complete picture.
Coach Goode is, by many accounts, a great teacher. Now in truth I couldn’t tell you the name of the course I had him for (some type of history), nor what else we studied that year. I don’t remember who was in that particular class with me, or what year in high school this was. Yet what made an impression on me for the past 16 years was the lesson that there are many sides to a story, not just one “right” one. In my life, I have extended this lesson even further to mean that often there are many ways of doing something effectively, not just the right or accepted one.
Today, a huge issue is brewing in this country over the standardized teaching scandals in which educators in many positions are accused of changing test answers to correct ones. Teachers in many states are measured as “good” teachers by how many students pass these exams. And although I won’t get political on this matter, I will say that the teachers I consider my “best” teachers taught me lessons that went well beyond the realm of multiple choice and true/false statements. So how do we tell which teachers are truly great teachers? It is my belief that you are not a great teacher until you retire and have the joy of students (as in Coach Goode’s case) sharing the lessons they learned while spending time with you. Until retirement then, all “good” teachers are simply those who strive for excellence, care about their students, and want to share the joy of learning in their classrooms.
When I was studying the art of teaching for my Masters degree, my favorite part of the program was collaborating with other teachers and teachers-in-training. Now as a teacher with my own classrooms, I miss the fun of hearing best practices, or other teachers’ “how to guides” for getting students excited about learning. I hope that I will always welcome teachers to share their ideas with me and keep me from becoming complacent in the microcosm of my own little classroom. I never want to look at teaching from only one point of view – my own. Otherwise, I, and my students, may miss out on some wonderful moments in the classroom.
