- This book continues to give teachers hope
Taylor Mali is a teacher advocate and performance poet famous for a poem he wrote called "What Teachers Make". The poem - and
video
that by now all my teaching friends have seen - grew into a crusade and
now an inspiring book about the intrinsic rewards of teaching.
The
poem began as a response to a lawyer who insulted Mali and the entire
teaching profession at a dinner party in 1997. In the introduction to
the book, Mali explains - "
For the lawyer, it really came down to
how poorly compensated teachers are — no intelligent person would take a
job that paid less than what he was making as a lawyer. At the party
that night I was so furious inside that I couldn't come up with a clever
comeback, so I bit my tongue and laughed politely. But the next day,
January 1, 1998, I wrote a poem that was the forceful response I wish I
had delivered that night. The poem was called "What Teachers Make."
Last
year, when I heard Mali had written a book expanding the sentiments of
this poem, I preordered it and read it cover to cover when it arrived.
I wanted to wave it in the face of every co-worker I knew who needed
encouragement. In the suburban school district where I taught high
school English for 30 years, the last several have been really difficult
for teachers. Mali sounds a battle cry for continued professionalism
in a doubting age with chapter titles including "Making Kids Work Hard",
"Your Child is My Student", and "Lightbulb Moments and Happy
Accidents". These chapters elaborate on the tough work teachers do and
how difficult it is to continue to be rigorous with children in a
society that has become lazy. One where parents are micro-managing the
school lives of their children, but have no idea what they are really
doing with the cell phones they have given them. The happy accidents
Mali refers to occur most often when effective teaching influences the
desire for life-long learning by providing students with relevant
assignments, alternative assessments, risk-rewarding learning
environments, and engagement with the narrative of the learner’s life.
Mali
also has a chapter called "Fighting Back Against the Attack on
Teachers". In it he recognizes the greed and excess that permeates so
much of society. He understands that "
Profit in the short term has come to trump sustainable and equitable long term growth," and acknowledges
this voracious machine has finally set its sight on teachers. What he
does not understand - and frankly neither do we who have devoted our
lives to teaching - is the recent characterization of teachers as lazy
and greedy. He writes, "
Only someone with very little understanding of what teaching requires would say such a thing." He
suggests putting anyone who doubts the commitment it takes to succeed
into a classroom for a year. He finally illuminates the truth - "
All
of the teachers I have known need one hour outside the classroom for
every hour they spend in the classroom. So next time you hear someone
talk about the paltry number of hours teachers put in every day, double
it." He also discusses teacher burn out and cites the statistic
that fifty percent of teachers quit by the fifth year of teaching. It
is just too much work for too little pay.
I love
this book. I was reminded of it this week when a guidance counsellor
friend posted the video on her Facebook page (thank you, Tara). Last
year before my husband, English department chair, and I retired, we
entertained the thought of buying one for everyone in our department to
take out and read on dark weekends like this one. Instead we played the
video at our last department meeting and entrusted one copy to the
department library.
Today, I would place this book in the lap of
every one of my friends in the profession as a reminder of why you were
called to teaching in the first place. The greatest profession in the
world has never been great because of what you make. You are worth so,
so, so much more.
