The Gift That Never Stops Giving–Being a Teacher*

I wrote this post five years ago. With graduation ceremonies in K-12 and college occurring in the next few weeks, and so much written about teaching, I offer it again.

A dear friend and I exchanged emails regularly. In one, she mentioned that she had heard from a student she had in 1960. She had taught in the New York area for a number of years before returning to graduate school but recalled with much warmth how fine a group of sixth graders she had that particular year. The then 11 year-old, now a grandma, had stayed in touch with my friend over the years. She had become a teacher and had just retired and was now writing about the adult lives of her elementary school classmates.

That got me thinking of the often unspoken psychic rewards that accrue (in business argot, I would say: “return on investment”) to experienced teachers who have had many groups of students pass through their classroom over the years and how some of those students (such as Steven Strogatz) make a point of visiting, writing, and staying in touch with their former teachers.

Fortunately, that has happened to me as a few former students at Glenville High School in Cleveland and Cardozo High School in Washington, D.C. have stayed in touch. Ditto from some former Stanford University graduates. When letters or pop- in visits occur, I get such a rush of memories of the particular student and the class and the mixed emotions that accompany those memories. Teaching is, indeed, the gift that never stops giving.

Those former students who stay in touch over the years, I have found, attribute far too much to my teaching and semester- or year-long relationship with them. Often I am stunned by their recollections of what I said and did. In most cases, I cannot remember the incidents that remain fresh in their memories. Had I tried to predict which of the few thousand high school students I have taught would have reached out to contact me, I would have been wrong 75 percent of the time. My flawed memories and pitiful predictive power, however, cannot diminish the strong satisfaction I feel from seeing and hearing classroom tales from former students or of their achievements since graduation.

However policymakers and researchers define success in teaching or produce pay-for-performance plans, the hard-to-measure influence of teachers upon students turns up time and again in those graduates who reach out to their former teachers. Those graduates seek out their former teachers because of how they were pushed and prodded, how intellectual doors were opened, how a ready ear and kind word made possible a crucial next step for that young man or woman. Student test scores fail to capture the bonds that grow between experienced teachers and children and youth who look for adults to admire, adults who live full, honest, and engaged lives. Am I waxing romantic about the currently unmeasurable results of teaching and the critical importance of retaining experienced teachers? No, I am not. I have a point to make.

My friend’s story of her former 11 year-old student still staying in touch because the relationship forged in 1960 between a group of sixth graders and a young teacher had taken on enhanced meaning as decades passed. Something beautiful and long-lasting occurred when those bonds were forged in that New York area elementary school, something that continually eludes current reformers eager for getting new teachers into classrooms and not worrying too much if they leave after two years since a new crop of fresh newcomers will replace them.

Turnstile teachers–as I call them–cannot forge those lasting bonds with students. Staying at least five-plus years in the same school gives teachers the experiences and competence to connect with classes and individual students. Students lucky enough to have veteran teachers who had their older brothers and sisters (and in some cases their mothers or fathers), whose classrooms students eat their bag lunches in, whose reputations for being tough, demanding, caring, and a dozen other admirable traits drew them like magnets to their classrooms, their impressions and memories of these teachers will serve as guideposts for decades. These are the teachers school boards must retain through mindful policies that spur teacher growth in what they teach and how they teach it. What is needed are state and district policies that pay teachers a livable salary, foster collaboration, and motivate them to stay at least five-plus years in classrooms.

Were such policies to be put into practice, chances of former students writing or returning to tell their teachers how much they appreciated their help might increase and become the cherished memories that former teachers like me and my friend find so satisfying.

___________________________________________

*I thank Selma Wassermann for telling me the story of her former student. The phrase, “the gift that never stops giving,” has been part of commercials for decades.