I'm a big fan of sports metaphors. Sports make sense for my ego in a way that life doesn't. There is defined success (hitting a double, scoring a touchdown, winning a game), there is defined failure (striking out, double faulting, losing a game). Achievement is obvious, public, and measurable, and practice leads towards improvement. Talent plays a big role in ultimate ability, but hard work can compensate. This is how my ego thinks life should work - teaching included. Does life work this way? No, not really. There is no obvious definition for success. It's never clear whether you are the best or the worst on the field. The black and white of sport is replaced by the grey of life, and our brains aren't well equipped for grey. Mine isn't, anyways. So, for the purpose of my own sanity, I deliberately lie to myself and liken life to sports because my ego needs to believe that someday, with enough effort, enough talent, and a little bit of luck, it will "win". Baseball is my favorite.
Call it ignorant bliss.
Several years ago, during an independent study with Nancy Johnson, I felt confused as to my role in teaching. At school, I was getting good grades, but something felt wrong in the classroom, and I knew it. Seeking to make sense of this discrepancy, my mind drifted straight to baseball.
"Am I supposed to be a Major Leaguer right now? I feel like I'm in A ball," I asked.
"Peter," replied Nancy, who is also a baseball fan, "you're in little league."
Wow. That put a nice perspective on the situation.
In a way, I was frustrated. I had put in so much work. Years of school, years of coaching, countless practica, essays on theory, hours of conversation with esteemed and respected teachers and professors, and yet there I sat, staring the end game in the face and being told by my mentor (who thought I was doing very well, actually) that I was the baseball equivalent of a 10 year old. It wasn't exactly a hug.
But it made sense. Ken Griffey Jr. was 10 once. And he was still Ken Griffey Jr. He too was a little leaguer. He was a very good little leaguer. By the time he was twelve, he was the fastest, strongest kid on the field and he was smashing home runs like the fences couldn't contain him. Scouts drooled and graded him highly. He was a Major League talent, but he was still in little league.
Now, I'm not going to be so bold as to call myself the young Ken Griffey Jr. of teaching, but this scenario begs the question. When did Griffey become a big league hitter? He was Ken Griffey Jr. his whole life. What happened that made him a big league hitter? What is a big league hitter, besides simply someone who hits big league pitchers?
When do I become a big league teacher?
Obviously, in my classroom, there are no big league pitchers. In fact, there is only one player in the teacher game. And just like that, as so often happens, my sports metaphor begins to unravel in the face of real life.
In teaching, real-life teaching, there is success, and there is failure. To dwell on the success is to ignore the failure, to dwell on the failure is to ignore the success.
In a sense this is like baseball - Griffey is an undeniably amazing hitter, but he still fails 60% of the time he steps to the plate. His success depends on his ability to accept his failures. This is an amazingly difficult skill to master, and serious connections can be drawn from it to teaching and to life.
But, in another sense, this is different than baseball because, even with his failures, Griffey can come home and say without a doubt that he is an amazing hitter, and no one can disagree. He success is very public, and it is supported by concrete evidence in the shape of 500 foot home runs, and the simple fact that his batting average is higher than nearly any other player in the game. He knows he's the best, because no one else can do what he does given similar situations. Teaching provides no obvious avenue for comparing, or even measuring ability. Given his 60% failure rate, I wonder if even Griffey would view himself a bad hitter were there no objective way to rate his performance.
How does this apply to my teaching?
I have days where I feel like I've done something great. I have days where I feel like I am in control and on top of my game and possibly the greatest teacher on the face of the planet. On those days, I feel as if Randy Johnson in his prime couldn't strike me out.
Griffey must have days just like those.
On other days, when the kids are wild and it seems like I'm the only one in the room hearing my voice, or when I look out to a sea of blank faces and realize that I'm the only one that cares about math, I feel like I should have never stepped up to the plate.
Griffey must have days just like those, too.
But because baseball has a clear way of measuring success, Griffey can still come home from both of those days and know objectively that he is an amazing hitter.
Somehow I must come up with a way to value my teaching ability without clear measures so that I can accept both my successes and my failures as a rational part of teaching - a rational part of life.
How can I synthesize this? I guess I feel like I'm an up-and-coming teaching prospect - not unlike Griffey once was. But now, two years after my talk with Nancy, I know that development in teaching does not look just like development in baseball. The metaphor doesn't hold true.
Teaching is not a series of leagues you must progress through before you get to the big show. It's not that black and white. Taking classes and getting more and more immersed in my student teaching environment can make it feel like it is. That black-and-white lie was comforting when I was taking classes.
Taking classes was like playing a sport, a teacher game. There was defined success (answering a question, getting an A, passing a test, passing a class, getting a degree), and there was defined failure (not knowing the answer, getting a poor grade, failing a class). Achievement was obvious, public, and measurable, and practice lead towards improvement. Talent played a big role in ultimate ability to compete in the sport of school - the teacher game, but hard work could compensate.
Now that I'm done with classes and grades, I find myself standing in the front of a classroom day in and day out. Here the definitions are gone and achievement isn't so public and measurable. There aren't 20 classmates to compare my performance against. In fact, there is no good way to compare my performance to anyone else's. So what, then, is success?
Without competition or concrete statistics on which to base conclusions about my performance, without clear victories or clear defeats, black and white bleed into grey. As the colors bleed, it becomes clear that the sport of school, the teacher game, was just a construction of society, just as baseball is.
It was a useful game for both me and for the university. For me, it provided opportunities to learn important concepts and experience measurable success - a framework within which I could allow my black-and-white ego to play. The university staff invented the teacher game to convince their egos that training successful teachers was a black-and-white process. I represent one of many people they have deemed as prepared - I represent a small victory for them. Perhaps I am a double. But the university hasn't won the game yet, because there is still grey. They will continue on in inventing and changing their sport, their black and white hides the grey, providing an intriguing and somewhat functional venue for an ego that aspires to learn how to teach.
But for me, the black and white has ended. The school sport, the teacher game, is over. I have already won.
Now, there is teaching.
In teaching, as in life, there is grey. There isn't a best, there is always better. There is always a higher batting average. Home runs can be longer than 500 feet or land short of the fence. Some might never land at all. It is not my goal to progress to one top level, because there is no such thing. I am a teacher. I am a good teacher, hopefully. I can be a better teacher, definitely. That will always be true, no matter how good or bad I feel on any given day.
To "succeed" in teaching, and ultimately in life, I must change my definition of success. I must free it from the black-and-white of the teacher game.
I must:
1) Trust my talent and my ability to be enough.
2) Trust that hard work and time will yield improvement.
Those items aren't a recipe for success, as they are in baseball or in the teacher-game, where they often lead to hits and wins, grades and degrees. Rather, those things are success. They define it.
If I can do those things, I'll be a big league teacher. And unlike big league ball players, big league teachers don't peak at 27 years old.
What's to stop me?
-Mr. Reni
Call it ignorant bliss.
Several years ago, during an independent study with Nancy Johnson, I felt confused as to my role in teaching. At school, I was getting good grades, but something felt wrong in the classroom, and I knew it. Seeking to make sense of this discrepancy, my mind drifted straight to baseball.
"Am I supposed to be a Major Leaguer right now? I feel like I'm in A ball," I asked.
"Peter," replied Nancy, who is also a baseball fan, "you're in little league."
Wow. That put a nice perspective on the situation.
In a way, I was frustrated. I had put in so much work. Years of school, years of coaching, countless practica, essays on theory, hours of conversation with esteemed and respected teachers and professors, and yet there I sat, staring the end game in the face and being told by my mentor (who thought I was doing very well, actually) that I was the baseball equivalent of a 10 year old. It wasn't exactly a hug.
But it made sense. Ken Griffey Jr. was 10 once. And he was still Ken Griffey Jr. He too was a little leaguer. He was a very good little leaguer. By the time he was twelve, he was the fastest, strongest kid on the field and he was smashing home runs like the fences couldn't contain him. Scouts drooled and graded him highly. He was a Major League talent, but he was still in little league.
Now, I'm not going to be so bold as to call myself the young Ken Griffey Jr. of teaching, but this scenario begs the question. When did Griffey become a big league hitter? He was Ken Griffey Jr. his whole life. What happened that made him a big league hitter? What is a big league hitter, besides simply someone who hits big league pitchers?
When do I become a big league teacher?
Obviously, in my classroom, there are no big league pitchers. In fact, there is only one player in the teacher game. And just like that, as so often happens, my sports metaphor begins to unravel in the face of real life.
In teaching, real-life teaching, there is success, and there is failure. To dwell on the success is to ignore the failure, to dwell on the failure is to ignore the success.
In a sense this is like baseball - Griffey is an undeniably amazing hitter, but he still fails 60% of the time he steps to the plate. His success depends on his ability to accept his failures. This is an amazingly difficult skill to master, and serious connections can be drawn from it to teaching and to life.
But, in another sense, this is different than baseball because, even with his failures, Griffey can come home and say without a doubt that he is an amazing hitter, and no one can disagree. He success is very public, and it is supported by concrete evidence in the shape of 500 foot home runs, and the simple fact that his batting average is higher than nearly any other player in the game. He knows he's the best, because no one else can do what he does given similar situations. Teaching provides no obvious avenue for comparing, or even measuring ability. Given his 60% failure rate, I wonder if even Griffey would view himself a bad hitter were there no objective way to rate his performance.
How does this apply to my teaching?
I have days where I feel like I've done something great. I have days where I feel like I am in control and on top of my game and possibly the greatest teacher on the face of the planet. On those days, I feel as if Randy Johnson in his prime couldn't strike me out.
Griffey must have days just like those.
On other days, when the kids are wild and it seems like I'm the only one in the room hearing my voice, or when I look out to a sea of blank faces and realize that I'm the only one that cares about math, I feel like I should have never stepped up to the plate.
Griffey must have days just like those, too.
But because baseball has a clear way of measuring success, Griffey can still come home from both of those days and know objectively that he is an amazing hitter.
Somehow I must come up with a way to value my teaching ability without clear measures so that I can accept both my successes and my failures as a rational part of teaching - a rational part of life.
How can I synthesize this? I guess I feel like I'm an up-and-coming teaching prospect - not unlike Griffey once was. But now, two years after my talk with Nancy, I know that development in teaching does not look just like development in baseball. The metaphor doesn't hold true.
Teaching is not a series of leagues you must progress through before you get to the big show. It's not that black and white. Taking classes and getting more and more immersed in my student teaching environment can make it feel like it is. That black-and-white lie was comforting when I was taking classes.
Taking classes was like playing a sport, a teacher game. There was defined success (answering a question, getting an A, passing a test, passing a class, getting a degree), and there was defined failure (not knowing the answer, getting a poor grade, failing a class). Achievement was obvious, public, and measurable, and practice lead towards improvement. Talent played a big role in ultimate ability to compete in the sport of school - the teacher game, but hard work could compensate.
Now that I'm done with classes and grades, I find myself standing in the front of a classroom day in and day out. Here the definitions are gone and achievement isn't so public and measurable. There aren't 20 classmates to compare my performance against. In fact, there is no good way to compare my performance to anyone else's. So what, then, is success?
Without competition or concrete statistics on which to base conclusions about my performance, without clear victories or clear defeats, black and white bleed into grey. As the colors bleed, it becomes clear that the sport of school, the teacher game, was just a construction of society, just as baseball is.
It was a useful game for both me and for the university. For me, it provided opportunities to learn important concepts and experience measurable success - a framework within which I could allow my black-and-white ego to play. The university staff invented the teacher game to convince their egos that training successful teachers was a black-and-white process. I represent one of many people they have deemed as prepared - I represent a small victory for them. Perhaps I am a double. But the university hasn't won the game yet, because there is still grey. They will continue on in inventing and changing their sport, their black and white hides the grey, providing an intriguing and somewhat functional venue for an ego that aspires to learn how to teach.
But for me, the black and white has ended. The school sport, the teacher game, is over. I have already won.
Now, there is teaching.
In teaching, as in life, there is grey. There isn't a best, there is always better. There is always a higher batting average. Home runs can be longer than 500 feet or land short of the fence. Some might never land at all. It is not my goal to progress to one top level, because there is no such thing. I am a teacher. I am a good teacher, hopefully. I can be a better teacher, definitely. That will always be true, no matter how good or bad I feel on any given day.
To "succeed" in teaching, and ultimately in life, I must change my definition of success. I must free it from the black-and-white of the teacher game.
I must:
1) Trust my talent and my ability to be enough.
2) Trust that hard work and time will yield improvement.
Those items aren't a recipe for success, as they are in baseball or in the teacher-game, where they often lead to hits and wins, grades and degrees. Rather, those things are success. They define it.
If I can do those things, I'll be a big league teacher. And unlike big league ball players, big league teachers don't peak at 27 years old.
What's to stop me?
-Mr. Reni
1 comment:
Nothing to stop you, kid. But who is this Griffey dude? Did he play on Alvin Davis's team?
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