GORHAM – Twenty-five years ago, I became a public school teacher because I loved working as a volunteer in my daughter’s preschool, was fascinated by how kids learn and was driven to help make this a better world.

Now, as someone who prepares people for the profession, I see the same love and fascination and drive in my teacher interns. My job is to help them hone their skills and perspectives so they can be great teachers.

But what does great teaching look like? As we entrust our children to schools, what can we hope for and ask for from their teachers?

FEEDING THE DESIRE TO LEARN

The first thing that most of us parents want is a teacher who will know and understand our child and keep him or her physically safe and emotionally well. Teaching is a caring profession, built on and embedded in relationships. It matters who the teacher is and how generously and empathetically that person relates to others.

We also want teachers to stimulate our children’s minds and imaginations and aspirations, to feed their interests and curiosities, and to not squelch the desire for learning that they bring to school.

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We want teachers to help our children know and be able to do the things needed to be successful in this society, and to do it in a way that grants them choice and the power to think for themselves.

We want our teachers to deeply know the content that they are teaching and to be able to make it accessible and interesting to those who do not yet know it.

We want teachers who will reach out to us about our child’s education, not ignore or dismiss us or simply ask for our acquiescence.

That’s a lot of work and responsibility for a teacher, and can be pretty daunting even under the best of circumstances — when class sizes are manageable, school resources and supports are adequate, kids are healthy and well-fed and housed. But how challenging it is these days as teacher ranks are diminished, schools are underfunded and child poverty is growing. It takes stamina and heart.

I’ve done a variety of things for a living, and teaching is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

FAIR OPPORTUNITIES FOR STUDENTS

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You have to know many students well; plan content-rich lessons that aim to respond to their amazing diversity; juggle a host of instructional strategies to keep them interested, and have a repertoire of assessment techniques so you can understand what they are actually learning, and adjust accordingly, from day to day, moment to moment.

Being a great teacher means trying to provide a fair opportunity for each and every one of your students to learn and grow according to his or her own potential, taking into account issues of race, class, ethnicity, language, culture, gender, abilities and disabilities, and more.

Once you fully realize that one approach to teaching can never fit every student, the task becomes incredibly complex and demanding.

We are living in a time when schools, teachers and teacher unions are commonly disparaged, often treated as scapegoats for society’s ills, and when the evaluation of teachers is based more and more — quite unjustly — on the standardized test scores earned by their students. There seems to be little understanding of the multifaceted nature of the job or what it takes to be good at it.

PARENTS EXPRESS CONFIDENCE

But I remain hopeful that parents and other adults in the community will see through the teacher bashing we have become accustomed to in the media. I am encouraged to see that in survey after survey, parents in this country express confidence in their students’ teachers.

For example, in the 2012 Phi Delta Kappa-Gallup poll about public schools, 71 percent of respondents say they have trust and confidence in teachers and 77 percent of parents gave an A or B to the school their oldest child attends.

I also take heart in the many great teachers I have come to know over the years. These are people always working to be better at their craft, no matter how long they’ve been teaching and often at some sacrifice to their home lives. Great teachers know that it is more than just a job. It’s a commitment.

Ken Jones is an associate professor of teacher education at the University of Southern Maine in Gorham.


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