You’ve got to have faith to be a great teacher

Commentary

You've got to have religion to be a great teacher

Ellie Herman

Jan xxx, 2014

For the last four months, as office of a yearlong search to sympathize what great teaching looks like by visiting 11^thursday form English language classrooms across Los Angeles, I've had a risk to discover great teachers in schools beyond the socioeconomic spectrum, from a very low-income customs in Watts to an elite private school in Sherman Oaks.

Despite radical differences in approach, personality and philosophy, I've been struck by the realization that the teachers I'one thousand following share 5 common practices. And in the finish, these practices are rooted in the aforementioned state of being.

What they all have in common is faith – non religious organized religion simply an unwavering conventionalities in something or someone, even in the absence of fabric prove. All not bad teachers accept faith in their students, in the process of learning and in themselves. It is what underlies the five practices I've observed in great teachers:

1. Great teachers mind to their students.
   Listening is more than just sitting effectually hearing most their students' issues, though many times these teachers do that. Instead of coming in with a prepackaged educational agenda, nifty teachers first listen closely to the educational and socio-emotional needs of their students. This listening tin take the form of cess tests, just too involves a deep awareness of and respect for the lives and dwelling house cultures of their students, whether they are at-risk students in a very low-income customs or privileged students at a individual school. "Ms. Castillo got to know me," says Genesis, a 16-yr-old girl in Cynthia Castillo'south 11^th grade English class at Augustus Hawkins RISE Academy in South Los Angeles, a schoolhouse centered on community involvement. At her previous school, Genesis says, the teachers were nice but never talked to the kids outside of class. Hither, Cynthia spent time talking to her outside of class and encouraged her to take on leadership roles. Now she'southward president of the class – and she's turned her grades around. "Ms. Castillo doesn't just talk to me like a student," says Genesis. "She talks to me like a person."
2. Great teachers accept an authentic vision for their students.
   Some of the teachers I'g following are interested in standards-based education and some are not. But no thing what they think of standards, all have a personal, authentic vision of what they want for their students. Considering they mind to their students, the vision they have is a response to what their students need, not to some need of their own. This vision does not take to be abstract; for some teachers, especially in skill-based subjects, their vision is mastery of a specific body of content, which they believe will exist invaluable to their students. For others, though, the vision has to practise with personal qualities: inculcating a lifelong curiosity or turning their students into lifelong readers. For an example of vision in action, read this extremely moving postal service in the Adept Men Projection by a pupil in Dennis Danziger'south class at Venice High, who was astonished to find that he loved to read when Dennis "punished" him by sending him to the library for an hour every day. Ernesto Ponce would never accept prepare out on this unconventional educational path if not for Dennis' vision of what he wanted for his students.
3. Bang-up teachers have an unequivocal belief in all students' potential.
   By "potential" I do not mean only that they believe that all of their students will become to college. In some communities, similar the elite private school Harvard-Westlake, because of the all-encompassing resources of the parent body, college is inevitable for most students before they're even built-in, so a "belief" in this "potential" would not be meaningful. In other settings, like the Special Ed classroom of the astonishing Carlos Gordillo at the Roybal Learning Center in a low-income neighborhood almost downtown L.A., college is highly unlikely for most of his students. What I mean instead by "potential" is that in all of the teachers I'm following, I see a belief, sometimes one that flies in the face of years of prove to the contrary, that the student in front end of them is capable of achievement beyond what anyone might retrieve possible. The teachers I'm following sympathise that life can take amazing and unpredictable turns. Because of that belief, they do not ever give up even on students who never appear to make progress.
4. Swell teachers are at-home, persistent pushers.
   Remember the scene in "Mean Girls" when math teacher Tina Fey admits she's "a pusher"? The teachers I'1000 observing exercise not ever stop pushing their students no matter how low or loftier their level and without regard to their students' complaints or apparent lack of interest. And they remain amazingly calm. Even when aggravated, they seem able to take a breath and brush the moment off. They don't seem to have anything personally because they have faith in their vision and in their students' potential. Kristin Damo, who teaches English at Locke High School in Watts, often faces classes with several students who talk continually in form and often wander from their seats to conversation with others – despite very articulate class rules and Kristin'southward consistent enforcement of them. Despite the continual challenge of working with students who cannot or will non stay on job, Kristin never loses her temper, gently and repeatedly reminding off-track students what they need to be doing, leading them dorsum to their seats, and complimenting them personally when they do succeed at focusing or completing work.
5. Great teachers practice non-attachment to brusque-term results.
   "Non-zipper" is non a lack of interest. The teachers I'grand observing are definitely interested in brusk-term results, reading educatee work closely and tracking their students' progress. But – and this is where they diverge radically from the electric current perceived wisdom about educational activity – they exercise not invest emotionally in those results or take them as show of success or failure, either for their students or for themselves. The teachers I'grand observing seem to take a much longer view of instruction. They see their classes, and what their students learn from their classes, equally something they hope their students volition carry with them for the rest of their lives. They empathise that what their students carry with them may be quite unexpected or go beyond the narrow technical definition of the discipline matter. They are enlightened that they may never know the touch their class has had on someone. "Yous wrestle with yourself," says Carlos Gordillo of the challenges of teaching students in Special Ed. "Simply I've seen kids plow it around. Y'all think information technology's the stop, but it's not." For Kristin Damo, it's about the hope that the practices they learn in class volition translate to a lifetime of intellectual curiosity. "At the finish of the day, they may not remember what I taught them," she says, philosophical afterwards a especially difficult grade. "But they'll recall that I was a person who cared almost them on a fundamental level."

Which leads me to religion.  Because at eye, all of these practices are rooted in a faith in the piece of work itself, in the daily exercise of showing up and engaging in the struggle of learning with their students. People burn out when they lose this organized religion; that'due south what happened to me. Demoralized by a lack of the visible progress I wanted to see and sufficient evidence that I was making a departure, I became unable to keep going.

As we talk about the best way to concenter and retain good teachers, what would happen if nosotros talked about developing this organized religion – in our students, in the procedure of learning, and in ourselves?

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Ellie Herman taught English language electives for five years at Animo Pat Brown Charter High School in Los Angeles, a career change after 20 years as a TV writer. She is taking a year off to write a blog, Gatsby In 50.A., post-obit the lives of 11th grade English language teachers across the socioeconomic spectrum. A version of this post outset appeared in her blog.

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