Getting comfortable?

I’ll have to say right off that until yesterday, I had not read any of Frank McCourt’s books. The interview in NEA Today introduced him as an award winning author of Angela’s Ashes and Tis. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1997. What interested me most about him was the nearly twenty years he taught in the New York City public schools.

He expressed his opinions about teaching, testing, lack of respect, and No Child Left Behind, and that if teaching were more  "sexy," or  fashionable, more people would be trying to get into the profession. He has the years of experience that I don’t have, so I defer to what he has to say. Not only has he taught almost three times longer than I have, but he taught in high schools, to teenagers during the post war times of the Eisenhower administration. A tough crowd of kids to impress, a tough crowd to teach.

I haven’t read his latest book yet, Teacher Man, but I have ordered it. I suppose it struck my interest because of the feeling of frenzy that develops this time of year in school.

Parents suddenly wake up to the fact that their kids are not doing well in a subject, or more than one subject, and they want to know why. It doesn’t matter that they’ve seen a total of at least four progress reports, including two report cards by now, or that they’ve had at least three phone calls informing them that their child is not turning in homework, or that newsletters go home with homework assignments and project due dates every week!

One thing Mr. McCourt noted (in the interview) that struck a familiar note was this:

"...it took me (fifteen years) to begin to feel comfortable in the classroom, so that I could enjoy myself. And I think that's much more intensive than any doctor's internship."

I hope I don't have to wait fifteen years!

Certainly there are many moments of delight and pleasure when someone grasps what I am teaching. There are days when the kids are on and the teaching is on, and we celebrate in the classroom together. The kids know genuine success when they see it. But when will I feel comfortable in the classroom?

Frank McCourt must have found the answer during those fifteen years he was adjusting to the climate of the classroom and the attitudes of the students (and parents, and other teachers).

Another thought is this: maybe we're not supposed to become comfortable in the teaching profession, or any profession. Maybe there is something in the nature of uncomfortableness that urges us to make changes in what we do and how we do it in order to decrease the discomfort, to make it familiar. And with familiarity, we are then more qualified for the next round of challenges.

Yes, that must be what it is! It's okay to be uncomfortable if it causes you to improve in some way, perfect in some way, to search for a more effective solution. I don't have to be comfortable in the classroom! As long as I'm trying to solve the problems I encounter on a regular basis, and as long as I'm seeing positive results, it is okay to be uncomfortable.

He ends the interview with this suggestion: "Find what you love and do it."