Not every day but once in a while something happens that is kind of a postcard moment for why I love teaching and why I am proud to be in this profession.

It is rarely something I have done but sometimes circumstances come together where even I feel part of the magic.

But usually it is in hearing and seeing the little things that a school is ideally all about – devotion to learning.

A teacher I deeply respect retired at about age 65, from a long career leading students through the very deep intricacies of Math 31 and advanced math placement for university. He came from a business background too and had used his math skills intensely as a pilot in the war.  When he taught, and he taught grades 7-12 daily, he brilliantly adjusted the level of instruction to the student’s current understanding and he made math come alive.  He taught math to a few of my children, particularly inspiring my son.  At a parent teacher interview once he and I were discussing math and life and he confirmed my observation about the special links sometimes found in math, music and chess. He also noted that good literature can be deeply inspiring and he said that with literature you feel you know a character even better than you know some people, and that this character helps you understand yourself.

I have chatted with this man several times since his retirement and he continues to show me the breadth of what good teaching is. My son once said that some math teachers say the use of a given math formula is it helps you get through the next level of math. But this teacher’s idea of a use was to help you avoid crashing a plane.  He told me that the great teachers sometimes approach students at the start of a class very casually, speaking of an experience they had driving to work, some little observation about how the world was operating and then gently show how this relates to a math principle that day. He was and is a gifted teacher.

It was no surprise to me when I heard that a math teacher for grade 12 had taken suddenly ill in the northwest part of the city and someone was desperately needed for the next several weeks to help these kids get to and through their final departmental exams.  This retired teacher was called in, at age 75 and he accepted. He drove all across the city every day for months, despite heavy snow, to teach these kids and get them through. Why? Certainly not financial need. He came because he is devoted to kids’ learning.

I remember hearing a story of a little boy who was having trouble understanding math and science and he heard that the next door neighbor used to teach and could may be tutor him. He asked for help and the man was very reluctant to help. It would take hours and hours to walk this little boy towards greater understanding because his skills were so low.  The parents even offered to pay but the man did not want money. It was not a question of money he said, but time.  In the end he agreed and he took several hours a day to help the little boy and eventually the boy’s marks went up.  Only a few weeks later the elderly tutor died. He had known apparently all along that his medical condition was terminal and what the boy had been asking of him was not tutoring as much as the investment of the very few last hours of his life.  He had chosen to give that huge gift to the boy.  Why? That’s the belief in education.

Sometimes who reminds me of this belief is the teacher.

Sometimes it is the student.

Sometimes it is the material I get to teach.

I am in an English as a second language clas where the high school age students have only minimal English competency. They recently arrived from Sudan, China, Greece, Russia, Iraq, Persia,  Yemen, Pakistan, Bulgaria, Korea, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Eritrea. 

The assignment is to learn and recite the Great Pumpkin poem that they have been studying for a few days and they take turns saying it, so earnestly, laughing sometimes at others’ errors giddily and trying so very very hard.  They know out there it is sink or swim to learn this language and that in our unforgiving culture really all jobs require the skill as a base or you don’t even get in the door.  They have a long long way to go and yet they are up for it.  The luxury of students in the next room, lazily sleepily sloughing off assignments, kids who speak English well, is unknown to them.

It is June 13^th and the students are having a pre summer party on a Stampede theme. It is an annual sports day with games and competitions outside, ring toss, face painting, pop drinking races, but what touches me most is the pancake making. Some of the grade 9s have been commissioned to prepare pancakes for all 700 students and when you think of it this could be a disaster waiting to happen. Yet they have been well trained and the pancake mix is there, the water is in the home ec kitchens, we get out the bowls and measuring cups and spoons and we have a delivery system from the kitchens outside to the cooking griddles and to my amazement it all works!  These kids are not even stressed at the pressure that even a big restaurant would find daunting.  Don’t you just love the optimism and confidence, and competence of youth?

The school has a budget problem and the entire education system has had severe cuts to spending and yet the teachers want these kids to have a good experience, educational outings and happy sports events.  I notice in many little and creative ways how the teachers have made it happen anyway. There are dress up and indoor games, bloon stomps, water pistols and three legged races even when the sky is clouding over. The teacher is not getting as much help for the museum trips and rural excursions to see farm life or pond ecosystems but she has recruited parent volunteers and the show must go on.

I am in a grade one classroom and it is absolutely full of equipment, books, activiteies, games for kids, puzzles, bright posters, large plastic blocks and big wooden castle-building equipment, a water table, a sand table, and more toys than I have ever seen all in one room.  It is quite evident that this teacher has added much of her own collection to this and sure enough just before class begins, she sails in on the way to a meeting and has happened to bring just a few more games and toys for the kids in case I run out.  That’s touching. There is a saying that the education system is subsidized by teachers.  Often it is.

We are in a classroom of grade 3-4 and the assignment is to paint. It is the kind of assignment that makes me cringe because kids get messy and it takes a lot of time to clean up.  It is way way easier for teachers to skip any painting unit. Yet this teacher has anticipated the challenges  and has a large collection of male dress shirts, slightly worn, to be put over the kids’ clothes, backwards as painting shirts. I would not doubt that the shirts happen to be very close to her husband’s size, and come from his collection.

I am in the library of a big high school in the south part of town and I am there for a week to tide over several classes till a permanent teacher is hired.  We are doing an ethics unit and I am going to show a film we can discuss and analyze.  I ask to see the film collection and this librarian is great. She is friendly, happy, and eager to help and she shows me the collection and makes suggestions. She is buoyant and casual and everything the stereotype of a librarian is not. I even compliment her eventually on her refreshing attitude and she tells me that she also is a public library employee over the summers. She says she is in customer service and all librarians are.

When some of the young teachers are wearing sweatshirts and shorts to class, and others are wearing jeans, I notice one colleague, an older man, who always wears a dress jacket and dress pants.  Every day despite the pressure in this huge high school to dress down and bond with the students, he is dressed up, except Fridays when he does wear jeans. One day I am visiting with him and he explains- he dresses up to show respect for the kids and for education.  He is a very controversial figure, having strong passion for some English writers and dislike of others and he carries his passion to the classroom. He is sarcastic, funny, cutting, demanding and he brings out, stretches out the best from kids. He mocks poster collages as not having anything to do with learning and he feels strongly that faddish  teaching methods must show merit before they are used.  He heads the school debate team and is brilliant in helping kids hone arguments. He devotes hundreds of hours each year to nurturing and hosting the debate teams at tournaments.  Yet his approach is not always politically correct. There are some students who find him harsh and some colleagues who feel he is not soft enough on kids.  He has however an amazing career and is often picked to mark provincial final exams and be the arbiter of achievement and the gold standard for the province.  I deeply admire him but am also a bit scared of him and his brilliant and cutting mind..  A year after his retirement, nearly a calendar year exactly since he taught his last class, he dies of a sudden heart attack and word spreads in late June throughout the school where he taught. The funeral is a Saturday.  I attend with my daughter who had him as a teacher but it’s hard to get her into the room because she is crying so hard and we have to go to the washroom to just regain composure.  The room is full, and I mean full of students.  There are teachers there too, lots of colleagues and some of the administrators who gave this man a hard time but mostly there are hundreds and hundreds of kids, on a Saturday . And they are all dressed formally, in black.  They actually are in mourning for we all know that something vital has gone and we all know he gave us something important- education.

At the junior high level, French can be taken as an immersion course, intensely in every subject, or as a second language, one class of eight.  As a second language it is a kind of dabbling in the language and though competency can be attained of some level it is an extra to the curriculum and many teachers treat it that way. There are however a few French teachers who delve deep into it with passion even though it is only a second language course.  One lady enriches the lessons with theme units on holidays, pizza making recipes, songs, poems, skits and plays. She has written songs to teach them the verb conjugations and actually gets them to  willingly and cheerfully sing them. She gives copies candy rewards throughout the day, a practice some may frown on but she gets those kids all engaged in conversation and participation in French even at 8AM when they might otherwise prefer to be asleep. Her classroom is full of French signs and she subscribes the kids all to French magazines they each get a copy of and can do activities in. But mostly she takes these kids every year, those who want to, on an excursion half a nation away to Quebec City. The Quebec tour group numbers about 50-60 it looks like and their photos, laminated are shown on the all prominently from every year of the past several, all standing on the Citadel, all again grouped near the falls. She is there always, off to the side, smiling and proud. She has done something few do. Why?  She believes in French.

The same teacher is a gifted singer and pianist and has a lifetime community service history in a large local singing group. She has taken part in it as a child, grown up in it and then directed it and she continues to work with it, all on the side from teaching. But she brings those skills to the school and every year organizes a theater production at the junior high that rivals a Broadway show. Working with the art and drama and  English departments, she has auditions and tryouts, stage crew and rehearsals, set designs and ad brochures and the performances are the event of the school for several weeks. Feeder elementary schools are invited over to see the production the ‘big kids’ have made and she has created something specatacular these kids are part of.  She is also not bossy about it but empowering She considers this their success and she relates to them very beautifully and casually, practically as if she is a neighbor down the street talking to some teens she likes. She inspires me.

A high school Spanish teacher I know has created on her own crossword puzzles and word games for the entire 3 years of Spanish courses to supplement the lessons. Her booklets of lesson instruction are so well made that she could qualify as a course designer but she doesn’t even try to publish. She just does this for her own classes.  She takes students each year on a Mexican tour, going through the horrendous amount of red tape involved in getting official permission from school boards, passports and government red tape and then of course all the travel plans and safety insurances, food plans and then fundraisers and information sessions with parents. None of this is required of her job technically –she is under no obligation to take kids on field trips. But she does it with great help from teacher colleagues and she creates not only a wonderful travel experience for the kids but also last year even a CD souvenir picture tour for each of them.

Another Spanish teacher I admire has as part of her regular teaching unit a cultural component where students get credits and sometimes extra credits for researching something about Spanish traditions, holidays, dances, music, travel or whatever. These little presentations are endearing and I have been subbing in her class several times when students presented their research. Some of the grade 10-12 students have even created slideshows while others have photos or just have stories to tell of what their research taught them. A great many though have baked and share a recipe as we all eat the cookies, cake or whatever other goodie key to the culture that they have brought. it is lovely and the teacher has on hand always paper plates, forks and napkins. She told me once that she had a university class which met every morning and the teacher had always brought along food for them to eat as they studied. She said there is something very important in sharing food together as you learn and I agree. It does change the tone of a class and in a positive way.

One time I was in a teacher workroom where numbers of colleagues were bustling around at desks preparing lessons and I noticed on teacher tapping away on her computer so very fast I was sure she must just be making lines or stars across the page as dividers. But no, she was typing word and she happened to have a very very highly developed typing speed.  I was frankly amazed. It was only one small skill in her repertoire, not even the key one for her teaching.

Frequently I am in schools where the home ec class or cafeteria chefs are baking something absolutely scrumptious and the smell wafts down the halls and drives everybody mad before lunch.  Chocolate chip cookies, cinnamon, spices, amazing aromas.  I don’t know why but there is something very compelling about a school that smells this good, kind of making it  homelike and warm and welcoming.  Some of the very well parent-supported cafeterias also serve lunches that put any paper bag versions to shame. At one the day’s menus vary but part of the rotation is lasagna, pizza, chicken fingers, wonton soup, chicken caesar salad, cinnamon buns, fortune cookies, hot dogs, and of course oatmeal chocolate chip cookies or rice krispie squares. Part of me is just thrilled for those healthy young kids who get such meals and part of me is very very sad that this variety is in the wealthy district only, and that in the poorer districts that very well might need the food more, there is much less funding for the cafeteria and must less an a range of food.

It is not only teachers who inspire me. The other day I was in a classroom where the teacher’s aide brought in the newest Harry Potter book for me to maybe, if I liked and she said it very hesitantly, could read a chapter to the class if there was time. She had spent her own money to bring this book precisely because she knew we were studying myths and legends and it just occurred to her this might be of use. She had gone the second mile, for education.

Sometimes it is the caretaker who inspires me. One time there was a huge funeral to commemorate four mounted police officers killed in the line of duty and the nation was in mourning. Teachers had the option of course though of mentioning it or not, discussing it or not or even using this as a chance to discuss ethics issues. I thought the students during the free half hour I had, might want to watch part of the funeral live and so we set up a TV in the library for that purpose.  He was all keen to help and he was so helpful that I could see that for him pride in the country was very strong. He told me he thought all the students should be watching.

Sometimes it is the school secretaries who remind me of why we’re there.  The one who is never actually absent, who is there at 7:30 in the morning even though school does not start for an hour, the one who remembers my name, cheerfully greets me and ensures I have the supplies I need. Secretaries when they are at the top of their game are phenomenal, and whether running a small school or a huge high school, take multi-tasking to a new level.  I enjoy chatting with them for many of them seem to have as ballast a really neat sense of humor. One time I was at a big downtown high school where parking is at a premium for teachers and for students and I was talking to her about the kids who had been away the day before. One had told me she had not come to class that day because she couldn’t find a place to park.  The secretary smiled at me and said” Give me a break!”  Ah, wisdom of experience.  I loved it

Sometimes it is the students who inspire me and the way teachers have set up things so we bring out the best in kids.

 I was in a class of kindergarten kids in French immersion when a grade 11 group from the neighboring high school came over to read to these little kids, in French.  This worked on so many levels I was in awe at who thought of it. The little kids were entranced and in awe and they saw how French is used. The big kids were feeling very useful, sharing a skill and they also were having a near parenting experience.  It amazes me that school sometimes work very hard to recreate what we lost when we housed kids according to age only.  The interaction among age groups is actually very natural in community settings and households and there is great merit to it, for both sides. Hats off to the teacher who arranged this.

I was at a huge junior high in the northwest when there were visiting guests from the neighboring high school debate team.  The guests were inviting the grade 9s when they enter the high school next year to join Debate Club and they were there to answer questions and to demonstrate some debate strategies and have fun. As I recall the demo debate was about which story was better Lord of the Rings or Star Wars and what knocked me out was that the speakers and many in the audience really got into it and knew all the references.  I also had to admire the debate coach who sat there in the background and said nearly nothing. He let the kids handle it and also do the sales pitch for the club.  It was clever to come at all and even more clever the way the debate club did its presentation.

Often a school will have a performance night to highlight what the students there have done in class – the art, the music, the dance, the choral presentations, the readings.  But once in a while, besides that all being very impressive, there is an openness to something else- showing off the skills some kids have developed outside school.  First of all it takes an openness to even find out those talents and then to open the door so kids feel comfortable and encouraged for them is pretty touching. I have been at an assembly where several of the performances were of Irish jig dancing, by costumed performers who all had learned their skills in Irish dance training outside school. I have been at an assembly where students played piano numbers having learned to play outside school and at one very touching performance of a native Indian girl who in full native costume performed a cultural dance for us.  I love that. I love that the school is not just a way to teach and send out to the world but that it welcomes the world to bring skills in.

At one school the principal had moved on to another posting, to be new principal at a school across the city. She had been at the former school many years and was deeply appreciated and when we all learned she had been diagnosed with very aggressive cancer, her present school kicked into high gear and the kids ran in the Terry Fox race some specifically to remember her needs. But what touched me too was that even at her former school, at the front desk there was a sign-in sheet so teacher colleagues could take turns delivering supper to her and her family in the weeks following chemo.  I mean many offices do such a thing and there is an outpouring of help but in the case of schools we now had two entire schools and we’re talking over a thousand students pulling for the recovery of someone they cared about.

Sometimes when I walk into a school the halls are lit but empty, the outside parking lot is still dark and I am alone in the building, outside of the caretaker and maybe one other teacher. But occasionally I am far from alone. In some of the junior highs and seniors highs at such arrival times I hear down one hallway an entire orchestra playing, live, loud and well.  The classical songs they are pumping out, the rousing new music they are creating at 7AM stirs the soul and I am reminded again, very humbled, what incredible power there is in the energy of youth. It is like a dynamo we can use and when it is used for the good, the results are just astounding.  I have actually stood in the empty hall outside the band room alone, tears in my eyes, just thinking of my small place in the universe compared to the power of such music.

Sometimes I am amazed at how great teachers get kids to care.  There are teachers who get class control in very odd ways, one in particular oddly saying ‘sh’ every three seconds loudly for several minutes as if she was a robot. But there are others whose class control barely even needs to be called that. The kids listen because the teacher is talking period – because they respect her and she likely has something important to say. You don’t always see that. Many teachers including myself use techniques to get such attention, and we subs of course are at a disadvantage because nobody knows us.  But occasionally I will be lucky enough to be in a classroom where the teacher in grade one very softly says ‘one, two three’ and magically all the little heads look up, all work stops and they are waiting for directions. I have seen teachers whisper rather than yell to get attention and I have seen teachers who when the kids are really bad stand there in front of the room and just wait and give ‘the look’ that magically leads to hushes, whispers, entreaties amongst the kids to ‘shut up’ and then silence.  It is powerful.

It is never clear to me what makes kids willing to listen instead of continuing to chat but sometimes I have noticed that teachers who speak to the kids in a friendly way as if chatting get more credibility. “Oh, I wanted to mention too that..” sometimes works better than “Everybody listen up. Quiet, Quiet ! I said quiet!” 

I had a teacher years ago who when he started and I guess this was from another era, but his technique was to speak slowly and when the bell rang, to stop in mid-sentence and jot down what he had been saying Then the next day when the kids were assembled he would start again, with the rest of that sentence.  It worked for him and for keeping their attention.

I have learned from many teachers that the way to lose a class and alienate them all is to yell at them all, and the way to instill a presence is to pick a few key offenders at the start and be very strict with them, as an example.  I have also learned from some teachers that a very clever thing to do is to notice the rowdies and very early on notice their names and call them by name so they know you know who they are.  When subs know the name of the student it surprises the kids.

And I have learned something that I often try to do if I can- to find one of the rowdies and to try to make that person a helper, to use that person for a key role today and to kind of upset the balance and have them feel part of not against the proceedings.  If I can get that person to hand out papers, to head up a discussion group they are sometimes so shocked that they do rise to the occasion.

I have been in classes of elementary kids where there is a code established for how the teacher gets attention and this is something the teacher rarely remembers to write in notes for me and something I probably could not use anyway. This is the code that teacher uses and sometimes it is three quick hand claps, sometimes it is a little rhyme she says and in one class it was even one of those long tubes of cascading rocks that makes a noise like a waterfall.  The message is always – now it is time to be quiet.

The general public still believes in education too, I mean not in sarcastic or funny comments about one’s own worst teacher but in a general and philosophical sense. Most parents want very much for the children to excel in school because they believe school matters. In some cities in the US there is practically an industry of getting reservations at the right preschool to get a leg up for the right school to get into the right college to get the best jobs. Many parents spend huge amounts of money on tutoring for children who are not doing well and of course in Canada nearly all parents have to provide some funding for school supplies and extracurricular activities and the amounts some parents are willing to provide are quite impressive.  I am always amazed at even the kindergarten level when every little child has a top-end, brand new little backpack in September, full of those precious pencils and erasers and decorator markers, gel pens and other joys the child is so very anxious to own and use.  Naturally there are parents who are critical of some teaching methods and maybe that’s a good thing since it is important to get feedback. But in general the greatest proof I see of real belief in education is when the community dares to come into the school and be part of the process.

I am not just speaking of parent volunteers though they are very keen in some classes, usually elementary and though their help is vital in supervising field trips, helping watch kids in the lunchroom and helping do photocopying and laminating, cutting and pasting.  But those are sweat-labor jobs and many parents have professional level skills to offer too.   Sometimes what they offer is just a snapshot of their lives.

I have had the privilege of hearing a guest speaker police officer who taught the kids about hostage situations and had prepared handouts and let us touch some of his gear.  I heard a fantastic presentation by a fire fighter who let us try on some of his gear and who told us about the risks and skills of his profession. I really enjoyed and I know the students did too the French bakery chef who brought some of his products, the blind man with his guide dog who told us about his routines and challenges. I had some deaf and hard of hearing students in one class and there was a guest speaker couple, both deaf, who had married and were so adorable and they told of their lives. They spoke in hand language and the translator put it into English- a lovely reversal from the norm.  I know the TV reporter who came to talk to us was a bit nervous facing  high school kids and I know the lady from the street teens service who counsels wayward teens does not usually talk to groups of 60, but they did a wonderful job and the kids heard presentations they will not soon forget. I have heard guest speakers who were members of parliament, from various parties and even mayoral candidates during one civic election. I have watched stage show productions by the local utility company, by an environmental group teaching about water conservation and by the electric company showing reasons for safety around electricity. The visitors to the school come in a bit nonplussed, a little surprised at what has not changed from when they were in school and a bit surprised at what has.  They have to make that leap over being seen as a frail person who might get judged or laughed at, to focus on the message and to share something important that kids should know. And they all make that leap and they do it wonderfully and they do it, for education.

I have also been inspired by subs. One colleague of mine likes to on a several day assignment, bring into the class other things she can think of to add to the lessons. She sometimes brings in music if the class is studying a historical era or an ethics question or anything where a song might be just a good starting point for discussion.  One time the class was studying composers and focusing on Handel so she brought in a CD of the Hallelujah chorus.  Years later she was approached by a young man in the mall and he remembered her, he said, from having taught him. He said that one time he had been in a serious accident and was hospitalized for several days and on the radio in his room he was flicking around for a station and he landed on the Hallelujah chorus. It reminded him of her and it brought him comfort.

I am not a big believer in indoctrinating kids and I very much like to encourage active discussion and debate. But schools are also settings where let’s face it some values are taught and preferred like sharing, taking turns, equal rights.  Little kids have great optimism and generally like to believe in  the happy ending to stories and to being comforted when they become aware of problems in the world.  I think it is the mission of the school to provide this reassurance and stability and though we gently open up to kids the right to discuss and to look at options, and we gradually reveal to them some of the seamier sides of history or reality, we still have to not stifle completely that optimism about life.  I am very touched, always, when I hear little kids sing our national anthem. I am not sure why. On one level they may not even fully realize the meaning of the words. But on another level, as they do know the meaning they are actually stating a loyalty,  commitment, however young, however incompletely informed and it is something they will likely carry for life. It is what will lead them to obey the laws of the land, to respect the police, to pay their taxes, to be proud to say their nationality when they travel and for some, it will be the thing that motivates them to a career in the military and possibly even giving their lives for their country.  I find the lofty voices of young children singing the anthem pure, innocent, sweet, touching and like a lamp into the future.

 There have also been magic moments for me teaching, just as it happened that somehow the lesson clicked and a few kids seemed to suddenly engage with the material.  During one discussion on gun control a few grade 10 boys admitted they had access to guns and they talked of the importance of laws to protect the public in general.  We had a fantastic discussion impromptu after the Columbine tragedy.  I have enjoyed and laughed with and been sad with a whole class of little kids recalling the antics of their pets and the pets’ hiding places.

I have loved lining the kids up by height to discuss three ways to take averages and I have loved to hear the laughter of kids as they acted in skits, did voices and took on characters, as they debated issues and found they had to support or not support views they disagreed with. I loved one time when a grade 10 girl put on an Elizabethan gown from the discount store over her jeans and looked up at me in perfect innocence and blurted out “I feel so pretty”.

I have enjoyed hearing kids’ reasons for preferring school days be shortened, or started later and I have been touched when they opened up on a topic of what they used to be afraid of.   When the class was discussing transfers payments from the federal government to the provinces, I had twelve of the kids come to the front and act as the provinces, giving their best case for why they deserved more mone. I loved how the girl from BC when she heard Newfoundland had run out of fish, said “We have lots. We’ll send you some”.

I love playing games where the kids learn also a skill and when they compete and laugh and when they seem sad when the bell rings. I love sitting in a circle with young kids and playing a memory game like “I pack my trunk’ and seeing how amazing their memories are at that age.

I loved making paper airplanes when we were in grade six studying principles of flight. I loved going to the school park and getting rocks and hammering them to see if they’d split, when we were studying geology.  I love telling the stories behind the stories, the backgrounds of the royal family, of the Kennedy family or other famous names in history.

I love showing the little kids optical illusions. I love playing word games and rhymes, clapping games and rhythms, impromptu guessing games with the little kids and I like to see their enthusiasm.

And I am flattered when occasionally in  a school a student will come up to me and say hello and remember my name, because I subbed in his class a few weeks ago, a few years ago or even at another school.  I feel part of something that matters.