I never envisioned a pandemic as being another critical factor in the challenges to the careers of my former students.  At this point in the Fall of 2021 none of them have left teaching solely based on the risks of teaching because of the Corona virus, but time will tell. I know all of my former students are under more stress than they were at the beginning of the year, and I know that many other teachers, closer to retirement or with health complications are leaving education. The total impact of this crisis will play out over the next few years.

Defining Success

Nearly all of the teachers involved in this oral history defined success in their careers as their relationships with their students.  Words like trust, respect, care and love were used in describing those relationships. To be honest, beyond my love for history, in particular, and a strong interest in the other disciplines involved with Social Studies, the dedication to my career and my students came from my mother, Joan Elizabeth Platten Cooley.  My parents were good about providing trips to historical sites in the State of New York, but my mother’s care and love imbued me with the sense that I should share that care and concern with others.  If my junior high and high school students developed their own interest in the subjects I taught, that was all well and good, but my main concern was for them becoming successful, caring citizens and adults. I hoped that the knowledge and skills I imparted helped them achieve success in their lives and I also hoped that, like the Hippocratic Oath, I “did no harm”. I was and am aware that I was not successful in many cases and in those cases I still feel that I might have done something better that might have resulted in better outcomes.  I do take pride in their successes, no matter what careers they chose. I believe that the people in this book have similar motivations, but the reader can make her/his own decision based on stories within these pages.

Beyond building positive relationships with students, success for these teachers meant adapting to changing rules, changing administrators and changing educational reforms. Many of these teachers emphasized the necessity for being flexible and adaptable as those changes happened, sometimes daily. “Perseverance” is a word that popped up in several articles I read as I prepared for the two sabbaticals I took while at GVSU while researching and visiting my former students. These teachers displayed the ability in shouldering the burden of changes which, in most cases, came too fast. Many times, there was not a decent explanation for why those changes occurred and little to no explanation instruction on how those changes were to be implemented into their curriculum. In a few cases, changes were made between different semester schedules without warning which necessitated that the teachers revamping their lesson planning on the run. I do not blame any teacher for making the decision to leave the profession if they no longer feel like they can deal effectively with decisions that are made for no apparent rationality and result in wasted time and effort.

I am biased.  While I appreciate the increasing costs of a college education (I paid for three of my own diplomas, plus my wife and I assisted in my two children’s college educations) and I know the extra year of college study that Grand Valley’s program requires many thousands of dollars, I still think the idea of two different placements in two different grade levels and in two different schools, is the best preparation for future teachers. There were some complaints and suggestions by the teachers in this study, but, overall, none of them thought that a one-semester placement in one school was better than the preparation they received. One of the positive outcomes from my research was that I was able to take some of the suggestions from these students back to the university, where changes were made, in some insistences, in improving the program of study. I also think that having a content major, even a diversified one like Social Studies, and a year dedicated to pedagogical course work, is a good idea.  I noted in my own chapter, that while my content preparation at Cortland was good, there were areas which required more study and research than a four-year program could provide. Added to the content background was a lack of some basic preparation for dealing with the challenges of teaching day-to-day.  I was fortunate that I had a great coordinating teacher, Bob Simonds, at Lafayette High School and great mentors at Southern Cayuga Central Junior-Senior High School; Don Irving, Ethel Marr, John Klink and Bill Mann. I am still in contact with John and we both still care about our former students at SCCS. Good placements are so important for teacher candidates. People learning their profession should not be placed with weak teachers as a means as propping up their own inabilities. Shame on administrators who are guilty of that practice! Blame should also be placed on school districts who do not provide good mentors for beginning teachers or teachers who take on mentor roles only for extra pay. I know that several teachers said that relying only on themselves made them better in the long run, but I do not think anyone would turn down the help from a successful, experienced teacher.

Constantly changing a teaching assignments is also a bad idea. I do not know how a few of these teachers have lived through the multiple grade level and content changes thrown at them. I applaud their perseverance and I still offer a “shoulder to vent on” for a few of them. I think having a few different content preparations each year keeps a teacher fresh and well-rounded.  I know districts face demographic and financial challenges that force certain decisions and that, in some cases, bowing to seniority “rules” means younger teachers have to take on courses that older, more experienced teachers no longer wish to teach. That said, I think too many changes and too many challenges force young teachers out of the profession and add to the dismaying number of new teachers who leave teaching after a few years. Adding to those burdens is the negative political climate surrounding public education and now a pandemic with all its challenges.

None of the people in this oral history thought that high stakes, standardized tests should be used as the only determining factor on whether or not they were doing a good job. While no teachers totally dismissed the idea of a standardized test, there was agreement that other forms of evaluation and evidence in support of the job they were doing was a good idea. Of course, gathering and providing data for that evidence was an added burden for the teachers. Publicly and politically teachers are blamed for many ills in our society, but their job descriptions have almost continual additions, while there are very few, if any subtractions. Many of these teachers, and their school districts, supported the idea of a growth mindset, in other words, measuring where their students started at the beginning of the year versus where they ended the year. Goals are good and we should want the best result for every student, but not treat every student the same.  That said, providing a truly individualized education plan for each and every student is not possible given teachers’ present tools and resources. Teachers are not happy in teaching “to the middle” or “to the lowest common denominator” because they know they are either over-challenging some students or boring others.

To all future teachers: Know you are on a mission and one that may be lonely, without the pay and benefits enjoyed by people who work less hours, with less public scrutiny, with many more hours of work in order to do a good job for your students than other people you know.  Know that educational reforms are sometimes instituted without careful research and you will be expected to make those changes with very little time dedicated in implementing those changes and very little support from anyone else. Know that the system of evaluation may be subjective and even though the instrument for evaluation makes sense, the person in charge of those evaluations may be very subjective in how that instrument is applied. Know that you will always have some parents who think you are not doing the best job for their children, but for some of their children you will be the most important person and role model in their lives. Know that you need to find balance in your lives and people, colleagues, friends and family, who will help you through challenging times. Above all, know that good teachers are one of the foundations of our society and culture and without these dedicated professionals our society’s future will face even greater challenges when dealing with misinformation and lack of critical thinking skills.

Pearls of Wisdom

All of the teachers in this study readily offered pearls for future teachers. One of the first suggestions was for beginning teachers to prepare for school politics. In some instances, my former students wished that their college experience had included some insight into how schools operate, beyond the mundane, every day minutiae. I think the best advice from one of my students was that every district and every building has its own unique set of circumstances and, beyond a simple warning that politics exist everywhere, beginning teachers just have discern the political environment between staff when as they get accustomed to their school.

Mentoring was another key in the suggestions offered by this group. Most everyone agreed that it was helpful in having a mentor physically close in the building and situated in the same content area, if not the same subject they were teaching. Being able to share resources, talk content shop and having a sounding board for new or different approaches in teaching content are definite bonuses. This comment is not to minimize the importance of learning how and when to use the copying machine or handling reams of paperwork regarding the job and the students.

Practicing teaching placements were another key, especially some exposure to cultural diversity and difference in ages. Many of my students had preconceived ideas of what grade level they wished to teach in their careers, but after a semester in either a high school or middle school setting or various levels of elementary school, many of them changed their minds on what age group they wished to teach. In my own experience, my student teaching semester was spent only with high school juniors and only teaching United States’ history.  My first teaching job was 7th grade U.S. History, New York State History and English grammar and literature. It was beneficial for me in student-teaching that I had a sizable number of Native Americans in the school population. I developed a new understanding of the Iroquoian culture and that experience definitely assisted in teaching about the Iroquois Confederacy within my curriculum my first year at Southern Cayuga.

I had more than a few students at GVSU who came from rural or suburban, mostly white communities and their student teaching experiences in Grand Rapids Public or some of the area schools with large populations of African-American and Hispanic students definitely changed these students’ world views.

My Master’s degree was in History and I continually brought information from those graduate classes back into my high school classroom in Kansas. I think the main benefit for me and my students was not increasing the amount of facts I taught, but rather how I viewed, structured and framed what I was teaching. I was somewhat disappointed, given my own background, in discovering that only Mike Hull had pursued a content Master’s degree and I was also confused when several of my students admitted following a Educational Leadership program of graduate study, even though they had no desire in becoming administrators. Several admitted the programs were fairly easy and the degrees moved them along in the salary schedule. I will admit that I started a graduate program in Administration when I first moved my family to Kansas, but after several courses I decided I did not want to become an administrator, even though the salary increase would definitely benefit my family’s life style.

I do agree with several of the teachers in their attitude toward in-house professional development delivered by their peers. While I had many opportunities for PD from outside experts, and even provided some myself for other districts, I felt receiving helpful ideas from my fellow teachers who knew the community, the students and the curriculum within the district was extremely helpful.

I do hope that teachers have the opportunity in taking advantage of programs offered by the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Most of my college students, and many of my colleagues in Kansas never knew these programs existed and had the added benefit of offering reduced or free tuition, as well as in some cases, a stipend for personal use.  The opportunity for gaining knowledge and insight offered by experts in various fields of study and sharing that knowledge with peers from across the United States is something all teachers should pursue for the benefit of themselves and their students.

The last pearl I will mention is that teachers should know they are on a mission. This mission requires commitment, flexibility, adaptability, long hours, relatively low pay for the degree and certifications involved, a love for teaching and their students, a realization that “no, you really do not have your summers “off”, if you want to stay current with your content and pedagogy, there is no such thing as a “40 Hour week”. The mission requires the knowledge that lesson plans will fail, even if you spent many hours perfecting the plan and you might have to start from scratch if your students’ success is paramount.

I hope the stories contained within the pages serve as a dedication to the lives of people who agreed to participate in my research, as well as providing some useful insight into teaching for future teachers, present policy-makers and the general public. Despite all the challenges that teaching provides, the future of our country is dependent on finding people willing to commit themselves to this challenging profession.

What They Are Up To Now

• Amy Dixon—
• Abby Bielski—private school in Connecticut
• Ben Terpsma—National Guard/Army Reserves
• Ben Watson—Rockford High School
• Brian Zalud—Grass Lake AD, Assistant Principal
• Carlos Flores—site coordinator for True North
• Chris Manick—teaching in a Northern Michigan
• Chris Reichhold—concrete estimator, Michigan
• Eric Schugars—Traverse City Central High School
• Erica Vanderlaan—coordinator, Au Pair USA by Interchange
• Erin Miller DeRoo—Lead Instructor, North Carolina Virtual High School Network
• Jason Duram—Grand Haven High School
• Jennie Kushion—middle school English, Allendale, Michigan
• Joffrey Craven—Cy-Ridge High School, Houston, Texas
• Jordan Beel—principal at Hudsonville High School
• Julie Caddy Catanzarite-Academic Advisor, U of M, Department of Psychology
• “Laura”—multiple job changes within the same school district
• “Linda”—changed schools
• “Lucy”—same school
• Kim Kocsis—Oakland ISD
• Kyle Hoover—Lecanto High School, Lecanto, Florida
• Mike Holt—Davison High School, Davison, Michigan
• Russ Olcheske—Holt High School, Holt, Michigan
• Scott Lueck–classroom teacher, Oscoda, Michigan
• Suzanne Holzhausen—retired after 27 years in education
• Troy Vanderlaan—principal at Allendale High School