In the fall of 2008 Ben Watson was teaching at Rockford High School in Rockford, Michigan.  He was one of the students who chose to seek employment outside of the state of Michigan upon graduation due to the lack of teaching openings.  Ben was in his second year of teaching at Rockford after spending three years in a challenging situation in Westmoreland, Virginia.

Ben’s preparation for his first job included teacher-assisting at Kelloggsville High School where I observed him teaching government.  Kelloggsville was Ben’s ‘diversity placement’ but Ben admitted that that placement was nowhere near the situation he entered in Virginia.  He did take advantage of a teaching abroad opportunity his first semester in the field.  After about a half semester in Kelloggsville Ben taught the rest of the semester in South Africa.  Usually, the South Africa program had GVSU students in two different schools there but even with that background Ben said his first teaching position in Virginia was “trial by fire.”  More about that later.

Rockford is one of the larger suburban schools near Grand Rapids.  The high school has an average of one thousand students per grade level and the community is fairly affluent.  Even with that affluence in 2008 Ben did not have a dedicated video projector in his room and one of his textbooks had a 1996 copyright, although he did say that book was to be replaced the next year.  Ben’s classroom was well-decorated with student-generated art as well as attitudinal posters and posters which promoted civic involvement.  Most of Ben’s classes filled his room and averaged over 30 students per class.  Ben’s classes were Economics, U.S. History and U.S. Government.  He also coached cross-country and  track so he was busy after school most of the year.

Ben’s first period class was Economics, a new preparation for him.  He said since he began teaching he had had seven different preparations.  This situation with so many changes in preparation was not unique among people in this study.  Part of the reason for the changes in Ben’s preparations at Rockford was due to a changing emphasis in the state teaching standards but for many young teachers the number of preparation changes is caused by the fact that older, more senior teachers have control over what they teach.  I have visited more than a few classrooms where my students practiced where a senior teacher had only one preparation all day long.  As department chair in Kansas every teacher had at least three regular class preparations and they might have a fourth if they chose to teach an elective course.  For myself teaching one prep all day long was both boring and confusing.  Even with a well-prepared lesson plan sitting in front of me, I would not be certain that I really emphasized the same content and concepts in the same way all day long.

Ben was well-prepared for his class that day.  He used both passive and active instruction in the hour.  He lectured using a PowerPoint presentation for about 15 minutes, while asking the students critical thinking questions as he progressed through the slides.  The presentation was rich with text but also included well-placed maps, graphs and visual images.  When students provided answers to his questions Ben routinely gave his students positive feedback.  During his lecture he made statements relevant to his students’ life experiences in Rockford and Michigan so that they made have a point of reference to the content and skills he was imparting. Ben also displayed a good sense of humor with his students.  Ben, at one point in the period, explained that the Social Studies Department at Rockford does team planning and one of the features of the planning is that every day in every class the students have some sort of learning simulation.  These simulations vary in length, from a few minutes to longer periods of time.  Every day every class has at least three definite changes in teaching strategy; some lecture and note-taking, some reading and research and some simulation activity.  The result is that Ben’s classes flowed throughout the hour with the students engaged in learning and almost no ‘down time’.

Ben told me that this was Rockford’s last school year using semesters.  Next year they were moving to trimesters so instead of 16 week blocks of time there would be 12 weeks per class.  The Social Studies Department attempted to get U.S. History taught in all three trimesters so that they might actually finish U.S. History but that idea did not pass through the administration.  Teachers at other schools related to me that although the class periods in trimesters were longer they had difficulty teaching the same amount of material in 12 week versus 16 week segments and no Social Studies teacher I have ever met thought they could finish U.S. History no matter what historical time scale was dictated by the state standards.

Once state standards and state assessments were the norm many states decided that the last Social Studies test would occur in the students’ junior year.  While I was teaching in Kansas from 1977-2001 Government was a senior level class.  Rockford still had Government as a senior level class even though the state-wide test happened in the junior year.  Undoubtedly the tested concepts were incorporated in other classes because Ben explained to me that Rockford chose to have only 4 units in the semester-long class, in part, because the students were already being tested the previous year.  Rockford did have standardized criterion-referenced tests in their classes devised by the departments.

Another common factor for the Rockford Social Studies staff was teaching packets.  These packets drove instruction throughout the class and included the changes in teaching strategies.  A difference was that while Economics and U.S. History had shorter, fill-in-the-blank questions, the Government packet featured more open-ended questions.  This difference may have been due to the fact that there was no state assessment for the course so the teachers were not worried about hitting definitive benchmarks and that difference allowed for higher level thinking questions in the senior level classes, added to the fact that the teachers expected a higher level of intellectual development and engagement by their students.  Ben said that for all of his classes he brought in readings and images outside of the textbook so he continually supplemented the standard textbook fare.

As with many changes in education over the years, grade books have gone digital and they are open for view by students and parents. Ben admitted that that openness has forced him to keep up to date in grading because he knew people were watching.  While he said that caused him some pressure, he was not complaining.  He took that pressure as a good impetus to keep his work timely.  I have found that the only teachers who resent open gradebooks are the ones less likely to process student work in an efficient manner.

Fourth period class started differently.  Ben closed the blinds on his windows and explained to the class that school security was doing a drug dog sweep in the parking lot.  There were rumors in the class that there were already arrests being made.  I was good friends with our school resource officer in Kansas and the school had its own drug-sniffing dog. The officer explained to me that he liked to do sweeps on days where there was a decent amount of sunshine.  The bright sun would “cook” the contents of cars and make it that much easier for the dog to pick up odors.

Ben was very flexible in his teaching.  At one point in his fourth period class a YouTube video was being somewhat balky in downloading so Ben switched to another part of the prepared lesson with no upset in student learning.  Ben displayed excellent classroom management skills throughout the day and made changes necessary due to differences in his classes.  An example of his flexibility was displayed by the difference in his fourth hour class which was interrupted by a thirty-minute break for lunch.  Ben said this period is eight minutes shorter than his other classes and that provided a challenge when trying to make sure the students had the same input and activities to process that input.  Ben’s content background was strong in all his classes.  He appeared confident and up to date in explaining the material and providing questions in order to develop student thought.

Video Interview, 2008

Defining Success, 2008

Ben defined “success” in teaching in several ways.  First, he used the word “diligent” and based on what I knew about Ben what he meant was “hard work”.  Next, he talked about finding many ways to teach students.  He focused on students who were problematic in that they were indifferent to success or failure.  He, of course, thought it was important in challenging the “driven” students, but he said that it was relatively easy finding ways to keep those students challenged.  He used words like “forcing” the indifferent students, but I do not think he meant using any kind of force other than the force that comes from showing those students that you care and if they related to that caring attitude then they might adopt a successful attitude towards learning and life (Ben, v.t., p.1, 2008).

Ben’s first teaching experience in Westmoreland included many students who were indifferent about their learning and Ben’s challenge was not just their indifference.  He had very little life experience with a rural Southern setting, with a student population that was 65% African-American, with 78% of those students on free or reduced lunch assistance.  “They didn’t feel any need, by and large, most of them, no need to perform academically.  No real connection between what good academics can do for you in the long run.  So that was the major challenge to me and that’s why I see that as the way of measuring success” (Ben, v.t., p.1, 2008).  Ben said that part of his ability in dealing with that teaching challenge was due to his college preparation.  The challenge of getting good grades, the rigorous class schedule during the last year of college and the many duties of a teacher-assistant and student teacher gave him some of the experience and skills necessary for success at Westmoreland.  Another part of his ability in dealing with that challenge was the diligence in continually finding the source of students’ lack of motivation and how Ben might meet those needs, whether it was just who they might want to sit next to for lunch or making sure not to embarrass a student in class (Ben, v.t., p.1-2, 2008).  Ben also credited a few Harry Wong videos he watched in conjunction with courses at GVSU, as well as some professional development involving “Capturing Kids Hearts”.

I asked Ben whether or not his teacher-assisting placement at Kelloggsville High School, his diverse placement, helped him prepare for Montross Middle School in Westmoreland and he did not think it helped, with a partial exception.  He thought his first year at the middle school was a “battle” and he admitted he looked forward to the breaks during the school year in order to “recharge his batteries.”  After saying that, he said that he was better prepared for his second year and at that point he said any “first year” no matter if that year was in Virginia or Michigan was challenging for an inexperienced teacher.  In Ben’s words, “There’s no real good way to have your first year without having your first year basically” (Ben, v.t., p.3, 2008).  Ben related that during teacher-assisting and student teaching he had a good support system through his classroom teachers and college professors and it was obvious, after eating lunch with Ben’s colleagues at Rockford High School, that he had a good support system in his present school as well.  I asked him what kind of support he had at the Virginia middle school. He said the staff there was very supportive. They understood that he was dealing with living away from his family in Michigan, dealing with a wholly different cultural situation.  He was lucky that right next door he had a great teacher, Rebecca Beel, and she was very helpful, but the school still had to deal with poor state test scores, declining enrollment with concurrent funding issues, absenteeism and lack of student motivation.  With all those challenges Ben said no matter where he taught, Virginia or Michigan, teachers still had to manage students and teach them and both those things had to complement each other.  You can “manage” students to the point where they are too afraid or turned off to engage in learning or you can focus so much on teaching the content that you lose the students because they do not engage through lack of motivation in learning (Ben, v.t., p.3, 2008).

Content Preparation, 2008

Ben felt that his content preparation in college was at the very least adequate.  He knew he learned new material through teaching it, both in Virginia and Michigan, but he thought he knew the basics well enough that he was not learning most of the content for the first time.  He also benefitted from his college professors helping him analyze multiple perspectives in history, whether those perspectives were traditional or revisionist.  Ben did have a difficult time remembering just where or in what class or from what professor he learned the content he taught.  He said it was a challenge when it had been a long time since he took a specific college course with the content he taught.  In that case he said the pressure was on him in relearning what he had forgotten, if he had ever learned that material in the first place. Ben was honest in admitting that he might not have engaged in a class or a professor as much as he should have, given that someday he might be required to teach that information (Ben, v.t., p.4, 2008).

I asked Ben what class or professor helped him the most and he said that a classroom management class taught by Jolanda Westerhof-Schultz was the most useful. Ben related that Dr. Westerhof-Schultz introduced him to many different strategies and was careful to say that good classroom management means combining many strategies in order to come up with a successful formula (Ben, v.t., p.5, 2008).

Next, I asked Ben if he felt prepared for teaching in terms of knowing how to write effectively and whether or not he was confident in developing his students’ writing ability.  Ben was honest in that he did not feel like an accomplished writer but his SWS or Supplemental Writing Skills courses within the History Department made him a better writer.  Further, he said that he had to ‘step up his game’ during his graduate work.  At the time of this interview the state of Michigan in its state standardized test, the MME, had a writing portion and Ben used a similar rubric with his students in preparing for the standardized test (Ben, v.t., p.6, 2008).  I was not able to ascertain if Ben required his students to write just because of the standardized test requirement or he thought skill in writing was a solid life-long tool.  He did say that the entire Social Studies department at Rockford was committed to frequent writing assignments, even though Ben said, “It’s a lot of work…” (Ben, v.t., p.6, 2008).

Developing our teacher candidates’ ability to think historically has been a paramount concern of the History Department.  Ben focused in on that training in terms of his students’ ability to make connections across time as those connections relate to cause and effect relationships and he said that, along with developing their students’ writing skills, his colleagues also worked on helping their students with that type of historical thinking.

I asked Ben about his college preparation for teaching the content required by the state standards.  His first comment was that he had gaps in his background for teaching Economics, but he had no concerns about his U.S. History background.  He did say that there were some events he had to brush up on, such as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, but he said that occurrence might have been mentioned and he just missed it.  In cases where he had missing background information he took full responsibility for learning what he needed to know and did not fault his professors or the university.  His only suggestion was that the History Department might study the state standards so that the professors know what future teachers need to teach (Ben, v.t., p.7, 2008).  Actually, the department and the university through its recertification process must show how coursework correlates to state and/or national standards, depending on the certification agency.

Strategies and Methods, 2008

As important as the content is the pedagogy and Ben thought he was well-prepared in the ways of teaching information.  He saw the need for differentiated instruction and changing the ways content was taught in order to reach all students, but at the same time, he knew that not all types of teaching strategies or methods would engage all students all the time and sometimes, for some students learning would be “boring”.  He also said that how he was taught by his professors in some of his college classes did not correlate to how he had to teach his high school students.  He did not say that the different type of college instruction, presumably by lecture, handicapped his ability to translate what he learned in college to his high school audience.  What he and his department wanted to ensure was that their students were not “sleepers” and one of the best ways to prevent that was to keep learning active (Ben, v.t., p.8-9, 2008).

Pearls of Wisdom, 2008

Ben focused his teaching on preparing his students for game day or the state standardized test. At the time of this interview Michigan provided college scholarship funding for students’ high test scores on the state standardized testing.  That program was discontinued a few years ago, much to the chagrin of many students who were promised that funding.  Ben and his colleagues talked about preparation for the state test as a way to receive college dollars.  He sounded a little apprehensive about teaching to the test but beyond the money attached at that time he admitted that skills, such as being able to make sense of statistical information provided on a graph, a core component of many state standardized tests, was also a good life skill (Ben, v.t., p. 10, 2008).

Ben’s last pearl was enthusiasm.  He said teachers need to be prepared not only with the knowledge and skills, but also physically and mentally, to be their best every day.  There are many new teachers, due to their lack of experience and on-the-job learning who are sleep-deprived.  Ben cautioned that lack of sleep leads to a lack of enthusiasm and lack of enthusiasm leads to a lack of engagement by the students. If teachers cannot show their students they are prepared, rested, ready and care about them every day then why should they want to learn (Ben, v.t., p.10)?

September 2015

Ben was now in his twelfth year of teaching.  By this time, he had his Master’s in Educational Leadership from the University of Virginia, a program he started in his first years teaching in Maryland.  He finished his degree after he moved back to Michigan. Ben explained that Rockford only reimbursed teachers for six credit hours for every six years so most of graduate work is out of pocket.  Ben’s wife was currently working on her Master’s degree (Ben, f.n., p.2, 2015) and she was teaching in one of Rockford’s elementary schools.

Ben now had four children, two of whom were pre-school. He was the third person in this study to serve as a chief negotiator for the teachers’ union or as union president or both. All of these three teachers were males.  Ben was also the head coach for a state championship caliber cross-country program and there were two state championship trophies adorning his classroom.  Ben’s students were still writing even though the writing portion of the state test had been eliminated by this time. Some of the focus on writing was now on ACT/SAT preparation.  His department gave common assessments, although there was an allowance for different teaching methods among his colleagues.

Rockford made the switch to trimesters and Ben seemed comfortable teaching in this time scale after beginning his career on a semester schedule.  Ben was a bit sarcastic about the impact of teaching both macro and micro-economics in just a twelve-week segment of time. In Ben’s words Rockford was working “miracles” (Ben, f.n., p.4, 2015).  As I have stated earlier in this work, most Social Studies teachers, and, indeed, most teachers of any subject, find it difficult teaching any range of material in any time scale. To reinforce one of Ben’s earlier comments, most college Economics departments teach Micro and Macro Economics in separate sixteen-week semesters. Education and content area methods class may broadly deal with how to approach teaching a set of standards required in a semester or a year.  Some school districts and educational service agencies may provide curriculum guides, or even day-by-day guides on how to teach requirements for a semester or trimester but I have yet to find any teacher who is fully comfortable with what they are asked to teach and the amount of time they are given to teach it.

Ben’s government lesson this day had to do with political socialization.  Ben set his students up in groups and the groups were determined by what issues impacted their political socialization, not by the issues that brought them to their attitude on the issue at hand.  He was more interested in having the students realize the factors that brought them to their point of view versus what they thought about the ideas surrounding federalism and how the states and national government work around the issues concerning wildlife issues, such as the re-stocking of the gray wolf population in Yellowstone National Park or other issues concerning endangered species.  Later Ben told me that the topic of the gray wolf and the Endangered Species Act as a way of studying the concept of federalism was a decision by the Social Studies Department as a way of avoiding more controversial topics.  The Rockford teachers were concerned that students’ and community bias due to certain belief systems might prevent the classes from being objective when dealing with state and national governmental decisions (Ben, f.n., p.6, 2015).  Ben further explained that he had received an email from a colleague during the day concerning an Open House that was happening that evening.  A parent with a strong opinion concerning the 2nd Amendment and Justice Scalia’s opinion that gun rights were not unlimited might be in attendance. Ben said it paid to be a Social Studies teacher when dealing with public opinion and education (Ben, f.n., p.7, 2015).  Throughout the lesson, no matter what method of presentation or other teaching method or strategy Ben used, he constantly reinforced the major ideas and concepts he wanted his students to retain and use in their arguments.

Ben carried a clipboard with him as he roamed his Economics class and peppered his students with questions.  Due to a lack of student engagement Ben set as a standard that every student must provide two responses per week to questions in class and so he kept a roster on the clipboard in order to keep track of the students’ answers.  Some teachers might find that method of guaranteeing student engagement a bit challenging in the mental gymnastics of recording check marks while also registering the students’ answers and formulating follow-up questions if the student “missed the mark”.  Ben seemed to have no problem keeping the class flowing as he recorded student engagement.

Ben was adept at using a dry sense of humor with his classes throughout the day in order to keep the discussion light while dealing with important Constitutional, historical and economic concepts.  If a student did not answer correctly or happened to incorrectly draw a shift in a supply and demand curve Ben always let the student down easy.  There was no tension or embarrassment for incorrect answers, just Ben trying to find student misconceptions and doing what he could in order to correct those areas.

At that time the Rockford administration was keen on the idea of offering an Advanced Placement Economics class.  A.P. classes are a selling point for most school districts, in part because of the suggested academic caliber of Advanced Placement classes, but more because A.P. credit transfers or replaces college credit if the proper score is achieved on the A.P. test.  In Rockford’s case, Ben said there was very little support amongst the Social Studies class for an A.P. Econ class because no one had ever taught the class and no one was certified to teach Economics at that level.  Anyone who decided to take on development of the class would have to go through A.P. training and develop a whole new class, even if the curriculum is provided by the College Board.  Many of Rockford’s Social Studies staff had history degrees and were not certified to teach anything else and even with Ben’s Micro and Macro Economics coursework, those basic courses would not provide the breadth of knowledge necessary to undertake and develop a new course (Ben, f.n., p.6, 2015).

2015 Video Interview

Defining Success, 2015

Ben’s definition for success in teaching had not changed much from 2008.  He thought coming in every day, giving his best effort (diligence) and creating personal relationships with his students marked his definition of success in the classroom (Ben, v.t., p.1, 2015).  He did not necessarily measure success in terms of the academic performance of his students, a position of his that changed somewhat from my earlier visit to his classroom.  I know all teachers are extremely aware of the pressures put on them by standardized testing but most teachers I know care about developing their students’ ability to use the content they are learning and the teachers realize that standardized testing is not a true measure of all the skills and knowledge that their students accrue.

I reminded Ben of one of my visits to his teacher-assisting placement at Kelloggsville High School and his government class when, in an attempt at displaying their knowledge of the process of how a bill becomes a law, one group of students voluntarily launched into a well-sung version of “I’m just a bill from Capitol Hill” (Schoolhouse Rock).  In their rendition the students definitely displayed their knowledge of the process of law-making.  Ben said he still uses that short segment of video, although he did not say whether or not his students burst into song when he plays it.  Most standardized tests do not measure knowledge in that way (Ben, v.t, p.1-2, 2015).

Ben echoed the sentiments of many of my students in saying that while Grand Valley State did a good job in giving him the basic tools for success in the classroom, he credited the classroom teachers with whom he was placed for his two semesters as providing much good guidance.  He related that they immediately put him to work in their classrooms and he was better for those two experiences of immediate immersion (Ben, v.t., p.2, 2015).

Challenges, 2015

Ben also reinforced a common theme that arises in many of my class discussions.  Many of GVSU’s students are first-generation college students.  Many of them come from “blue collar” backgrounds and many students work more than a few hours a week at jobs while attending college to help pay for their education.  The two semesters of classroom placements are a fiscal strain on many students.  Most do not have the time to earn money and those semesters deepen their already considerable college loan debt.  Ben, and others, wished that somehow student teaching would include paid internships.  As much as I understand their “pocket pain” I also know that public support for public education has eroded.  Grand Valley State University is, itself, almost a “private-public” due to the decreased funding from the state of Michigan to this university as well as other universities in the state system.  Unless there is a huge change in how we fund and prioritize public education I have no idea where money would come from to support students while they are learning how to teach.  As the teacher shortage deepens there might be a chance that market forces change the funding situation but the history of public education does not hold out much hope for that possibility (Ben, v.t., p.2, 2015).

Ben segued into the fiscal reality of teaching and how it impacted his life.  He had four children.  He and his wife are employed by a fairly well funded suburban school district that offered good pay and benefits, although the cost of medical care insurance and pension support had also increased.  Ben consciously committed to protecting his personal time in connection with his family. He said that was a challenge, similar to Abby’s concern about her marriage and how her work schedule would have to change to accommodate her new family reality.  I could tell that he was still working through how his profession means dedicating time to his students and how that dedication takes time away from his personal life.  Here is how Ben put it:

I do enjoy teaching but at the same time I enjoy my personal life a lot, lot more and it just is way more valuable to me.  So sometimes those come into conflict with each other and creates kind of an attitude, like I’m ‘reporting to the salt mine’ once in a while because I would rather spend time with my family.  But we overcome it.  Professionally, the challenges to me are what I view as basically an assault on public education so the media has been kind of rough in some circumstances and I would say the Republican-led House and Senate and Governorship have been rough on our profession.  Just the de-valuing of the value of public education.  I guess, me as a career teacher, is just caught up in that.  I don’t know if they are literally saying that a teacher is not valuable, but there certainly has been an undermining of the value of public education, which a teacher is the most important cog in that so by default that’s stressful. I don’t…I think public education is probably the most important government program that we have.  We should dedicate more resources to it and that just hasn’t been the trend and that makes coming in (to school) challenging.  You don’t come in quite as motivated maybe on some days or you just have a sense of animosity.  You know parent-teacher conferences, “meet the teachers” is coming up and how many parents in here are going to be like, “This teacher is just a government employee that is on for a free ride and gets more than they deserve” when I feel the exact opposite.  It’s not a free ride.  I bust my tail.  It’s a tough job. I give them all I’ve got.  To be underappreciated is challenging in that way (Ben, v.t., p.2-3, 2015).

Staying on the topic of family time and how that changes a teacher’s view on their profession, I asked Ben if his attitude toward his students changed when he became a father. His answer was somewhat nuanced.  Before he had his own children, he thought he might have been a little more “hard-core” when coaching his cross-country athletes and that has changed.  He also thought of himself as a nice person, willing to create personal relationships with his students, but he admitted, at least in his coaching, he might be a bit nicer than he was before he had a family.  I did not survey his past and present athletes to register their opinions (Ben, v.t., p.3, 2015).

Dealing with Stress, 2015

Next, I dealt with the question of stress on teachers’ lives.  I made sure to ask all of the participants about non-destructive ways they have dealt with the challenges and stresses of the profession.  Ben’s first comment was based on his role as chief negotiator for the Rockford Teachers’ Association and how the school contract impacted those teachers’ lives.  Ben’s time in Virginia set a certain tone.  Virginia, like Kansas, is a right to work state and Virginia teachers also deal with at will contracts.  Ben’s background as a history teacher, his father’s influence as a school superintendent and Ben’s thoughts about Michigan’s conservative state legislature and governor led Ben into taking a more active role in the teachers’ union.  As with my visit with Ben in 2008 he thought that public education had been devalued and undermined and since teachers are the most important cog in the system then teacher stress has increased.  In Ben’s opinion public education is the most important public program this country has and not dedicating more resources to schools made the teaching profession, along with all the other stresses, all that more challenging.

As to Ben’s increased role in the teachers’ union and how the public views teachers Ben said:

I guess I have taken on a larger role in the union and I pay attention to the contract.  I know what is expected of me.  I, consequently, know what cannot be expected of me.  It sounds harsh to just follow to the letter the rules but it has been my experience that if we didn’t have those contracts, I can’t get the parents not to think that I’m just some government employee that’s lazy but I can make sure that I’m not taken advantage of in terms of my time for what I do get paid.  I don’t think I get paid poorly.  I get paid appropriately.  I could justify getting paid more.  It’s a very demanding, stressful job. What we do is not easy.  It’s unfortunate that society does not value it higher.  Meaning value it with dollar bills, not with saying, “Oh, you’re so important to my kid.”  That is also nice, getting told that, that’s true, but when I have my own kids I have to pay for them to go to college, maybe, some day.  I would like to take them on vacation.  It’s a challenge.  So, I just find myself more and more, negotiating, literally, for a better work environment or a better circumstance for us and in other circumstances knowing very well, that, no, I don’t have to do that and I will not do that because we didn’t agree that that is what you were going to get from me for that circumstance (Ben, v.t., p.3-4, 2015).

Many of the participants in the study related to me that they keep physically active with activities like running, biking, hiking and weightlifting as a way of reducing stress.  Ben has been a life-long runner, but at first when I asked if running was a release from stress for him Ben hesitated.  He looked at running as a healthy activity and a competitive one.  If running relieves stress in his life, so much the better.  All of the teachers said that family and especially time with their own children are their way of dealing with stress.  All of the participants had family photos on their desks or on the walls near their desks and for those that were unmarried, their pets had a prominent space in their desk area.  I constantly stress in my teacher preparation classes at GVSU the necessity of balance in a teacher’s life as a way of maintaining an objective and, hopefully, a positive outlook on life and their profession.  My wife and I made a point of cultivating friendships and social events outside of our teacher-friends so that all of our time was not dominated by “shop talk”.  At the same time those outside relationships were a good way to get a less subjective view of public education.

Motivation, 2015

Teacher attrition and teacher burn-out was a primary reason for starting this research and I asked each of these teachers in my second round of interviews how they maintained their motivation to do the best job for the children under their care.  What keeps their teacher fires burning so they maintain focus and purpose in their profession? Ben’s motivation was in providing the students with the knowledge, skills, and habits for success in life. He hoped to ingrain hard work and sticking to deadlines as part of those habits for success (Ben, v.t., p.5, 2015).

One of the factors in teachers becoming less motivated and stale is how they approach their craft.  There are many stories about teachers lecturing from graying yellow legal paper or re-cycled PowerPoint presentations that have become outdated, with no possible appeal to the shift in the culture or learning styles of their students.  Good teachers should be lifelong learners and that includes their pedagogy as well as their content knowledge.  Ben said he changed things up every year, at least on some scale, in all his classes, especially if class engagement falls off.  He instituted “participation points” as part of his drive in increasing student engagement in lectures.  Although he admitted that that activity was “mundane,” holding students responsible for answering questions and providing comment did result in more students taking part in class.  He also said that he became more targeted and focused on the main concepts he imparted to his students.  By being concise and “hammering” on the important information and concepts he thought he became a more successful teacher (Ben, v.t., p.5-6, 2015).

Evaluations, 2015

Teacher evaluation has changed in the last few years in Michigan.  Many teachers and principals have told me that previously the system involved “drop-in” visits that would last just a small portion of a class period.  The evaluation instruments varied from checklists to Likert type scales, with some type of face to face meeting afterward in order to discuss the checkmarks or the circled items.  There were still variations in the evaluation methods during my second round of visits.  Some procedures had improved and some not so much.  At Rockford in Ben’s first few years he was formally evaluated once every year.  At the point of my second visit he was on a three-year cycle.  Ben was evaluated on the learning outcomes of his students.  He had to pre-test and post-test his students and 35% of his evaluation was based on his students’ improvement.  This type of system is known as the “growth model”.  Ben was also evaluated on what steps he took to improve the outcomes for his “bottom 30%” students, those students who are under-performing for any reason.  Ben considered many of these students as educationally or emotionally impaired and he hoped that the strategies that he and his colleagues agree upon work for all of this 30% group, despite the differences in the students’ learning challenges.  He did not consider these strategies and their outcomes as a part of the formal teacher evaluation process, except in terms of the impact of this subgroup’s improvement and that impact on the entire student group (Ben, v.t., p.7, 2015).

In the process of talking about how Ben was being evaluated the issue of testing and how that testing is used in evaluating teacher performance arose.  Ben focused on the criterion-referenced tests developed by the Social Studies Department at Rockford and how that process might be interpreted as “teaching to the test”.  Ben’s point was that a test or any evaluation that is developed outside of the teachers’ purview might not represent what and how the teachers actually teach.  On the other hand, a test that is developed based on the goals and objectives that the teachers decide are important should truly reflect what goes on in the classroom and what and how the students are learning.  In that case teachers do want to “teach to the test” because the test represents what is happening in the classroom.  He said the process of focusing on the standards that the group has developed has made him a better teacher, resulted in less wasted time on the areas deemed not as important and made for better teaching and learning (Ben, v.t., p.8, 2015).

Mentoring, 2015

We turned next to mentoring.  Ben’s memory was somewhat foggy here as far as his experience in Rockford.  He thought he was assigned a formal mentor when he arrived at Rockford but he could not remember anything about the person or the process.  He was, however, very positive about the informal mentoring he received from his colleagues in the department.  Ben said that the collaboration that existed amongst his fellow Social Studies teachers was very successful in improving his teaching and that the process was ongoing, not a “one and done” experience.  He defined that atmosphere as “professional” and said that all good institutions should naturally support continual, positive collaboration (Ben, v.t., p.9, 2015).

Continuing Education, 2015

Within the last few years, Michigan, and other states, have downplayed the importance of continuing graduate education.  In most cases that has meant contractual terms that no longer financially supported teachers’ desire to take college level courses.  While many school districts will grant incremental pay increases on the salary schedule they will no longer offer reimbursement while coursework is ongoing, such as remunerating teachers at the end of a semester when a course is completed successfully with a “good” grade or reimbursement after a given number of hours.  The result is that many teachers plug into professional development provided by the district or by some educational institution, such as intermediate school districts in Michigan, B.O.C.E.S. in New York or similar organizations which exist throughout the country.  While much of this PD may be more targeted to the real circumstances that exist in teachers’ classrooms and allow for ready incorporation of the knowledge and skills received in these meetings, university faculty many times make the case that locally provided PD is less academically challenging.  Granted that sometimes teachers do not see a ready impact from college coursework on their classroom teaching, but in my experience as a classroom teacher those postgraduate college courses provided a change of focus and a rejuvenation to return to the classroom with a different perspective.

In Ben’s case he stated that his Master’s in Educational Leadership which he received from the University of Virginia had not been utilized in any way and he meant that “specifically, categorically” (Ben, v.t., p.9, 2015).  He admitted that he learned quite a bit and that he did become a better writer.  He learned “how to deal with more rigor” due to the rigor of the program at UVA so those factors have made an impact on his teaching.  Ben was not alone in this study when it came to receiving a Master’s degree in Educational Leadership.  Others in this study did so, not because they were planning on becoming administrators but because the degree itself moved them along the salary schedule.  They all agreed that they did gain knowledge and some skill because, as teachers, they recognized that all learning has value. Ben also admitted that his degree gave him insight on district-wide policies and as teachers’ association representative the knowledge he received is helpful when dealing with those policies and understanding administrators’ mindsets.

As for professional development, at the time of this interview Ben said the teachers at Rockford had to record 36 hours of PD per year.  He also said that he, and other teachers in Michigan, can get recertified just on PD and that process costs less than graduate college credit.  In Ben’s experience the PD he received has been uneven in its results.  While he approaches those meetings as a professional, trying to pick up anything that may help him in his classroom, he admitted that, “Wow, that might not be worth 3 hours, (but) I’ll try to get something out of it” (Ben, v.t., p.10, 2015).  Rockford, like other schools represented by the teachers in this study, instituted district-provided development.  The teachers who have experienced this type of PD were very positive about learning from their colleagues instead of an “outside expert”.  Another similar program is called “professional learning communities” which equates with ongoing professional development.

Pearls of Wisdom, 2015

Ben’s first pearl concerned searching for a job.  He advised my current students that getting a job was more important than where the job was located. He cautioned against waiting for the perfect job to present itself and said that it was more important to get to work and start making the degree pay.  Some of my former students did not want to leave West Michigan and others wanted a job in their dream location and were willing to accept long-term subbing positions or other jobs rather than move.  I think the record for one of my West Michigan grads was six years before he found a job in California.

Next Ben talked about the challenges of the profession.  His view was overcoming challenges should be rewarding and every day required a good effort.  The reward at the end of those challenging days is that you know you did a good job and what you are doing is “extremely important” (Ben, v.t., p.12, 2015).  Even if you think you did not have a good day teaching, something you might have done for a student gave that person a good day.

GVSU’s Social Studies major, until recently, had a teachable minor requirement. This minor might have been totally unrelated to the major. The History department has made a change, requiring more hours in the sub-topics involved with teaching social studies, economics, political science and geography, rather than having students decrease their content background by majoring in a foreign language or a science.  Some of the Secondary Social Studies grads in this study were hired for jobs in their minor and not their major, especially a foreign language or English/Language Arts.  In Ben’s case he had a physical education minor.  Looking back on his time in college Ben thought he might have been better off minoring in math or a science, just for the marketability of those minors.  I have always cautioned against minoring in an area just for the idea of getting a job.  The question I pose to students is, “Do you have a passion to teach that subject?”  I assume that once they finish five years in college that they do have a passion to teach something.  Ben did not think the subject he taught was as important as his dedication to helping students learn life skills.  Admittedly Social Studies majors have not always been in high demand, while Math and Science majors and minors have an easier time finding employment so I understood what Ben was talking about in this case (Ben, v.t., p.12, 2015). In fact, Ben taught 8th grade Math his first year in Virginia, under a probationary status, even though he did not have a Math minor.  The school district noticed that he had taken Calculus at one time in his college career and thought he could handle teaching Pre-Algebra at the middle school level.

Ben, like most good teachers, reinforced that teachers must be enthusiastic about what they are teaching.  His students believed he loved what he taught and he told me that his students’ reaction to his enthusiasm was “fun for me, fun for them” (Ben, v.t., p.13, 2015). I have always told my college students that I cringe when I hear teachers say to their students, “I have to teach you this…. I really don’t like the subject, but you have to learn it” (Ben, v.t., p.14, 2015).  Ben and I agreed that teachers who say things like this to their students are “toast”.  Their students will not care if their teachers are not invested in what they are teaching.