According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics less than 3% of the pre-school and kindergarten teachers in the United States are male (https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.pdf).  When I first met Chris in the Social Studies methods class I was teaching in Traverse City, Michigan, he stated his goal of becoming a kindergarten teacher.  After graduation he was hired by a school in North Carolina to teach kindergarten and he stayed there for a year before the lure of family called Chris and his wife, Amy, back to Michigan. Amy taught in a lower income area of Chapel Hill where kids were “dodging bullets at night” while Chris had students brought to school in BMWs, the students had cell phones and laptops and their parents were doctors and lawyers.

I first visited Chris’s kindergarten class in Oscoda, Michigan in May of 2008.  The economic situation in the Oscoda area was challenging.  A major military base had closed, jobs had disappeared and the economy was depressed.  Chris was dealing with multiple issues arising out of that set of circumstances.  At this point he had 21 students in his class with no para-professional teacher for help.  The year before he had 25 students and no para.  Added to his challenges the new state Grade Level Content Expectations were “huge” in Chris’s words.  Most of the teachers I interviewed in 2008 saw the GLCEs as an unconquerable laundry list.

As the day started Chris announced “carpet time” and the students gathered on the floor around him.  He asked them what day it was and it took the class three tries to correctly announce that it was Tuesday.  Chris followed with queries as to what yesterday was, what tomorrow would be and what today’s date was.  All these answers were given correctly the first time.  Chris talked about problem-solving strategies and reminded his students that they had talked about this idea in earlier classes.  All through the day Chris gave his students multiple prompts to “follow procedure”, while providing much positive reinforcement.  He directed the children to sit “criss-crossed applesauce” and they did so quickly, in some cases following his directions before he finished them.  It was obvious to me by the end of the day that the children knew the whole day’s routine on a fairly consistent basis.

Chris explained to me during the day that the district decided to drop physical education from the district’s elementary curriculum and so a new class was designed called “Math and Wellness”.  I found out that the district created some inventive course names as a result of budget cuts.  These inventions caused some problems since state guidelines dictated that teachers had to be “highly qualified” to teach the courses assigned to them and creatively named courses presented some challenges.  Later in the day I found out that music and art were also eliminated from the elementary curriculum, pushing further responsibilities onto teachers if they thought those opportunities were important to students’ lives and understandings of the world.  The teachers called these added responsibilities “enrichment” activities.  Despite these challenges and added responsibilities Chris was impressed by his principal and the family atmosphere of the staff. Chris told me later that the district’s teacher union did not understand why this elementary school’s staff put so much extra effort into their teaching. Chris’s response was that the teachers were “just getting the job done” and meeting the needs of the students (Manick, Field Notes, p.2, 2008).

During the day Chris, like several other teachers in this study, used a Word document in leading the reading.  He highlighted new or difficult words that focused the students’ attention while providing Chris the cue necessary to help with student understanding and pronunciation.  Using this cue his students correctly pronounced “sequence” and they knew the meaning of the word.  Chris told me that the whole school was working on MEAP words, not just the material to be tested, but words the students might need for understanding cues within the test. Chris projected the document on a white board with the help of a Smartboard projector and the students were adept at coming up and highlighting various words. At this point in my work at GVSU there was no Smartboard of any kind on the main campus so our students were practice teaching in schools that had the technology but they were not being trained by the university how to use it. The assumption by many teachers was that all the GVSU students would come to their classrooms with the knowledge on how to use the latest tech tools.  Beyond word finding Chris’s students were also able to find quotation marks, exclamation points and question marks.  The lack of technology at the university level eventually prompted installation of a Smartboard system in at least one more classroom on the Allendale campus.

After some time working on grammar, Chris moved the class to a math and basic economy segment.  He asked his students to identify a quarter.  The fraction provided some consternation in their minds and it took the children five tries to correctly announce that a quarter was 25 cents.  They had no problem identifying a dime and a nickel.  No fraction there! Chris moved from money to counting.  He had a student grab a pointer and lead the students through practicing counting to 100.  I have vague memories of being able to count to 25 when I was in kindergarten in the 1950s.

Chris’s school was built in 1952, older than many of the buildings I entered during my travels during the research.  Through successful grant writing, the principal, who had been the district curriculum coordinator, had purchased 6 Smartboards.  All but one of the boards were in use in the classrooms. Chris’s school currently housed kindergarten through second grade.  There was also a 3-8 building that was split into 3rd grade to 5th grade and 6th to 8th grade sections.

Next Chris moved his students to counting by 2s to 100.  The class followed through with no problem.  Chris was preparing his students for a visit from the afternoon Head Start students tomorrow.  Chris related that the Head Start program was more like what “old kindergarten” used to be like, but it was not doing as much developmental work as it was working more on the social skills of the children.  Chris explained to me that there were many single-parent families in the district and that poverty was a real issue.  The district was working on a way to coordinate Head Start with the Pre-K program that was housed in Chris’s building.  He said that the Head Start children were not prepared for “carpet time”, learning in a group for 15-20 minutes and exercises such as counting, calendar work, dates and the weather.

Chris next worked his charges through counting by 5s to 100 and then counting backwards from 100 to 0.  All the students sprang off the floor when they finally reached 0. The whole math lesson took about 10 minutes and it mostly involved counting.

Literacy stations were next. In this segment of the class Chris employed what he called “creation stations”.  There was a “Y” guy who prompted the word “Yak” and that word was followed with “popcorn” words (https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=Wwe6fttdyh4) and the children were off and running through vocabulary development.  The literacy stations occurred for a half hour each day and the time allotted gave Chris the opportunity to assess the checklist of items correlated with the Grade Level Content Expectations. Chris had a matrix designed by the principal and some of the teachers which allowed for a simple assessment of observational and oral objectives of student growth.  At one point in the half hour Chris had to bring one group or station of children over to him in order to correct their behavior, but overall the half hour was another example of the students following the consistent routine Chris had set for his classroom.

During the day Chris explained the reward program that his school engaged, called the “Fish” program.  There were posters in the hallways promoting the program and the student of the week was given the title of “Star Fish”.  This week’s “Star Fish” came up to me at one point in the day and announced that he was this week’s recipient, obviously proud of his achievement.  Chris later told me that the idea for the program came from the Seattle Fish Market.  I did an online search for “Starfish” and found a link (http://www.starfishcare.com/index.html#) that might have served as the basis for the program. Another reward for good behavior that Chris used with his students was allowing them first pick on the learning center they wanted when that time came during the day.

Chris explained that there was little coordination between the various buildings in the district.  In the K-2 building the staff conducted data driven research with remediation which pointed to data driven needs.  I assumed that the other buildings were not basing their teaching or goals on this model.

Next Chris moved to a read aloud section of the day.  He read “Old MacDonald” and had his students identify the animal, make the animal’s sound and then sing the song.  This activity was one of the few during the day that echoed with my own time in kindergarten in the 1950s.  During the activity Chris asked an Upper Bloom’s question based on an image in the book he was reading.  Students identified various items in the image such as a tam, bagpipes, plaid cloth and one student posited that Farmer MacDonald must have been from Scotland.  I was impressed with these young people’s analytical skills.  At this point Chris shared with his students that he had Scottish ancestry, thus personalizing the lesson.

The next part of the day was entitled Sharing and was similar to Show and Tell.  The first student had a miniature toy skateboard and a discussion broke out about which local store carried the best small toys. Chris intervened with the comment that no matter where the toys were sold, they probably were all made in China.  Next a student shared the classic Dr. Suess book, “Green Eggs and Ham”.  A girl followed by showing a pink Green Bay Packers baseball cap.  Another girl emptied a make-up bag of many items on the floor before her and talked about the things she found in the bag. Later a group of the students “hid” under a table in the classroom and proceeded to dab facial powder all over their faces.  Chris had told the girl not to get the powder out of the container but that did not stop her.  When he found them under the table with powder all over their faces and the floor he had the student put the bag away.  She complied with no problem.

At various times during the day individual boys came up to Chris to share items they brought to school.  These quiet moments of sharing reinforced the importance of male kindergarten teachers as surrogate father figures when many students come from single female parent households.

Chris was gentle but firm when it came to enforcing correct behavior with his kindergarteners.  He was careful in telling the students he was not angry with them, but their behavior needed to be corrected.  One student did break into tears at one point when Chris corrected her, but she quickly got herself back under control.  Chris did have to send several students to the “think” chair during the day so that they may think about their incorrect behavior.  Chris admitted to me that he does not consider himself the typical “nurturing” elementary teacher but he did keep up with the research for early elementary education.  He took a vocal role when his school was reaccredited through the North Central Accreditation process and he was able to explain what he and his colleagues were doing to meet NCA requirements and expectations.

Chris had explained to his students before I arrived in their classroom that I was one of his former teachers and I was there to watch their class that day.  Their reaction to me was fairly neutral until recess after lunch that day.  One of the girls came up to me and said, “I know you now” and gave me a hug, at which point a line formed in front of me of students wishing to hug me.  After three or four hugs Chris refocused the class as recess was over.  He did tell me that the students are given some training on not approaching strangers and their neutrality early in the day was a partial result of that training. I am not sure where the need to hug an older adult male came from except maybe as a sign of respect due to my relationship with Chris as his teacher.

After recess the boys in the class helped Chris set up stations. The two prized stations were the water table and the sand table.  The water table had little toy boats floating in water and the sand table had shovels and sifters.  There were dollhouses and Legos and some computers equipped with sorting games and games that helped students develop digital coordination through typing.  There were also wood blocks, made from chunks of 2 x 4 as well as a round, 2” piece of dowel.  The boys went right to the doll house, more of an open A-frame house than the traditional two-story open dollhouse.  Chris told me that the Title I grant directed the idea of “play centers” because there was research that showed that play helped with language development, as well as the more traditional structured language development activities.  Chris pointed out that despite the district’s financial challenges, adequate teaching resources existed in the schools.

During the day the students constantly came to Chris for conflict resolution. He said he focused on that behavioral issue that year.  Last year there were so many instances of conflict resolution that he put a stuffed Scooby Do dog in one corner of the classroom and told his students that when they needed to “tell” they should go talk to Scooby. They did and the act of telling something, without any feedback, was enough to resolve the problem without Chris intervening.  Chris said another teacher in his building has her students “tell” a poster on the wall and that seemed to work as a way to resolve the situation as well.

Snack time came in the mid-afternoon.  The rule set by Chris was that food could not be shared unless someone brought enough for everyone and since most of the students could not afford to bring enough food for their twenty classmates, this rule effectively shut down worries about food problems.  When snack time was over Chris sprayed disinfectant on the tables and the students helped clean the tables without being prompted to help.

The next activity involved having the students watch the Discovery Channel and a video about alligators and crocodiles.  Chris stopped the video at various times to ask basic recall questions about the differences between these two types of reptiles. The students were attentive to the video and answered Chris’s questions with ease.

As the day drew to an end Chris had the students prepare to leave.  He re-focused the class before they left for the bus and asked them what they studied during the day.  The children answered Y in unison and then he asked them what sound and they answered Ya along with the words Yogurt Yield Yacht Yellow and Yam.

Next Chris lined the students up according to behavioral groups with the best-behaved students for the day first in line.  After the class re-gathered outside Chris ran them around the playground a little “as a favor to the bus drivers”.

Interview. 2008

Defining Success, 2008

Chris defined success for him as knowing every day that every kid is successful.  He thought it was important that a teacher recognized that every child had something that they were good at doing and then the teacher should highlight that success.  He also thought providing a safe environment was important for success.  Teaching in a rural area with economic challenges and single parent households lends a different definition to “safety” in some aspects than an urban setting, but there are some universal similarities for teachers and their students.

Content, 2008

Chris was one of the teachers in this study who received much of his coursework at GVSU’s Traverse City campus.  The cohort at this location included many more non-traditional students than the main campus in Allendale.  The teaching faculty was augmented by adjunct professors, many of whom had extensive teaching and/or administrative experience.  Chris thought there was an abundance of inside information and hands on learning that students in other locations might not receive; not a theory or philosophy, but what teachers would actually encounter and real-world examples and solutions.  Chris most appreciated the administrative point of view because the principals shared successful traits of their teaching staff, thus giving him a multitude of possible traits that might lead to success in the classroom.

In the process of explaining his preparation Chris shared his year of experience in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.  He cited a very competitive atmosphere where teachers received bonuses of up to $3,000 if their students scored well on state measures of achievement.

As an early elementary teacher Chris did not focus on content knowledge in his teaching to a great degree.  He referred to his education classes such as Classroom Management and the literacy class, but not necessarily anything in particular from his content classes associated with his Social Studies major.  When given the opportunity he was able to interject some of the content knowledge he received and he felt if he were teaching an upper elementary class with a content focus he would be equipped to teach that knowledge.

Strategies and Methods, 2008

As far as strategies and methods for teaching content Chris thought his preparation was awesome.  He left his undergraduate preparation with multiple choices in preparing and delivering content and skills to his students.  Like many of my students he downplayed some of the importance of lesson plan formats, but he recognized the importance of organization and the fact that formal teacher evaluations required evidence of some type of lesson plan.  His main focus was providing each of his students with a positive comment every day.

Chris could cite no weaknesses in his preparation at GVSU beyond a common one amongst many Social Studies teachers, no matter if they had an elementary or secondary degree: economics.  After visiting all of the people in this study it became apparent that all of them felt confident in teaching basic consumer economics but not economic theory unless they had taken a minor in economics and most of them chose not to follow that path.

I next asked Chris what he learned since leaving college.  His first response was the amount of paperwork involved with teaching. He listed such items as red tape, documentation for everything, assessments and financial stuff (teacher benefits paperwork).  Chris did not think any college program could prepare a person for all this work since requirements from the state change and school districts implement different requirements.  His suggestion for new teachers was to find a few teachers who knew the ropes and then copy what they were doing to keep up with the paperwork demands.  He commented that the new teachers he knew that were struggling were not good at seeking help when they needed it.

On top of this explanation Chris benefitted from an excellent mentor.  They met for 8 to 10 Friday afternoons for a half hour at a time and also during the day when their paths crossed. Chris also benefitted from teaching in a small building and in a family or team atmosphere.  He cautioned future teachers to reach out if they needed help because if they did not ask questions or seek support then the veteran teachers would assume the inexperienced teachers knew what they were doing.  When Chris asked for help his colleagues were more than willing to reach out and help him.  Chris put it this way, “Ask…don’t badger, just ask” (Chris Manick, video interview, 2008, p.6).  Chris benefitted from the fact that most of the teachers in his building were master teachers.  Chris also commented that good administrators would provide mentoring because “it was their job” (Manick, v.t., p.6). Chris reinforced that in his building there was a culture of continual improvement shared by the principal and the staff.

Next Chris explained his school district’s Pre-K program.  It was organized into B-3 and B-4 sections.  The programs are for 3 and 4-year olds, on a first-come, first-served basis and parents must pay for their children to participate.  Based on the program’s success Chris felt that the children who participated were definitely ready for kindergarten which was very important due to the fact that more and more content and skills were being pushed down into lower elementary classes from the upper grades (Chris, v.t., p.7).

Chris returned to the team culture of his building.  He related that when his wife, Amy, gave birth to one of their children and when Chris’s father died the staff jumped in to help, including traveling up north to Chris’s hometown for the funeral.  Chris said that Oscoda was the 10th school district where he had worked in some capacity (para-pro, coach, teacher’s aide, at-risk assistant) and this school was the first one of those experiences with such a deep culture for support and improvement (Chris, v.t, p.8).  “Teaching is such a stressful job.  It’s even more stressful if you are not there for each other.  If you’re not there to pick each other up, and I think at this building if someone stumbles, someone is there to catch you.” (Chris, v.t., p.8).

Pearls of Wisdom, 2008

Chris’s first piece of advice was that student teaching experiences do not teach a person everything they need to know about the job (Manick, v.t., p.9).  He listed the challenges that a first-year teacher faces: the bureaucracy and how to navigate it, including the politics associated with the system; documentation or paperwork; and feelings of inadequacy when comparing yourself to master teachers.  He cautioned new teachers that they should be prepared for making mistakes. Chris reinforced the thought that new teachers need to ask questions when they are unsure what to do and how to do it.  He also said that new teachers need to “love what you do” (Manick, v.t., p.9). The job is too tough if you don’t love what you are doing.

But if you love what you do and you’re a teacher and you feel like it’s in you, keep it because the kids need you more than you ever know.  I found that, especially kindergarten, a lot of my kids have single parents, they have rough families, they get beaten.  I’m the only one who gives them a safe place, who loves them.  And that’s it…  They might not even learn how to do anything I teach them in a year…read, write, do anything else…but when they leave my class they’re going to feel loved, and to me that might make the difference later on when they learn how to read and they get the other things and the light bulb clicks on because it’s not going to click on all the time.  You’re giving them something more and that’s what…that’s the only pearl of wisdom I can say… (Manick, v.t., p.10).

Chris went on to say:

I think if you’re going to go into teaching anyway, you’ve got to have part of this (attitude, feeling, love of teaching) to begin with.  It’s not a half way job.  You either do it because you love it and you’re not going to get paid for it or not going to be patted on the back by the public for it.  You’re not going to be on a pedestal for these things, but you’re going to make a difference.  You know I have even had friends who are engineers and make quadruple what I make.  Their job is ultra-stress and they get nothing.  And they go like, “wow, at least you make a difference”.  That’s the pay-off.  I would say just stick with it.  That’s the pearl of wisdom.  Just stick with it.  Make your kids feel successful, make them feel loved.  Come to work, even when you have the day from hell, come back with a smile on your face and say, “look, those kids need you” more than anything (Manick, v.t., p.10-11).

2015

In 2015 I revisited Chris at Oscoda.  His old building had been shuttered and his job had changed.  He was now the technology teacher for the elementary building.  Chris’s definition of success in teaching had not changed much since 2008.

I think success in teaching, as a teacher, is when you realize that your students are showing growth, they know they’re loved and they are being successful and they feel successful.  I think we look at success as far as your test scores and all that, and we all get caught up in that but a teacher feels truly successful when you come in and you know your class. They feel loved. They want to be here. They are striving to learn and you’re getting kids who probably never, ever wanted to be learners and raise their hand and be part of your classroom and those kids are dying to be part of it.  I truly feel that is success that a truly successful teacher would feel.  I know, and the state would say it’s your test scores and all that but you’ve got to stop thinking that way, especially as a teacher. What can you control?  You can control what is here.  And I think where we live, we’re the second poorest county in the entire state of Michigan so for my kids, if they feel safe, loved and appreciated and we can try and help them grow and be successful, that’s great. You’re a successful teacher (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.1).

Chris was open about the reasoning for the move from his kindergarten position to that of technology teacher: the importance of students having a male teacher at the elementary level.  Chris now met with every elementary student instead of just his kindergarten class (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.1).  In his building, including the administrator, there were four males. Oscoda continued to be one of the high poverty areas in the state of Michigan with a high number of single parent, female-led households.

Defining Success, 2015

Chris continued to believe that his success was based on the type of preparation he received, in that being off campus the university hired adjunct instructors for most of its Traverse City area classes and those instructors were practitioners who emphasized real-life models of teaching versus teaching philosophy. He admitted that despite the practical approach no amount of practicality would prepare someone for the real job of teaching, but he was also appreciative that while admitting teaching was a challenging profession, his instructors did not dissuade him from teaching (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.1-2).  Chris also credited his success to two great placements for teacher-assisting and student teaching.  These teachers were careful to point out teaching strategies and methods that both worked and did not work so that Chris realized that even though he was working with great mentors, they were willing to admit that even they made mistakes from time to time.  I thought that was a great lesson that Chris took away from his placements: the knowledge that even great teachers do not get everything perfect the first time, or even possibly the third, fourth or one hundredth time.

Challenges, 2015

Next, I asked Chris what his biggest challenge was as a teacher.  He quickly responded that his biggest challenge was legislators who know nothing about education but still control educational policy.  He thought that legislators should spend more time in research and part of that research time should be spent with classroom teachers.  Chris reiterated a concern of many of the teachers in this study: the over-reliance on high stakes test scores as a measurement of success in the classroom for students and teachers.  “Education is not about a finality of a score…  As a Social Studies teacher it bothers me because the end result is we want a great nation.  We want great citizens.  We want a great society.  Well, it starts right here.  It starts the second they walk in the door for kindergarten.  And I’ll stick to the statistic: every dollar you spend K-5, you get two dollars back. If you really want to focus on America, this is where you have to do it.” (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.4-5)

Along those lines Chris supported the idea of measuring student growth versus just an outcome score set at some statistical level of acceptance.  He supported the assessment model presented by the Northwest Education Association that his district gave the students three times per year (https://www.nwea.org/map-growth/, accessed January 31, 2019). “I think Michigan has to get away from this testing and then watching them per grade level like this year’s third grade versus…you need to start individualizing per kid.  Is this kid showing growth?  If he’s showing growth, that’s the key and the teacher is doing their job because if the student came in below grade level and they are not quite there but they gained a whole year of growth that’s excellent.  You’re doing a great teaching job!  But the state wouldn’t say you are.” (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.5)

Chris and I then had this exchange:

Me:  No, because everybody is supposed to read at a third grade level.  But if they come in and they are not reading at all and then how are you going to get them to third grade in one year?

Chris:  Right, and teachers who are in an impoverished area and where they come in and the kid is not worried about whether they are doing their homework or work at home. They are surviving.  They are in survival mode.  So, if the kid was already behind and delayed, give us a chance.  Give us a, you know I look at our district scores and I try not to preach the district but if you look at where they come in at kindergarten and where they have reached at 8th grade, they are almost there. We are almost there.  Our scores are showing the proof.  You give 9 years and this kid comes in the 8th grade and they are ready to go by the time they go to high school but it took 9 years to get there.  People outside of education have to understand you can’t take a kid who is below grade level and just wave a magic wand. I mean if I could work with one kid the whole year then yeah, but that’s not the reality of our business. We’re working with 25 to 30 kids, even more in some instances in some classes, so it’s a tough racket.  Those kinds of things are things that hammer down on you about education.  I just think that the ‘powers that be’ need to take a step back and have a conversation with us, as educators, and I think we could change.  I’m hoping that right now, it could get a little worse, and I think it’s going to, but I think you’re starting to see more and more voices speak up.  I think that we are due for a turn around and a revolution and maybe an Enlightenment and a Renaissance for education where we get away from not keeping us as educators in the loop and I know a lot of that has to do with us and unions and all these kinds of things, but look, teachers aren’t about unions.  We want to have a voice and if we don’t get a voice then you have to speak somehow. (Manick, v.t., 2015, 5-6)

Chris was dead set against high stakes testing being used to label some teachers bad and then firing them.  If students are treated as learners and capable of growth, then teachers should be treated and nurtured in the same way.  If some teachers lack the skills and training, then give them the training in order for them to be successful.  Do not simply fire them in hopes that hiring a new teacher will suddenly bring success to a classroom (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.6).  Chris pointed to Finland as an example of a nurturing educational atmosphere and said that while some people claim that that system works for a small nation and would not work in the United States, Chris looked at the situation from a state-wide approach and commented that Finland was not much different from Michigan.

Another point that Chris made was the lack of adequate funding for schools. Chris compared the per pupil funding with the expense of incarceration and said that if that same amount ($25-30,000 dollars per year) was spent on K-5 education there would be fewer problems with student success. (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.8)

Chris tied that expenditure to the goal of education.  The goal for students should be a successful career, even if that career does not include a college education.  I will admit my bias here due to the fact that I was on the Board of Education for the Ottawa Area Intermediate School District and a part of the mission for OAISD is career/technical education.  Many of our former students have left with extremely marketable skills and have very successful and well-paid jobs.  Chris was adamant that his idea was not “tracking” students.  If students wanted to attend college, let them.  But if a college experience did not work out for them, then provide a path for these students in a different direction in an intentional, well-planned way. (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.8-9)  At the time of this interview Chris stated that the local I.S.D. was so underfunded that students had to pay to go to career technical training, therefore eliminating the possibility that some students would pursue a career/technical pathway to success in life.  This situation made absolutely no sense to Chris. All it would do was guarantee the cycle of poverty. (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.9-10)

Dealing With Stress, 2015

Similar to some of the other teachers in this study Chris worked out as a way of dealing with stress.  He ran, biked and lifted weights. (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.10)  Chris mentioned that he talked to the superintendent about installing a treadmill in one of the empty classrooms, but even if that did not happen, many of the teachers walked or ran the quarter mile long hallways as a form of tension-releasing exercise. (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.11)  Another means of dealing with stress was understanding the factors which Chris might effectively control.  If he found himself still thinking about something that happened at school that day at 6 or 7 in the evening then he knew he had to let it go.  He credited his family and friends as another pressure-reliever.  I mentioned to Chris that I have always tried to include amongst my circle of friends, people who were not educators, just so we would not end up talking shop all the time and so that my perspective on the world was a little broader than my career.  Chris related that he had mentors who were retired educators and they offered a perspective of the long-view of teaching, complete with the ups and downs’ so that he knew what he faced had been faced by others. (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.10)  He also admitted that having his own children helped to settle him down and gain a different perspective on life and his career.  Finally, Chris has coached most of his teaching career and that was another positive outlet for his stress.  Coaching fits a male Social Studies teacher stereotype.  Many of the men involved in this research were coaches in some capacity.

Perhaps the biggest way Chris dealt with the challenges associated with teaching was the team and family atmosphere of his school.  Chris mentioned this culture both times we met and when I found out that he left Oscoda to return to the northern lower peninsula of Michigan to be closer to family I knew he missed the bonds he forged with that group of people.  I am still in contact with teachers from New York where I began my career as well as the people at Circle High School.  Chris knew that that type of culture does not always establish itself.  I related to him a conversation I had with one of the other teachers in the study who had a professional development day at a large school north of Detroit.  While she was talking to another Social Studies teacher he mentioned that he barely knew the other members of his department and she told me, based on her experience at her rural school, that she would not know how to relate to a situation like that. Her relatively small school featured much collaboration between members of different departments as well as across grade levels (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.11).

Once again Chris became a little emotional.  He repeated the story about the loss of Amy and Chris’s fathers and the importance of strong ties amongst the staff in supporting each other.

But at the end of the day your family and you have to work it out.  And I think what I see here is we do.  I think we are supportive because we all understand this is who we are and this is the life we live and we need to be supportive.  I honestly wouldn’t know what to do if it was like a cave where you closed your door and you wouldn’t cross the hall and you wouldn’t interact. I don’t think you can survive that way. I don’t think it’s healthy.  I do know the higher up in grades you get it gets like that.  I don’t know if it’s because when you teach an upper grade it’s less a family kind of atmosphere but this building is K-6 and we’re all pretty supportive of each other.  We have our squabbles like any family would but we’re pretty tight. We’re pretty close. We go to bat for each other. (Manick, v.t., 2015, p. 12)

Chris talked about a paper he had just finished for a graduate class. The paper focused on why people leave teaching. He questioned not only why people leave but why do they stay?  This was a common theme amongst almost all of the teachers.  The pay was not getting better. It was getting worse, coupled with the decreasing health care and pension benefits.  While people never went into the profession for the money, they still have to pay the bills and be able to support their families.  Chris knew people got into teaching because they received support from their peers and mentors and they loved working with children, but he feared there were fewer and fewer people with that passion for teaching entering the profession.  Chris also said that societal and community support for teaching had declined. (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.13)

Motivation, 2015

Chris and Amy have four children of their own and he admitted their household is hectic every morning, getting everyone ready and off to daycare or school but despite the challenges listed in the above paragraph, Chris knew that he had to be there every day for his school children.  They would miss him and he them. “Right…they ask why teachers stay in the profession, that’s why.  Because you haven’t destroyed them enough to take that away.  Once you take that away, teachers are done”. (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.14)

Changes in Strategies and Methods

For Chris the biggest change in how he taught was the use of technology.  When I first visited his kindergarten classroom in 2008 he was ahead of the curve using the electronic whiteboard with his students as they picked out and circled parts of speech.  Now Chris was the technology teacher for all the students in the elementary school.  Along with technology Chris said that there was a constant need for professional development in the use of tech in the classroom and he implied that there was not enough PD in his school district. (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.14)  Based on experience, both in my high school classroom in Kansas and in the classrooms of Michigan observing teacher candidates I believe there is a continual lack of PD for tech use.  In Chris’s case this lack may have been caused by the economic status of his district.  In other districts, beyond the economic challenges, I believe there is a mindset by some administrators that teachers should be responsible on their own for keeping up with changes.  I agree with some of that argument.  Teachers do need to invest time and some money in updating and renewing their skills but only to a point.  When change is profoundly different then everyone needs help in adapting to what is new and different in how they do their job.  At the same time Chris did not advocate for dropping what teachers did best in improving the knowledge and skills of their teachers.  In this conversation about change Chris stressed that teachers had to deal with the possibility of failure when they tried something new. (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.14)  He said that some teachers worried about being dinged by their administrators if they failed in the classroom.  “Shame on your administrator and I’ll say that as a future administrator.  Shame on them.  Because if you have a staff that’s afraid to strive, what are we doing here?  That’s what we tell a kid to do:  Strive. Fail. Get up. Do it again. You can do it.  Why aren’t we doing it for our teachers?” (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.15)  I related a similar feeling when attending a presentation by Madeline Hunter in the 1980s.  She advocated for a J curve, instead of a bell curve when assessing students and promoting success for everyone.  While I hope all my students succeeded in some fashion I felt that successfully dealing with the challenge of failure was an important life skill.  We all fail at one point or another and it is what we do after we recognize that failure that matters for the future.  A question I constantly posed to my college teacher candidates was, “What are you going to do when your students fail?  How do you plan on helping them succeed after recognizing their failure?”  Chris’s model for an administrator was a person who nurtured their staff and helped them change when some of that change meant failing at one point when implementing the change. (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.15)  He recognized that some school districts were hiring teacher coaches (at least two of my former students were hired for those positions, one in Michigan and another in the Houston, Texas area).

Chris talked about the older model of administrator whose job it was to get rid of long-term teachers who felt insecure about change and just hire in new teachers, who were less-expensive and had new skills based on their college training and background.  Chris thought there were at least two problems with that model: one, that atmosphere instilled fear in teachers who were contemplating change but feared failing to properly adapt would lead to retribution and two, it disregarded the other skills that successful veteran teachers exhibited in the classroom. (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.16)

Evaluations, 2015

Chris immediate response to how he was evaluated, both informally and formally, was that there was probably much anger, fear and bitterness regarding evaluations.  My response at that time in my research was that there was some anger, but mostly fear of the process. (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.17)  I believe that is why three of the female teachers did not want their identities revealed when I wrote about their experiences in the classroom. On the positive side there were teachers in this study who said that they had great administrators who used the evaluations as a way of improving teaching.  It wasn’t the instrument itself, but how the administrator used it.

As with other people in this study Chris shared some of his most negative comments for state standardized testing.  When test scores from the state tests were viewed in a negative light by administrators and the public then there was not a focus on what to do to improve teacher performance.  It was more like the teacher was at fault and should be blamed, not helped to improve.  I know that negative teacher evaluations oftentimes result in improvement plans but I question if those plans equate with true help from administrators in how those teachers may actually improve. It is one thing to be given a list of things to do and another thing to show a teacher how those improvements might be accomplished.  Chris saw evaluation as a means of opening up a conversation about improvement and not an opportunity to ding a teacher.

Chris added paperwork as a negative factor in assessment and teacher evaluation, not just for the teachers, but for administrators as well.  He thought that too many reform issues, whether it involved teacher evaluation or any of the other education ideas and practices, were not carefully thought out and put into practice. Chris, as many other teachers in this study, believed that teachers were not carefully guided and given proper professional development so that changes in operation and evaluation could be effectively put in place. (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.19-20)

Mentoring, 2015

Chris considered himself extremely fortunate to have two excellent mentors during his teacher-assisting and student-teaching placements.  One was his classroom teacher and the other was his principal, now a superintendent.  The classroom teacher explained why she did things the way she did and entertained all of Chris’s questions.  He felt he was part of the process and developed a good understanding for why she operated the way she did in her classroom.  Chris’s early interaction with the principal might have been a negative one.  Chris wore earrings and the principal made it known in no uncertain terms that Chris needed to ditch the earrings and wear a tie to school because “this is my building and this is how I want it run”. (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.20)  Chris respected this forthright approach and did what he was told.  He has also maintained contact with this individual over time.

Chris was the first male kindergarten teacher in the Oscoda School District and he was quick to point out that he was still “green” after his short experience in North Carolina.  Now he had three experienced kindergarten teachers as mentors.  The experienced teachers laughed at some of Chris’s early errors, but everyone took the humor well and the teachers were willing to help Chris out with his many questions.  Chris also had a second-grade teacher assigned to him as a formal mentor.  Sandy met with Chris once a week for the first three years and asked great questions about his teaching.

“How’s it going?  What are some things we need to do?  I saw you do some things in the other classroom. This was awesome but I also saw you do this.  How can we change this?  Are you doing this for your kids?  Are you doing these (lessons, activities, methods) for your kids?” So, the only other part that you didn’t get is the paperwork stuff, which I’m on the mentoring committee now for our district.  It’s starting and one of the things is, “You need to tell teachers, “These are the things where you find the paperwork. These are the things you need to file.”  Just little things like that.  But other teachers don’t get it because they are doing it every day.  As far as guidance I couldn’t have asked for better mentors.  I know that’s one of the reasons teachers quit.  They feel like they are on an island.  And if you don’t have those people… (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.21)

Chris was assigned a new mentor, one of my former students, Scott Lueck, when the district closed the elementary building and consolidated all the grades into two buildings.  Again, Chris had a person who was interested in how Chris operated and was willing to offer positive suggestions for his teaching.  The biggest factor in Chris’s success is the fact that he said he was being “mentored” and by that he meant he still reached out for suggestions and advice about his students and the way he taught.  All good teachers want to hear from their peers regarding ways of improving their teaching so that they may positively impact their students.  Not dictatorial, top-down orders, but “hey, this works for me and it might work for you” or “Did you know that Johnny’s family is struggling a little right now and that might explain why he is acting out?”

Chris especially appreciated a quote he heard from one of his graduate professors: “Mediocre teachers look great all the time”. (Manick, v.t, 2015, p.22)  Chris thought great teachers expend so much energy and deal with so much stress that they have average, or even below average days, from time to time, but that mediocre teachers who do not expend as much effort or energy always look great, while their actual classroom performance might just be average all the time.  Chris used two analogies at this point, one comparing a great teacher as a runner and the other the teacher as a carpenter.  Runners need time to rest after a hard run and carpenters do not hammer constantly all day long.  Everyone needs a break from time to time; some time for intensive classroom direct instruction and some time to let the students work on their own with some more passive oversight and personal help. (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.23)

Chris’s last comment was that as good as the mentoring was that he was provided at Oscoda it could be better.  There should be continual opportunities for improvement of any mentoring program and that kind of improvement is what he hoped to develop in the future when he became an administrator. (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.24)

Continuing Education, 2015

Chris faced a challenge shared by many teachers who teach in rural areas; the distance to a university for graduate coursework.  In order for me to pursue my chosen area of doctoral study I had to drive from Augusta, Kansas to Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas.  It was a little over two hours from my house to the campus, always a few minutes to find parking and then a walk to the classroom building, a three-hour class and then the drive home: all this after teaching a full day of classes at the high school.  Luckily, I had the option of taking most of my coursework in the summer time and I could afford to rent an apartment off-campus. I also had grown children and a very, very understanding wife.  Many younger teachers, with families to support and care for have far more challenges facing their graduate work.  Chris and others have benefitted from online coursework.  In fact, one of the subjects in this study received his entire Master’s degree through online coursework.  Chris was fortunate that Grand Valley State met a need for off-campus offerings and the University helped to create a cohort of graduate students at Chris’s school.  This cohort allowed for sharing of information and ideas between the teachers who all taught at Oscoda. (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.24)

At this point in time Chris was just three classes from finishing his program and for the most part he gained much valuable information that had practical application to a future career as an administrator.  He did have one criticism. Most of the coursework involved projects with direct application to his future career, except for the Foundations class.  This course focused on academic writing.  Chris felt he had acquired the basics for writing academically in his undergraduate work and what he wanted was practical writing experiences; how to write letters to the community for things like millage votes, how to write letters to the staff, how to write grant applications.  He understood the academic writing philosophy of the university but if a person had those basic skills why not help graduate students prepare for their real writing tasks in the future? (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.25)

The conversation turned to professional development (PD).  A long-time model for PD was for a school district to bring in an outside expert who would make a presentation based on his or her research.  The presentation would hopefully coincide with some important educational reform movement or address a particular problem facing a school district.  Too often many teachers related to me that the presenters did not take the time to understand the particular interests or challenges of the district which lead to disinterest by the teacher audience.  Some districts have switched to an in-house model of PD, with a member of the staff gaining insight and training, and with personal knowledge of the district’s challenges, and then that person would lead the PD. (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.25)

Pearls of Wisdom, 2015

Chris said that if he had the opportunity to talk to current teacher candidates he would say that the first two years of teaching is a struggle, but if you are in the profession for the right reason, to help children, then it is all worthwhile.  He warned that there would be times when a new teacher would feel, especially during an early administrator evaluation visit, that she or he was not doing anything right, no matter what she or he tried in the lesson, but it is all part of the learning experience.

Remember why you’re there.  Love being an educator.  Enjoy it.  If you don’t enjoy it, oh, my gosh.  And I’ll be honest, you come right out of college and you think, “I have all these ideas.  I know what I’m doing.”  You get in a class and you are going to find out there are things that you just can’t control.  And it’s nothing that you can be taught.  It’s trial by fire.  Make friends with teachers who are positive.  Who can help you.  I’m not saying you can’t make friends who are the negative ones but remember when they are always negative it’s not going to help you. Also, make sure you are there with someone who is honest with you.  Not just, “Ah, you are great!”  and they have never seen you teach.  You want to have pointers.  You want to have a mentor who is willing to say, “These are some things we need to work on and here’s how we help you get better.” (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.27)

Chris also cautioned future teachers about not fixating on test scores.  He fully realized the importance of those scores to the district, to the administration and the community, but those scores should not be the total focus of teachers.  Chris commented that new teachers should prepare themselves to have almost everything changed during their career, their grade level, what they are teaching, where they are teaching and who they were teaching.  He was worried about the potential teacher shortage, which has come to pass since our last interview. He thought that things in education would get far worse before they would get better.  He hoped that everyone involved in education, from teachers to professors to administrators and the parents would band together to lead education to a brighter future. (Manick, v.t., 2015, p.30)

Chris later moved to Lake City, Michigan and then onto Traverse City, where he was teaching at Grand Traverse Academy when I last contacted him.