Wear Sunscreen – and other Good Advice
Almost 10 years ago a spoken song from a Baz Lurman Album, Something For Everybody, was all the rage. “Everybody’s Free (to wear sunscreen)” told us of the value of taking time for ourselves and staying positive in life. Good advice comes at us from many places and at many points in our lives. I remember being a first year teacher – fresh out of an internship in a Behaviour Assistance program and rewriting the lyrics of “Everybody’s Free” for some student teachers who I had befriended, and who were having a hard time. I don’t know if that helped any of them, I mean really, what did I know – I was barely out of my teaching diapers myself – but I still give that reworked song to each student teacher I get.
Today I’m working on my student teacher’s final evaluation. Watching her journey (and the journey any of my student teachers take) always makes me reflective, and causes me to think about those who’ve helped me along the way. Those who took the time to talk to a snot nose wet behind the ears, thought he knew everything and worked way too hard beginning teacher wanna be, and turned him into the arrogant thinks he knows everything and still works to hard teacher that I am today.
I have been truly blessed. I have been helped by so many people. I still recall what my high school photography teacher wrote in my grade 12 yearbook: “Learning never stops – just pauses in interesting places.” I have learned so much since I picked up my first piece of chalk – and there are so many people I need to thank on a daily basis for that… but I digress. That’s not where I wanted to go today…
Today I wanted to talk about advice. We all have mentors in our lives who have really stood out. For me it was the man who gave me my first actual teaching position, Bill Drake. He truly cared about all his staff and every student under his care. It seemed he was out in the playground or the classroom more often than in his office. Bill also owned a greenhouse, and hand planted most of the flowers he sold. Raised them from seed, with care and attention to every detail. He did the same with every child who entered his class or his school.
I clearly recall our last day at Aldergrove School together. I was moving to Meyokumin (he had helped me get a contract there) and Bill was retiring. As we were both packing up, he called me into his office, sat me down – and told me everything he had learned during his years as both a teacher and principal. It was a fantastic conversation – and I try to follow every piece of advice he gave me that day. But there was one piece that I hold near and dear to my heart. It’s one of the first things I think of when I wake up, and one of the last things I think when I fall asleep, reflecting on my day.
“Shane,” he said “the one thing I tried to do in my career is to teach the way I wanted to be taught, and lead the way I wanted to be led. If you do that – at the end of the day you’ve done everything you can.”
Simple and straight forward idea – that had a resounding impact on me. I thought about all the teachers I had, and which ones I really connected with. Mrs. Foster, my grade 3 teacher who was one of the strictest people I knew – but who looked after every student as if they were her own children. Mr. Glance, grade 5, a gym teacher by trade he took a laid back approach to most of his lessons, but they were always interesting and full of laughter. Mrs. Proudfoot, grade 7 English, who took the time to tell us stories – not just from our novels but from her own life. Grumpy old Mr. Potter, my Jr. High Shop teacher, the one man more feared than the principal, but with one of the kindest and softest hearts I’ve ever seen. Mr. “Social” Jones, grade 12 social studies, I still remember him standing on his desk yelling at a student when she asked if a concept was really important and if it would be on our standardized exam.
“I’M NOT TEACHING YOU FOR SOME BLOODY EXAM! I’M TEACHING YOU FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!”
There are countless others of course – but these were my favourites. They were all VERY different people, with completely different styles. Some were tough, others wept openly in front of the class. Some were strict, other let you get away with murder. But they all had one trait in common. They would do anything they thought would help their students, and genuinely cared for each and every one of us. They spent their lives knowing that curriculum was important, but personal growth and exploration was vital. Students could learn information anytime, but knowing who they were and what their place in life was – that was something that had to be discovered, nurtured and re-enforced. They were the epitome of the cliche teacher who taught children, not curriculum.
So I took Bill’s advice, and I modeled my teaching style after those individuals, and him too. To this day I think that was the single best piece of advice I have ever been given. I know it hasn’t made me a perfect teacher – no one is… but at the end of the day, I’ve done everything I can.
So – it’s your turn. You get to impart one piece of advice to a new teacher – your single greatest piece…. what will it be?
I figured, just for fun I’d put my version of “Everybody’s Free”. I like it – but do with it what you want.
–
Ladies and Gentleman
Use coloured chalk.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, coloured chalk would be it. The attention capturing benefits of coloured chalk have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.
Enjoy the power and beauty of youth. Oh, never mind. You will be over run by the power and beauty of youth for the rest of your lives as educators. But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked, and how many grey hairs those little blighters have given you.
You are not as mean as your students imagine.
Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to get one of your grade twos to solve an algebra equation. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blind side you at 4 pm on some idle Tuesday (while you’re trying to get your students out the door).
Do one thing every day that scares you.
Sing.
Don’t allow your students to hurt the feelings of others. Don’t put up with people who try to hurt theirs.
Floss.
Don’t waste your time on over planning. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end, it’s only with yourself.
Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.
Keep your old pictures from students. Throw away your old notes from angry parents.
Stretch.
Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The B.Ed. is one of the most versatile degrees. Don’t be afraid to explore all the possibilities.
Get plenty of overhead pens.
Be kind to your chalk holders. You’ll miss them when they’re gone.
Maybe you’ll intern, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll become a sub, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll sit behind the principal’s desk, maybe you’ll dance the Hokey Pokey with your 50th grade one class. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else’s.
Enjoy your pointer. Use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.
Teach social dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own classroom.
Make daily plans, even if you don’t follow them.
Do not read government reports on education. They will only make you feel unsuccessful.
Get to know your student’s parents. You never know when they’ll help out on a field trip.
Be nice to your peers. They’re your best link to your sanity and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.
Understand that students come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on.
Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older they get, the more they’ll need the people who knew them when they were young.
Teach in a B.D. class once, but leave before it makes you hard.
Teach in a A.C. class once, but leave before it makes you soft.
Read.
Accept certain inalienable truths: classes will get out of hand. Principals will want more done. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young, classes were well behaved, principals were less demanding, and children respected their teachers.
Respect your teachers.
Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a large stack of resources. Maybe you’ll have a credit on you copy account. But you never know when either one might run out.
Don’t mess too much with your displays or by the time you’re 40 they’ll look 85.
Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a
form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.
But trust me on the coloured chalk.
*
Adapted from Baz Luhrman’s Everybody’s Free (to wear sunscreen) by Shane Grundy for the Lymburn Student Teacher Cohort of 1999, and teachers everywhere.
My piece of advice: Teach kids for life!
Yes, in the small picture, we’re teaching kids to pass a test and get into the next grade. But is that what is really important? I think we need to look at the broader landscape to see what we are setting our children up for. I want to teach my students to LOVE to read. If that means we don’t stick to the traditional recommended books and read things they are interested in, then so be it, that’s what they’re going to do as adults! Of course I try and encourage them to try different things from time to time to broaden their tastebuds, so to speak. When it comes to writing, my students’ parents hate me. If they can’t print by the time they get to grade 6, I look at different avenues and give up learning to print altogether. We’re in a technological world! I teach them to keyboard, and their writing comes alive. I have yet to meet a kid this has not worked for. Math skills are particularly difficult to make meaningful, but I try to tie stories into them as often as possible to show my students why it’s so important to know why 23.59 is rounded to 24. I mean, how often do we need to estimate while out shopping to make sure we don’t overspend our budget? In science, it’s all about the problem solving skills. Without these, none of us will become independent and successful. And then in social studies, it is so important to know where we’ve come from and where we’re going as citizens. My kids have a great appreciation for this, and are eager to help charities around the world to make it a better place for everybody. Yes, the curriculum lays out what we need to teach, but it is really a framework upon which we build everything else. My kids are not going to remember what day the last spike of the railroad was pounded in, but I think they will be a step closer to being able to face adulthood with the skills they need to succeed and make smart decisions.
I guess one piece of advice for teachers might be summarized by two words: “Pay attention” to your students – their learning styles, their interests, their needs, and the types of technologies they use in their everyday lives which we as teachers might leverage for the sake of keeping them engaged, keeping them in school, and keeping their learning meaningful.
Here’s a great video which many of you may already have seen, entitled “Pay Attention”.
http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=40c570a322f1b0b65909
Give yourself 7 minutes or so to take it in (speakers turned on).
Another great video, “Web 2.0: The Machine is Us/ing Us” which you may have seen over the past little while:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE&eurl=
While it may not be a life lesson video, it does show us the power of the web and how it can affect our teaching and our students’ learning.