The education of teachers and a few other things

The New York Times Sunday edition offered a fascinating Education Life section with an article entitled "Teachers in the Making" that made me start thinking about my own path to becoming an educator.
As always, the article featured criticism of teacher education programs, much of it well-deserved. Do these programs prepare teachers adequately. I can only speak from my experience with Missouri Southern State College in the 1980-81 school year when I took my education courses. The MSSU program has evolved since that time fortunately. I can honestly say that I don't remember picking up anything that was helpful during that time. During the fall semester, I was sent each Friday to observe a high school teacher at Webb City for one hour. I had the feeling I was watching someone who was burned out and really wanted to be somewhere else.
In my classes at Southern, I learned about educational psychology and statistics and theory...everything except the things I needed to know. I never had one teacher explain to me how to get students on task at the beginning of a class. I never had anyone tell me what to do when a student won't behave. Not one teacher ever mentioned how I should deal with a student whose problems were caused by a horrific homelife.
In the spring of 1981, I was assigned to Diamond Junior High to do my student teaching under the tutelage of Randy Switzer, which was the first lucky break I caught. There are still things I do in class that I can trace back to him. He taught for the first few days, then I was on my own, teaching seventh grade history, eighth grade history, and ninth grade government.
I enjoyed my experience, but it was not easy, and I made it more difficult on myself. At that time, I was living in a small apartment over the Newton County News building on Main Street in Granby. When I left the school, I returned to the newspaper office, worked until about 10:30, had a bite to eat, then prepared the next day's lesson plans and graded papers from 11 until about 2 a.m. Four hours later, I was getting ready for another day of the same drill.
That lasted only nine weeks, and then I was ready to get my first teaching job.
Of course, that took 18 years.
I was a rather naive young man and my advisors at MSSC never told me that a social studies teacher who did not coach was not going to be hired to teach anywhere in southwest Missouri, at least not at that time. I actually had one hour-long interview with a small school for a history teaching position, in which not one question about teaching history was asked. All I heard was questions about coaching.
Most of the time, I never even reached the interview stage. Fortunately, I was still gainfully employed at The Newton County News, a job that lasted until February 1982. After that, I substituted at Diamond and Pierce City, worked part of the summer of '82 for the city of Granby's summer recreation program, then when fall returned I still did not have a teaching job and I was back to substituting.
That was when I decided to change my plans and get back into journalism. In November 1982, Doug Davis called and asked me to interview for the editor job at The Lamar Democrat. I did, and I stayed in journalism for the next 16 1/2 years, first at the Democrat, then at The Carthage Press.
Over that time, I covered school systems in more than a dozen communities across southwest Missouri, and I watched as social studies teachers (nearly all of the time) math teachers, science teachers, and less often (though occasionally) English teachers were hired strictly on the basis of whether they could coach.
That's not always a bad thing. At East Newton High School, one of the best teachers I've ever had was Charles Goade, who was also a coach. However, some of the worst and most ill-prepared teachers I had were also coaches. That's why I was content to stay in journalism and thought I had left education behind.
Male teachers needed to coach or they had few opportunities to teach core subjects at that time. After the field of journalism left me in May 1999, I focused my job search on journalism. I talked with Jimmie Sexton and Dean Keeling about being editor at The Neosho Post, but that was not something I could see working out, even though I would have loved the opportunity to have worked with Dean and I'm sorry that never happened.
I interviewed for the managing editor position at the Siloam Springs newspaper and was offered the position, but while I had been waiting to hear from the publisher, I had decided I wanted to try my hand at education again. I started applying for teaching jobs and even landed interviews at Webb City and Diamond, though neither worked out.
It seems that by this time, there was such a teaching shortage in Missouri that even someone who had not been in a classroom for 18 years had a decent chance of landing a job. However, as the weeks passed and the school year was rapidly approaching, I still did not have a teaching position, so I looked again at journalism.
I had been in touch with Floyd Jernigan, who at that time was the publisher of the Miami News-Record and he had asked me to look over some issues of his paper and offer an analysis. I was happy to do that and after I sent him the analysis, he called me back and asked me if I would be interested in interviewing for the managing editor position at that newspaper.
My heart really wasn't in it, but I interviewed, was called back and was offered the position. By this time, I had made up my mind. I would take the job if I was offered $30,000 a year. If not, I would substitute and keep applying for teaching jobs.
I went to Miami on a Tuesday morning for my final interview and after three hours, I was offered the position...at a salary of $29,600. Naturally, I was torn. That was pretty close to that magic $30,000 barrier, in fact, with the bonuses they offered, I would have easily surpassed that figure.
But by this time, I was burned out, not from reporting, I never burned out on that, but on dealing with the people who ran newspapers. Despite that, I was ready to take the job, but I told Floyd Jernigan I wanted until Friday to make my decision.
I hunted for teaching jobs the next two days without any success until Thursday afternoon, I saw an advertisement which had just been placed on the Southwest Missouri State University Job Center website for a writing teacher at Diamond Middle School. The ad said to contact Ron Mitchell, middle school principal, or Robert Blizzard, high school principal, for more information. I called immediately and asked for Ron Mitchell. He wasn't in his office. So I asked for Robert Blizzard. He wasn't in his office. They connected me with the superintendent, Dr. Greg Smith, whom I had known from his days in the Webb City and Sarcoxie school districts. I had also written a story about him when he first took the Diamond position and I had interviewed with him unsuccessfully for a social studies position a few weeks earlier. "I saw your ad for a writing teacher," I told him. "This one is right up my alley." He told me he would have Ron Mitchell call me and five minutes later I got that call and an interview was set up for the following morning.
At this point, I was a bit worried about the timing since I was supposed to receive a call from Floyd Jernigan at about noon on Friday to give him my decision.
The next morning, my interview went well and I was told there were more interviews that had to be done and I would be called by five o'clock. That left me with quite a decision to make. At 11:45 a.m., I received the call from Miami and told Jernigan I had a teaching position and had to turn down his offer. That left me with a distinct possibility of not having any job at all. Five minutes after that, I received the call from Ron Mitchell telling me the Diamond R-4 School District was offering me a contract. I had turned down a $29,600 newspaper job for a teaching job that paid $21,450, nearly five thousand less than I made at The Carthage Press...and I was ecstatic about it.
That being said, there is nothing, not even student teaching, that can really prepare you for that moment when you first step in front of your own class. There were times that year when I wondered what I was thinking when I became a teacher, but for the most part, I knew from the start I had made the right decision.
Now, more than six years into my teaching career, I still see some of the same problems that were there 24 years ago. When my time at Diamond came to an end, and I was put on an unpaid leave of absence due to alleged budgetary problems, I was told by Superintendent Mark Mayo that I would not be coming back to the school because he didn't want any social studies teachers who weren't coaches. Unfortunately, there is still a lot of that going on in schools, especially the smaller ones. During my first year at Joplin, I made sure to do what I should have done in the first place and picked up my certification to teach English.
But so many things have improved during that quarter of a century. New teachers are paired with veteran mentors in most school districts to help them to succeed. The Joplin R-8 School District has its TOPS program through which teachers who are new to the district, whether it is their first teaching job or they have 20 years of experience, are given an intensive five-day seminar to prepare them for teaching in the school system, augmented by two full-day sessions during the school year. Other districts also provide support networks for their newcomers.
At most schools, there is a genuine effort made to hire the best teacher for the job, not the best coach who is also a teacher. Things are not where they should be, but they are getting there, and as much as I have criticized No Child Left Behind, it has made an impact on school boards and administrators. They have to hire teachers who can deliver results in the classroom and not just on the field or on the court.
And though salaries are still not where they should be, there have been genuine strides for improvement in that area, as well.
Reading that article in The New York Times also made me realize that as good a summer as I have had, I'm ready to get back to the classroom. I can't think of any job I would rather be doing.