Old People are just Resistant to Change

Old People are just resistant to Change

These are the words of an angry old teacher.  

I remember when I first began to teach that I was told by those who do not teach that my ideas were not so good.  I read, I studied and I even began to keep a list of books which I had read.  This material I found ways (some of it) to incorporate into class.  Thus began a life long attempt to incorporate difficult learning into a class room atmosphere in such a way that vastly different levels of students could find it useful and I hope maybe on occasion empowering.  Early in this game I remember once showing a narrated slide show by Thomas Hoving of the Metropolitan Museum of Art about ancient Egyptian art.  About a third of the way through a student, nice kid but not my brightest (this is not a put down in my view) gave out a sigh and said, "This is boring."  My feelings were hurt but I had a policy when possible to allow students the freedom of expression. (I must admit that there were occasions I regretted this.  However, more often than not it played to my advantage as a teacher.)  But before I could become miffed, she said, "Why don't you tell us what is going on?" I realized that she meant- make it so that she could and would want to understand.  At that moment I understood that I needed to combine what I knew with a presentation which could be absorbed by my kids.  I do not mean dumb it down,as they say, but choose the right words combined with a flow of thought which took into consideration what a kid knew at a particular level.  No book, no author, no study could explain to someone how to combine knowledge of a subject, student level, tone of voice, a teacher's genuine interest, almost unique minds and certainly unique personalities of twenty students into a meaningful experience.  It is certainly arrogance of sorts to even make the claim.  This combination, this union of a kid's mind and the beauty of the Pantheon must be made with the above in terms of experience with the life and minds of young people.  Not just a few experiences but the more the merrier.  

So I gave up as the years passed using prepared stuff and created my own.  I adapted.

Then later as I hit 10 to 15 years I was told by those who are older and wiser that my ideas were noble but misplaced. I read more, kept keeping my lists, re-read those books which I realized each time I read I saw something which I had not noticed before or whose ideas began to click after I had experienced enough to suddenly realize what the author meant in the first place.  

By now I had changed school from Indiana to Ohio; from a modest country school to a district very wealthy.  In fact Geauga County is the wealthiest county in Ohio.  I must add for purposes of clarity that I had students in Indiana who hunted for their own food.  I mean picked up rifle, shot, skinned, prepared and ate an animal.  I do not say this to shock.  Even in the the big noble towns, the same thing is done.  It is just that they have someone else do the killing, dressing, packaging and shipping for them.  These people I knew in Indiana simply cut out the middle man who tends to soak those in the city for the same item.  So my point is this- I taught people in Indiana whom most would consider at subsistence level or ignorant barbarians and, of course, vastly different from the sophistication of civilized people.  I noticed that kids were the same in Indiana and Ohio.  They saw the same movies, heard the same music, ate the same food, went to school. AND POSSESSED THE SAME ABILITY.

So after ten to 15 years I had expanded my belt with more books, more learning, more studies and much more experience with the minds of students.  I was and still am in my element.  Again I noticed that in any conversation I had with those who do not teach that I was naive.  My ideas they would say have no place in reality.  Onward I marched.  When Cicero, a hero of mine since childhood, once mentioned to his friend how when they were young and playing in the yard they wanted to be like Achilles and as the Iliad says "to be the best and to be unsurpassed."  I am a pygmy compared to Cicero but those words stayed with me through thick and thin.  I wanted to be the best, understand more, be able to present any lesson no matter how difficult to any group.  

So I adapted from the ambiance of Indiana to that of Geauga County, Ohio. As the Video Recorder came along, I could see, in a limited way, its use for the classroom.  It was of course by those who sell them presented as the cure all for all ills and problems in schools.  These convinced those who purchase such things in education to fork out the money.  For it would bring the world to our door step.  We all in a room could watch something which happened 20 centuries ago, or 12 centuries or what happened last month in Belize.  Dear Thomas Hoving reappeared.  The movies, tapes, call these what you like were rarely made by someone who understood presentation and the minds of young people.  Absolutely not a single video was made by anyone who understood the kids in my room.  Now don't you think it odd that in modern times we pride ourselves on individuality and how different we all are from each other, how unique we are, yet when it comes to education we all are forced whether a round peg or a square one into a triangle?  

So again I adapted.  I could see the potential for a video recorder.  I admired that potential which technology offered.  Yet, dear Thomas Hoving was there.  He was happy.  His like was making money.  All was well, nope.  It was not.  I noticed that some videos leaned this direction or that.  One view that the Romans were vicious and cruel.  All they thought of was war, money and power.  Yet, I kept reading and reading and learned that the interests of Romans stretched from stars to thoughts of what is the ideal form of government to an interest in what makes people tick, what love is, why we get angry.  What I saw in many presentations did not match what I had learned and I realized that even a video well edited and presented is limited by time and space as scientists like to say.  

So I adapted and made my own.  I submitted a request for money to an education foundation of our local school district.  I purchased a video recorder which could be edited on a simple level.  I used this to make videos for class, such as the life of Cicero or the Pantheon.  I had to adapt again and write my own scripts and create dialog.  These scripts and dialog had to be adapted to the ability and will of young people.  No book, no author, no principal ,no advisor from the state or federal government could possibly know my students.  Now, they could very easily know more than I do but they could not know what my students needed to know in view of what we studied in class.  Nor could they know the range of ability of my unique students.

As the years wore by and I learned more and more I was told by those who do not teach that my ideas were outdated and too resistant to change.  Not so good, too naive, too outdated and resistant to change.  That was a load.  A load of what you may now guess on your own.  But I kept reading.  I studied.  Being a teacher this was helped a great deal by summertime.  I am sure that many would have thought that it was repulsive that I could have the leisure to spend my summers reading. I was told many times that I should get a summer job.  I adapted to that, too.  In fact I am still adapting to it.  When people ask what I do, now that I am retired, I often mention in addition to woodworking, gardening and astronomy that I read and study.   The look is always the same.  Can you guess that look?  The kindest put on a puzzled look.

So along came the internet, youtube videos, the wireless world on a major scale, hand held pads and such.  Again, those who sold and sell these things claim it will solve all of our problems, will bring the world instantly into the classroom, will bring understanding to humanity and instant love of others.  In fact it is clear that many think that these devices will do a much better job than a teacher.  Think of how weird it is that all people are different, we are all unique, yet every teacher who is a n individual and unique is expected to fit that triangle, and all students "need" these same devices without any input from a teacher.  Anyone who opposes or questions this current wisdom is called a fool, out of date.  Those attacks were/are most vicious by those who sell these things.  Again, it did not matter, for the sellers convinced those who do the purchasing that these are necessities and that those who are with it will gleefully follow and those who see another way will be dragged along, for their own good.  

There are wonderful things to be found on the internet.  Youtube can easily be an afternoons delight.  And be informative too.  I once watched a lecture about the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir in Korea.  I learned a great deal.  I watched an amazing video of beauty as interpreted by the golden rectangle and the fibonacci sequence.   These and others have been fun, delightful, entertaining.   All of which must be adapted to the individuality of students by a teacher who has learned not from books and direction from someone sent by the state to set things right but from personal presentation, instruction,  discussion and tests and quizzes and talks and reflection of what students have said, of what people have said and of what great thinkers have said and written concerning what makes students tick.  

But again I adapted.  I saw what was available for Latin.  Some I rejected or I felt it needed adapting.  I created my own DvDs for all levels of Latin.  When I talked to marketers they gave the same look as those to my summer reading.  I found these  DvDs useful for myself and my students.  It was nice too because, if there was something I did not like or did not work, it could be changed.  So again, I saw the value of technology; I used it.  I adapted it to my purposes on my own terms in light of my students.  I learned from those youtube presentations.  I learned from a number of places and people but all of it every scrap of what I learned had be interpreted in terms of what I thought was best and correct and in terms of what my students needed.

So who is the individualist here?  Me or those who want to fit everyone into that triangle whether they are round or square?  Those who are forcing this stuff are chasing away, no shutting the door, to those who want to combine teaching with thinking.  To be blunt these methods are telling thinkers to stay out of education.  Who is more willing to be adaptable?  Those who tell teachers what to use or those who look at new technology and decide for themselves whether it fits their subject, their manner and the needs of their students?  If you think that new technology is only made available to teachers for teachers to pick and chose what they want, you are sadly out of it, clueless.

It is a bizarre simplification of young people or any people to assume that some programmer in Silicon land who diligently works with computers, who has zero experience with young people has a clue what or how students listen, think, study, live and suffer.  To create this blog I read the instructions supplied.  There were so many assumptions upon the the part of the person or persons who put the instructions together that parts of it were unusable and misleading.  Yet they pushed and pushed hard to put that round peg into the triangle.  These assumptions are a symptom of their arrogance.

 So finally what is at the bottom of all this?  I think that it is prejudice.  Prejudice against the very nature of being a teacher.  It is often said that those who can, do, those who can't, teach.  It is clever and easy to remember and has a rhythmical catchiness.  Actually I think it is more logical to say that those who can't teach make the laws and rules about teaching.  

I also think that this prejudice is caused by circumstances of life.  We all go through school: kindergarden, grade school, middle school, high school and maybe college and graduate school.  We carry with us memories of those years.  We are all somewhat overwhelmed by our own prowess.  I guess it is natural.  This prowess perhaps makes it easy to make some very serious assumptions.  For example, as a teacher, I shutter to think that after five, even thirty seven years of teaching that I knew it all.  (I usually did not act like a know it all, when I did, some student who was a blessing to my life brought me back to earth.)  Every time I presented a lesson, even my last year, I stood dumfounded that I had not used the little trick I had just employed in class in past years.  Yet, here we have people, who went through the experience of school ONCE (hopefully) as a student, who never adapted to different student experiences, who have never taught, retaught, evaluated, re-evaluated a lesson,  who feel empowered by what little tidbits they haul from ten, twenty years ago, who feel that they are not equal to what a teacher knows in terms of the needs of students but superior.

If that isn't the biggest load of crap I ever heard!