I have always sought and continue to seek role models. By the time I reached my senior year in high school, the teachers who seemed to have found a way to create their own space within and somehow separate from the school itself fascinated me most. Nothing seemed to surprise them; they had seen it all. I spent much of high school surprised and appalled, so they represented an attractive contrast. By placing themselves apart, they placed themselves above the rest of the school community–at least that is how it looked to my sixteen-year-old self.
My admiration expressed itself every time I parodied the way they talked or the way they rolled their eyes at the disappointing behavior of their charges. Perceptions are funny things, though, and I have come to see this kind of teacher quite differently. I now believe their approach to teaching will only leave them tilting at windmills. If this teacher-as-silo approach was ever a good teaching strategy, those days are gone. They have been gone for a while.
These days, I admire a different kind of teacher most. Great teachers reveal to students that we all should be in the process of becoming—becoming thinkers, writers, mathematicians, scientists, speakers, listeners, challengers, and leaders. The self-isolating teacher is, by this definition, handicapping themself because they become merely an artifact of learning. Students deserve more than that.
Great teachers must be willing to embrace the process that may lead to change in their practice; they must ask the hard questions; and they must take the steps necessary to ensure that the change is, in fact, progress. Only through sourcing, hiring, onboarding, mentoring, professionally growing, compensating, and retaining such people can a school do its most vital work–modeling the healthy, rich lives we wish for all students.
I was fortunate beyond all good fortune to work in several schools with an abundance of such adult models. As schools continue to steer into a crucible moment when such learning environments are under strain from dangerous forces (economic, socio-political, etc.) beyond their immediate control, schools need far more such models. The strategic questions for every school are: What is the strategic path to access such teachers and staff? And, what are we willing to commit and to sacrifice in order to hire, grow, and retain them?
Are you hiring with the following expectations in mind?
Your school should be the right school for teachers who…