Thinking about Schools of Education

I just had a meeting with a professor at my school of education. I won't name it, because I don't want to have to be nice. The place is, first of all, like a poorly run corporation, sitting in an office building in Chicago with administrative offices spiraling through the building in incomprehensible order and array. You have to get help to find an office. It's not even all in the same building. The professors are mostly former and current teachers, and because of the strange diversity of skills in the profession, the professors are also diverse in teaching ability. In other words, many of the instructors in the school of education can't teach. Or they teach the class in a way that doesn't match their students. It's so hard to adjust your teaching from one age to another - speaking as someone who took three years of college teaching into a fifth grade classroom - and many of these teachers don't do it well. There have been a few exceptions. But mostly it's embarrassing how bad some of these professors are.

Then there's always one. One person on the faculty who gets it. Who knows what's going on, understands the issues that you're facing, and constructs the class as a solution to the problems that you really have. Or will have. A teacher who can teach. Isn't that a strange idea? A teacher who can design an effective lesson, and then carry it out. Someone who cares so much about her students - all of her students - that she can learn all of their names within the first week - difficult when there are hundreds and you only meet once a week - and then she makes herself available for office hours DURING THE HOLIDAY BREAK. In my ten years of higher education, including my preliminary examinations, I've only been able to meet with a professor over a break three times. And that was serious graduate school stuff. This was just because she wanted to make sure we were doing okay.

And, of course, many of us aren't. She's smart enough to know that and take steps to solve it. Damn. She's good.

I just wanted to think about her, and I wanted to throw it out there that I want to be as good as her someday. Or even half as good.