Great teaching happens every day in classrooms all across the country. But it is usually concealed from view. It happens behind a classroom door and out of sight from all but those in the room. There is rarely an audience for it. We don't celebrate it on the news or on websites or talk shows. The Brookline Education Foundation, founded in 1981 in Brookline, Massachusetts, was one of the country's first local education foundations supporting public elementary and secondary schools. In 1984, the BEF decided to shine a light on great teaching. The Ernest R. Caverly Award recognizes teaching excellence, and has been awarded to fifty-eight teachers, from the preschool level through high school. Each winner is asked to deliver a talk at our annual Celebrating Teachers event about their experiences in the classroom and their journey to get there. This book is a collection of eighteen of those talks. Teachers, just like their students, arrive in the classroom along many different paths. Some, such as Barbara Scotto, learned to teach on the job in a challenging environment. Some, such as Ricardo Calleja, came close to quitting before finding their way. Others, such as Mary Burchenal, knew at a young age that they wanted to follow in the footsteps of a beloved teacher. Still others, such as Amy Neale, lived a lifetime of experiences before landing in the classroom. Whatever their path, the teachers in this collection share an understanding that teaching is a craft and that the best in this profession are always looking for ways to grow and improve. Great teachers are great learners. In the words of the late Margaret Metzger, "In education, I do not find answers, but I do find questions worthy of a lifetime of thought."
Some highlights from the speeches:
"When I first started teaching, I imagined my students filing out at the end of class and, one by one, thanking me for such an exciting lesson. . . . I've learned the subtler side of happiness: a strong paper from one of my fragile students; a class when no one ever looked at the clock; toilet paper in the bathroom stall; a Xerox machine in which someone has forgotten to erase their user number."
-Pat Herrington, "Confessions of an Ordinary Classroom Teacher."
"I like to tell my students that they must do what makes their heart sing. That is what teaching and learning do for me, and that is pretty much the reason I have been coming back to school every September since I was five years old."
-Ellen Contreras, "Teaching the Heart to Sing."
"I then entered what would be the most challenging five months of my professional life. I think that the unwritten part of Dante's Inferno has a poorly running seventh-grade classroom as the last circle of hell."
-Cathy Fischer-Mueller, "A Teacher's Prayer."
"There is no clear-cut, step-by-step recipe for good teaching. There are many successful styles, and we can all benefit from observing and learning about them. Because while there may be some common aspects of effective instruction, the craft of teaching cannot be bottled or mass produced."
-Jay Sugarman, "Rain Dancing."
"I stay because teaching matters. . . . As a nation, we need citizens who think critically. When I want to give up on a student, I remind myself: 'One person, one vote.'"
-Margaret Metzger, "Lugging Rocks, Building Chartres."
"I celebrate teachers because the ones I love . . . are human. They struggle, fault themselves, and sometimes wonder if they should become real estate agents-but then they go back at the job with fervor and faith."
-Mary Burchenal, "How Do You Know?"