Wouldn't a recipe for success in teaching be great?

I'm still trying to nail down my basic presentation strategy for Saturday and am well aware that I possess no recipe for success nor any previously invisible pieces of advice to help harried teachers survive and thrive despite the pandemic.

Superficially, at least, teachers attending a conference are hoping to find some "answers" or "tricks" that they can take back to their classrooms and apply. I know I have sat in hundreds of learning sessions at conferences of all types, always wondering if I will discover some almost mythical device or idea or resource that will turn my teaching and advising career around.

I stole shamelessly from all sorts of very smart people over the years, incorporating tactics and strategies and readings and "rules" into my everyday practice. I'm not sure if those many presenters I admired thought they were "pulling back the curtain" on the Truth in any way or not, but anyone who volunteers to present a session has to have some confidence in what they are proposing or sharing.

That makes this Saturday challenging for me, since I don't have much confidence in anything I might discuss or advocate for in the face of the continuing pandemic, the increasing political pressures, and the overwhelming number of options to explore. Plus, my classroom teaching experience seems like something from prehistoric times (ending in 2010).

I mentioned some specific movies that feature great teachers yesterday. All of them at least begin with students sitting in neat rows of desks, with all the recognizable traditions of education. The teacher stands in front of the room, well-dressed and excited for the day. The students sit sullenly (or alertly, if they were trying to impress the new instructor), daring the teacher to teach them, to engage with them, to break through their protective shells.

In other words, we can all immediately feel comfortable with the basic classroom situation, which helps audiences enter into the spirit of the film until the inevitable twists and dramatic moments occur. Those moments are when audiences are expected to see education a little bit differently and with (maybe?) a bit more hope.

Here's the thing: in every movie the breakthroughs and the emotional moments and the new ideas happen when the movie gets beyond the standard lecture situations where everyone in the room hears and sees the same presentation. The "aha!" moments always require one-on-one conversations, or at least very small groups. 

John Keating (Dead Poets) works with an entire class but only a select few really take his ideas to heart (and perhaps misunderstand them a bit). In the classic final scene, with students standing on desks and repeating, "O Captain, my Captain," I am always struck by the many students in the room who sit with their heads down, not budging from their seats. 

In "Dangerous Minds," it is not until the naïve teacher gets out into the community and begins to understand the complexity of her student's lives that her lessons become more effective and inspiring.

In "To Sir With Love," a sort of team is built by Sidney Poitier, but good storytelling can only juggle so many characters with any depth. Viewers (and readers) can't keep more than a handful of main characters in their heads. We can only care about so many people at once.

Those observations take me back to Ernie Pyle and his advice about covering a sprawling situation, like a war (or school). 

I often think about the many one-on-one conversation I had with students, late into the night as we worked on the latest edition of the paper or yearbook deadline. I think of reading stories line-by-line with writers as we talked through each rhetorical choice and each word choice or syntax selection. I think about the many conversations with students at 9 p.m. or later that had nothing to do with journalism and everything to do with relationships and community. 

I always liked the performance aspect of teaching, of finding ways to get a large group laughing or nodding in agreement or just seeing things in a new light. But those performances were not where education was really occurring. My best teaching happened after school hours.

On Friday I need to decide on what to include in my little presentation and what to leave out. I also need to more fully imagine my audience and what they need and want. It may just be a pep talk from an old geezer who has been around far longer than they.

Some may be hoping for some secrets to be revealed.

They won't be, and maybe that will be the point.