Response to Literature
Sally Cain

Learning to Teach Writing: Practicing Research for Researching Practice
Salzman Center Literacy Award Ceremony
Hofstra University
April 26, 2005

Patricia Lambert Stock
Professor of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures
Professor of English, and
Adjunct Professor of Education
Michigan State University

Response to Literature
The Making of a Teacher Researcher

            Professor Stock has an easy writing style – speaking style. This paper seems to be a copy of a speech that she made at an award ceremony. Beginning with a description of her teacher training, or lack thereof. I found the idea of training in the 60’s to be almost embarrassing, like teaching was not an actual career, merely a fanciful playtime that resulted in a paycheck. The training I received in 1979 was much more rigorous and professional.

            This said, Professor Stock’s first year experiences were not unlike my own. She had only 180 hours of student teaching in comparison to my 170 days. I still felt ill prepared for the challenges of working with a diverse group of 35 fourth graders. She was placed in a classroom where the teacher had resigned, I was also in a class in which the teacher transferred so he could avoid them. Professor Stock told a story of her awakening in the art of teaching and communicating. She gave an account of learning to learn from her student as a beginning to her career long quest of educational inquiry of refining the art of teaching.

            His name was Charles. The first year I taught, it is Charles, I will always remember. Charles was scrawny, skinny, short, scraggly and unkept. He spoke like a frog. The first day of his kindergarten year he approached his teacher, pointing in her face, and said, “Hey teach, you just try to tell me what to do…I have my right’s you know. Fucking A.” Things must have gone from bad to worse because it was only a matter of weeks before the teacher had placed him out of regular education and into a full time special education classroom.

            Charles entered regular education right into my classroom being given no extra support. My class was packed, more kids than desks. I was scared to death. I was hired two days before the students arrived and I remember looking at the huge blank bulletin boards and wondering what on earth to fill them up with. That was all the show part. It was every night, working until midnight, making curriculum and trying to keep up with the grading of 35 papers.

            Charles was a challenge. When I asked the class to take out their math books Charles would toss his papers to the floor, cursing and swearing as he tumbled the contents of his desk to the ground grumbling all the while about the darned math book. On one hand he was hilarious. He could barely keep up with the classwork and his emotional outbursts did nothing to help him. I worked with him all year and was so proud when he finally began to get it. He owed me two minutes for every  minute he wasted with his antics. I had worked hard with the class to teach them all to ignore the outbursts.

            Finally, my evaluation day. Charles was under much better control. My principal came in to observe and of course Charles had a fit. The class reacted in perfect harmony. Charles announced, “I know I owe the Mrs. four minutes, I know , I know.” As he started to work.  I was so proud. Then my principal stood up, he was on the move. He walked over, yanked Charles up by the shoulders, right off the ground. He shook Charles and tossed him into the hallway. He stormed back into the classroom, all of us, students as well as myself, standing there with our mouths open wide enough to catch flies.

            “Mrs. Myers! What are you thinking. Where is the dunce chair and cap?” he bellowed.

            I didn’t answer…wrong reply it turned out. I stood there not knowing what to think or say. My students were in an equal state of shock. I was written up with a terrible comment by him. He was furious with me and wanted to fire me. The superintendent was on my side, he saved my job and eventually transferred me to another school.

            So, what was my research inquiry question going to be in regard to this situation? I knew that I had made an impact on Charles. For years to come I would run into Charles and he would ask, “Well, how’s the Mrs.?” We would visit a bit. He would ask intelligent questions or comments like, “I didn’t know that teacher’s ate pizza?” or “So, remember that fifty cents you loaned me in the fourth grade? I still can’t pay you.”

            There were many moments of brilliant light when Charles learned to work a division problem or read a new book. The teaching moments were less important to me than the emotional growth that Charles showed that year. Looking back on Charles I think that the questions he stirred in me, as a brand new teacher, were about the intertwined role of teacher and counselor. The role of teacher was expected and planned for carefully. The role of role model, shaper of character and builder of self esteem were a surprise.

            After a year of student teaching and teacher training, I was completely ill prepared for this emotionally draining environment. I was raised in a middle class home where I never knew hunger or fear of being deserted. I never thought about police taking away a parent or being left unattended. Homework was expected and parents gave love, confidence and more guidance than I really wanted. How was I supposed to relate to a father who was recently released from prison, drove a Harley and had more tattoos than brown skin.

            Charles’s father was scared to parent. He looked to me for answers. I was so very green, so new at this teacher thing that I was even more scared. But, scared was no excuse for inaction. Love was the only answer I had. So, I loved Charles no matter what. I taught him. I put him in starring roles in our class play. This little frog voiced boy who touched my life.

            I look now at the many years of teaching and I wish I had found the group of teachers who would encourage me to investigate the art of teaching. Professor Stock learned that “tapping into students’ prior experiences, knowledge, and interests positions students to invest themselves in their learning and that students who are invested in their learning are often successful learners.” She learned this as the end of the story she shared. The “histories distinguish teacher research from other educational research by indicating that teacher research makes knowledge by and for teachers and their students, rather than about them.” I have stories, but do I have conclusions, endings?

            The teacher as a teacher researcher influences what we study. Professional Learning Communities are supposed to help with this kind of discourse. I wish I could participate with the other teachers in my district, to see what the PLC is really doing. I believe that these organized meetings are ineffective in my district because the teachers do not fight for them. The teachers complain about making lesson plans for substitutes and wasting their time on these meetings. So, if the PLC doesn’t work in action, in a real school district, then where do I find this kind of challenge?

            I find this kind of conversation by taking the Northern California Writing Project of the Siskiyous. I find the discussion of teaching and the act of writing about the stories of my life. There are meaningful stories in my past that need to be worked on, worked out and given the power to guide my practice. The conversation that will open the conversation, sustained conversation as taught by Professor Stock.