The Stature of Teachers
Michelle Tremmel,SLATE Newsletter Editor

Reflective teachers are constantly evaluating their teaching, trying to assess how their practices may be helping or hindering students’ learning and modifying these as a result of that reflection.  I wonder, though, how often we dig more deeply and consider what we mean when we call ourselves “teacher,” what fundamentally that name implies and what qualities “teacher” takes on when we couple it with the descriptor “good.” This question of what makes a “good teacher” came up for discussion at the annual affiliate meeting in August in relation to the increasing pressures on teachers in an age of relentless testing.  As I thought about the frustrating dilemma this question suggests, I found myself pondering various conceptions, definitions, and metaphors of teacher.

In doing so, I remembered a thought-provoking article by Andrea Ickes-Dunbar in a Fall 2001 National Forum special issue called “Teachers Teaching.”  To begin this piece, Ickes-Dunbar lists some familiar metaphors connected to teachers and the work they do (e.g. “sage on the stage,” “coach,” “mother hen,” “sculptor”).  Then she develops her own teacher metaphor: “river guide.”  She points out, for example, that both are trip organizers who must be “strong, fit, and well-trained,” as well as “steadfastly cheerful and supportive.”  During a journey in which they need to be “an expert paddler,” she adds, they also need to give those with whom they travel as many opportunities to “paddle themselves” along the way.  I like these and other ideas about the role of a teacher that Ickes-Dunbar paints with her metaphor, and this got me thinking more about how to answer that question about what makes a teacher effective in today’s challenging educational world. 

At a time when many others (among them government officials, business leaders, educational administrators, parents, and students) are all making judgments about who teachers are and what they should be and do, I would suggest that teachers now more than ever need to define for themselves what the label “good teacher” means in order to proactively deal with testing issues like the ones discussed at the affiliate meeting and at nearly every session and meeting I attended at last fall’s NCTE convention, as well as other policies that affect our work with students.  In a piece elsewhere in this newsletter, Don Mayfield offers his thoughts on this topic, and here I will articulate some of my own.  Ultimately, I hope both these pieces will spark other teachers to think and talk further about not only the job of teaching but also the essence of “teacher.”  Such self-definition seems key to figuring out how we will manage and respond to the ideas of others whose actions impinge on us and our students.  In fact, I believe we cannot be autonomous agents who can act on our own and our students’ behalf to institute educationally sound practices until teachers take this step, both individually and collectively.

For my part, I’ve been thinking about teacher identity in terms of stature, rather than the more typical status.  Although talking about teachers in terms of their relative status--or lack of it--in educational, social, and economic hierarchies is common, it strikes me that shifting the discussion to a focus on individual stature, instead, may give us another way to reflect on who a teacher is and should be.  When I think about stature in its various meanings and the teachers I’ve had over a lifetime, I come first to my mother and her mother, who, though they are small in physical stature--both shorter than four feet eleven--continue to be my greatest teachers.  Neither is an English teacher (nor a teacher of any kind by training); and, in fact, English is not their native language, both having been born and raised in Belgium and settling in the United States only after WWII.  Regardless, they have shown me that a teacher, even one who appears to be unimposing can be incredibly strong and determined.  Teachers can attain stature through growth, development and achievement, rather than because of height or from someone else's ranking of them.

From them, I have also seen that a teacher, more by example than by anything he or she says, can instill a thirst for knowledge and a desire to be a life-long learner.

I also have seen others who, though short in physical stature, have a very tall teacherly stature because of the strength of their convictions and the caring they show to others.  One was my first grade teacher, Sr. Patrice, a Dominican nun who stood five feet tall or less but orchestrated learning in such a kind, firm, creative way that I still remember much of what happened in her classroom almost forty years ago.  She was strong but also communicated real love and caring that inspired students.  Two other “short people,” as the Randy Newman song puts it, are women with whom I came into only brief contact at this last NCTE convention but who, from what I could see of one and from what I could see and have read of the other, embody the same caring, determined, energetic, and courageous qualities I noticed  in the finest teachers in my own life. 

The first, Vera L. Wallace, an English teacher at Curie Metropolitan High School in Chicago, is also not physically very tall.  Nonetheless, last fall she stood tall against the Chicago Public Schools’ testing machine and spearheaded a protest against the district’s faulty standardized tests in language arts.  Along with twelve other English teachers (of twenty-four) in her building, she wrote a letter refusing to give the upcoming district tests, spurring an investigation into the exams that ultimately supported these teachers and seriously questioned the validity of the whole testing program.  Even though Wallace, along with her colleagues, knew her job was on the line, she refused to compromise her principles and stood up for students, making her a very tall beacon of light and inspiration to all teachers. 

The second small person whom I had the awesome opportunity to hear talk at the conference was the giant-of-a-figure in our field, Louise Rosenblatt.  Because her revolutionary reader response theories are well-known, there’s not much more for me to say here about the accomplishments of this formidable figure who, had there been a podium in the room in which she spoke, would have had trouble seeing above it.  However, I can say from a personal standpoint that in watching her talk so articulately and energetically, despite her age, I saw yet another example the epitome of stature, a person large in heart and mind who, though long past the age of retirement, continues to teach through her lust for life, her intellectual curiosity, and her passion for justice.  Rosenblatt is still so busy doing her work--including writing letters and meeting with government officials about current educational policy like the so-called “No Child Left Behind” legislation--that all she had time for in preparing her NCTE talk was to jot down a few thoughts on a file folder.  Though she apologized for not having a “proper paper” to give, her approach to this speaking engagement served as a far better model for us of what a “good teacher” is and of what’s important in our profession than any carefully developed argument could do.  As she spoke, Rosenblatt towered over the audience, and even from the back of the room, her palpable vitality and love of learning and learners were inspiring.

Earlier the day of Rosenblatt’s talk, I heard C. H. Knoblauch call teachers “citizen intellectuals,” but I’m not sure that we always think of ourselves in these terms.  Whether we’re physically short or tall, teachers often feel small, underappreciated, and powerless, more like “second-class citizens” than “citizen intellectuals.”  What I have learned about what it means to be a teacher from my mother and grandmother, my first grade teacher, Vera Wallace, and Louise Rosenblatt, however, suggests that all teachers need to see themselves as having stature, regardless of their status, or placement, in some hierarchy.  If we define for ourselves who we are and what we are all about, rather than allowing others to define us—and gauging what we can and cannot do in terms of them—we may feel more empowered to advocate for practices we know are good for education and our students.  This won’t eliminate the pressures and power structures that so affect us, but it may give us the confidence to imagine creative ways to interact and have some positive impact on those external forces.  Believing in our stature as professionals, we may not only navigate educational waters set out before us, as Ickes-Dunbar’s river guide does, but also find the courage to fight the currents that seem dangerous and work toward changing the river’s course.