A Teacher’s Journey
This is the start of a personal narrative series detailing my quest to be a teacher.
Teachers are drawn to the profession for a multitude of reasons. Some of us played school with our stuffed animals, encouraging them to learn their ABCs. Others came to the profession later in life after a career in the “real world.” Whatever the reason(s), we all share one thing in common: educators believe that they are in service to something larger than themselves; that teaching is about bringing vitality to students and showing them how they can change the world. Even though this is an often-used metaphor, teachers (especially good ones) see themselves as lighthouses, showing students where the rocks are located. The problem with this metaphor is that it gives teachers a false sense of authority in the classroom. Yes, lighthouses are important beacons that illuminate the rocky portions of learning. However, real schooling occurs when heroic educators see their roles within the larger system as a journey of transformation; both for the students and the teacher. According to Joseph Campbell, “we all operate in our society in relation to a system. Is the system going to eat you up?” (Campbell, 1988). So often, the educational system eats up new and veteran teachers. The constant barrage of state and federal initiatives and standardized testing, coupled with the embarrassing lack of funding for classrooms and pay for teachers, forces teachers to burn out early and leave the profession. Many teachers who enter the classroom with high hopes of changing the world, leave feeling dejected and exhausted.
Teaching is a heroic act. In order to persevere, one must understand the epic struggles inherent in changing a powerful and archaic system. Joseph Campbell is correct, we all operate within a larger system; however, in order to live within this dysfunctional educational system without losing our humanity, teachers must be ready for the adventure. Preservice teachers programs do not adequately prepare young teachers to battle a bureaucratic education system. In addition to learning the prerequisite skills of classroom management, instructional practices, and lesson planning, we need to help our educators (both new and seasoned) to be able to use the system toward human purposes; to change the system so that every student, regardless of race, gender, and ethnicity, benefits and thrives.
Joseph Campbell is best known for his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), in which he discusses his theory of the journey of the archetypal hero shared by world mythologies, termed the monomyth. Even if you have never read this book, we all have experienced the hero’s journey, from Star Wars to The Odyssey to the Lord of the Rings. We all have experience rooting for the hero as we watch him/her leave their ordinary world and descend into the extraordinary, overcoming obstacles and ordeals in order to once again return with the elixir. No matter the culture, we all have our heros. As culture evolves, so too does the hero. As society evolves and the world changes, so too does the teacher. We are no longer preparing students for life in a factory. In fact, we are not even preparing students for the 21st Century; we have been living in this century for 20 years! Instead of standing on the rocky shore and shining a beam of light to help students navigate, we need to stand with them, guiding them and letting them lead when necessary. The conditions are ripe for change. The myth that teachers are the only experts in the room is beyond outdated; it is harmful to the vitality of our most precious resources: children. Changing the world is about finding ways to be alive and what better way to be alive then to inspire our next generation of change-makers?
These narrative blog posts will be about my heroic journey as an educator to radically improve public education. Along the way I have met mentors, crossed thresholds, found allies, made enemies, failed ordeals, and experienced rewards. I do not claim to be an expert, nor a hero. However, I have recognized that my journey as a teacher has been (and continues to be) a heroic struggle. I have not transformed public education. There is no end to this journey. I have cycled through Joseph Campbell’s monomyth stages and have returned with many stories to tell. Teaching is a deed done by many dedicated professionals throughout the world. I do not claim to be a better educator than my colleagues; nor do I wish to hold up my experiences as a universal comparison. I am not finished with my journey. I only wish to share my stories and tell of my experience both in the classroom and within the larger education system as an instructional coach. I write blog posts because teaching is worth writing about.
A quick note on comparative mythology and Campbell’s theories. Joseph Campbell’s monomyth has been analyzed for decades and applied to everything from movies to psychology to parenting to literature. In many analyses, the archetype has been referenced and referred to as a particular male idea. I am indeed a male educator; however, my posts will make no arguments about heroes, myths, and their masculinity. Heroes come in every gender, ethnicity, shape and size. Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots at Google’s X Factory, explains that superheroes don’t all wear capes; they are “misfits, orphans and the color of their skin, their age, their gender, doesn’t tell you who they are” (Teller, 2018). The same is true for educators. We are all in this together and no matter what grade level you teach, what state (or country) you teach in, how many years of experience you have in the classroom, we all are heroes.
Another thing that I should address is the idea of the teacher hero narrative. Yes, teaching is a heroic act. Teachers have an incredible impact on their students. However, all of the responsibility for the success or failure of a school system (or even a student) should not be put solely on teachers. Organizational systems are complex. Teaching is a dynamic and synergistic relationship between teachers and students. We have to be careful when discussing teachers using a hero metaphor. In a traditional teacher hero narrative, students need to be saved and the teacher is the savior. This is fraught with a potentially damaging image. For example, although teaching is indeed a heroic act (as I will illustrate from my personal and professional experiences as a teacher), if we glamorize teachers as epic heroes, we ignore the reality that teaching is a rigorous and specialized intellectual practice. Teaching is a heroic act because of the impossible systemic obstacles placed in their way. So, instead of just calling teachers heros, or saying that they are on a hero’s journey, we need to dismantle the obstacles so that great teaching becomes the status quo, not an outlier. Throughout this blog series, I will detail my recommendations for disrupting public education so that extraordinary teaching becomes an ordinary pedagogical practice.
