Ted Leach Draft #1 December 7, 2009

She's getting ready to ask me a question. I know it, because I can see her in the

back of the room, writing notes in that worn leather notebook she carries with her. For

weeks, she's had that notebook, in which she writes everything. I've never looked in it,

but I see her writing. I know she's writing notes about me. What she sees me do. What

she sees the class do. And she's got this knack of asking me the perfect question every

time.

We're sitting in the back of the room, at the makeshift desk I've set for her. She's

got the notebook open in front of her, and she's looking at it. She always does this. She

looks at the notebook, pauses. Sighs a bit, then moves her pen in a semi-circle.

I know what she's doing. She's looking for the perfect question -- the one that

pulls everything together. This is what she's good at -- every day she watches, writes, and

then pulls together the perfect question. The one I have trouble answering inevitably.

"Hmm..." she pauses. I wait, knowing what’s coming.

"Can you tell me how you decide to use group work? When you decide to do a

group assignment rather than individual seat work?"

She's got me.

It's not that I can't answer her questions. I can -- but it takes me the same amount

of time sometimes to answer her questions as it does for her to come up with them.

Sometimes days. And she's always apologetic as she asks them, as she watches me

struggle to find the answer.

"Don't apologize," I say. "It's a good question. It deserves a good answer. Besides

-- if I can't answer this question, then I really shouldn’t be doing this job."

This job, of course, is being a mentor teacher. After 12 years of teaching

students, I suppose I’m now supposed to have some answers. Why else would Bard have

brought me into this program? I’m a Mentor Teacher. I’m supposed to have The

Answers to The Questions.

So I struggle. I think. And eventually I come up with the Answer.

“How do I decide when to do group work? Well, there are a few things that come

into play here. The class, for example. Some classes just aren’t as good at being in

groups as others. They’ll get better in time, the more they do group work. But not on a

Friday. With a vacation coming up, this is not the day to throw the eight period class into

a group. But the sixth period almost needs to be in a group, because they’ll take the

points you’re trying to make and run with them to places you can’t anticipate. And do

you have different ability levels in the class? A cooperative group might be a good fit in

those cases. Have you read Johnson and Johnson on cooperative groups? I’ve got my

copy at home, I’ll bring it in if you want, though I bet there’s something better out there

now.”

That’s what my answers sound like. Sometimes I can distil my thoughts down to

a coherent sound bite. But more often than not, my answers come out in a somewhat

rambling stream of coherence. By the end of it I might have answered the question.

Or perhaps I confused her more. That’ll give her something else to write about in

her journal. Must make seminars fascinating. I remember going to seminar during my

own student teaching. Flash back to 1997, Simmons College in Boston. Meeting once a

week, we’d inevitably spend the first hour of a three-hour seminar venting, griping and

eviscerating whatever idiotic requests were made of us by our cooperating teachers. I

shudder to think what if anything she’s said about me.

I’ve never been good at the straight answer. But I guess that’s because there just

aren’t that many good answers. The questions though, fascinate me.

It took me three or four years of teaching before I really began to develop a

respect for good questions. My department head at the time suggested I read Mortimer

Adler, who had come to the school several years earlier to teach a workshop on Socratic

Seminars. In his book The Paideia Program, Adler wrote that seminars could “be

described in a single word: they are conversations” (17). Adler’s approach hooked me. I

began to prepare for classes by writing out questions. The questions were designed to

evoke further questions. Sometimes I would even create flow charts of questions; one set

of questions to ask if the class went one way, one set to ask if they went another.

Then I began reducing my questions to only two or three. Eventually I got to the

point where I could prepare for my seminars with a few notes on the back of an index

card. The better the questions, the fewer of them I needed. It was about this time that we

also were working on a lot of “Essential Questions.” Predictably, I loved it. I loved the

conversations that flowed from a good question.

As I learned the value of good questions, I learned the fascinating paradox of

teaching. It’s not in having all the answers that good teaching lies. It’s in asking the

right questions. Granted there’s a place for having some answers – and there’s a place

for asking questions that are designed to get the right ones.

But I had learned that when you change schools, or change roles in your school,

you become, for a brief moment, a new teacher again. So, in the fall of 2008, when I

became for the first time a teacher of teachers, I forgot this essential truth for a few

thankfully brief moments. And I struggled with the questions my apprentice posed,

partially because I knew they were good questions, ones that I should be able to answer.

How do I set up my groups? I’m sure I have a better reason than the day of the

week.

And thus the conversation began.

Sometimes it took place in the back of my classroom, long after the students had

left the room. We’d sit, and talk about the lessons, the students. We’d talk about the life

of a teacher, and the need to roll with the punches that the highs and lows of beginning a

teaching career bring.

And sometimes the conversation would continue after she left. Behind the wheel

of my car, driving out of Kingston, through the traffic circle, up Route 28, into the

mountains, I’d continue thinking about the problems we’d discussed. Sometimes I’d talk

them out aloud. I’ve long since stopped apologizing for my habit of talking aloud.

Sometimes those conversations led to a coherent answer. Sometimes they simply

led to more questions. Sometimes, I suspect we didn’t even come close to anything

approximating an answer.

But maybe that’s okay. In 2007, a group of teacher educators identified four

critical stances necessary in beginning teachers; they’re open to collaboration with other

teachers, able to face challenges and find necessary support, deal with the binary tensions

inherent in teaching, and develop their own identity as teachers (NCTE).

All of these essentially reduce to questions.

How do we best collaborate with other teachers?

How do I deal with the challenges of teaching?

How do I balance my personal and professional life?

And most important: Who Am I as a teacher?

These are questions that as teachers we struggle with throughout our careers.

Thankfully, no one demands that we have a coherent, permanent answer. What is

demanded is that we engage in the conversation.

So I’m glad that in my first year as a mentor teacher I managed to stumble my

way to a few answers. I’d hate to think that my apprentices left with an image of

someone who can’t ever give a straight answer.

But, in a strange way, I also hope that when they leave my classroom, they left

with more questions than answers. If they’re okay with that, then I think they’ll turn out

to be great teachers.

Works Cited

Adler, Mortimer J. The Paideia Program. New York: Macmillian, 1984. Print.

“What Should English Education Consist of During the First Years of Teachers'

Careers?” National Council of Teachers of English, Conference on English

Education. 18 Sep. 2008. Web. 7 Dec. 2009.