Harper’s: The Re-Education of an American Teacher
This essay in the September 2011 issue of Harper’s is an eloquent, extended retort to all those who, in big ways and in small, in rhetoric and in policy, would demonize public school teachers or undermine the public education system itself.
Retired teacher Garret Keizer goes back to teach high school literature in a relatively stable, decently funded public school system in Vermont. In other words, as public schools go, he’s working in fairly ideal conditions.
Still, he says, the job is so hard he suffers from anxiety as he confronts not only the day-to-day difficulties of teaching — lesson plans, getting the kids to enjoy reading — but also the realities of what many of his students confront in their daily lives, at school and at home. He talks of students who come from homes where domestic violence is the norm, students so tired from working the farm that they fall asleep at their desks, students forced to parent younger siblings. He talks about a principal who walks every kid out to the bus stop each day, and who stays late to prepare even more for the next day. Of teachers having to follow silly rules that have little to do with learning and everything to do with taking tests or with satisfying some politician’s latest whim about “what works in education.”
It’s an eye-opening piece, made all the better by superb writing that conveys Keizer’s deep sense of duty to be there, in every way, for these students. It’s heartbreaking, but uplifting as well. I don’t do it justice here, but this one essay is worth the price of a year’s subscription; at the very least, it’s worth heading out to pick up the issue.