In Praise of Subversive Teachers

Laura Forish, American School of Paris

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I wanted to live deep and suck all the marrow of life. (Henry David Thoreau, Walden)

As practicing teachers, do we even have time for a walk in the woods, let alone living in the woods? Do we reflect on our days? Why did this lesson work well while that one flopped? Or do we ascribe the reasons to the upcoming dance, the bad weather, or the phases of the moon?

If you’re like me, finding enough time to do all that needs doing in your life is a continual challenge. As a teacher, I rarely leave at the end of the day feeling that everything is done, and the “to-do” list I arrive with in the mornings is daunting. Teachers are always busy and this very busy-ness can get in the way of our effectiveness precisely because it limits the amount of reflection we do.

In thinking about time for reflection we are in the august company of John Dewey. He wrote How We Think (1910; 1933) for teachers and the first edition became the 'bible' of progressive educators in the USA. To Dewey reflection is a “key factor” of how a teacher becomes effective. So why don’t teachers do it?

As a veteran teacher who has given myself some time to reflect, I find that the part of my day that I look forward to is being with the kids, coaching, mentoring, teaching. The before school, lunchtime and after school meetings; the endless reporting, updating of curricular guides, and other paperwork are the things that I dread.

So what can be done?

We know we need more time; time to reflect on our practices, not to mention time for ourselves. So how can we achieve balance in our lives, reduce stress and get more joy out of our chosen profession?

I believe we must allow time for play in our lives. We’ve all been taught the importance of play in the lives of our students. Are we any different? Just because technology has made it possible to work from anywhere, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, doesn’t mean that we should do so. Watching a silly movie, playing a pointless game, reading a trash novel might be just what the doctor ordered.

In addition, just as we teach our students, we need to prioritize. There will always be more papers to correct or more lessons to plan, but quality time with friends and family needs to be figured into our daily lives above those obligations.

We also need to take care of ourselves. In my experience, teachers have some of the worst eating habits; shoveling the calories in while sitting at desks (or computers) correcting student work. And as Thoreau suggested, the occasional time in the woods or other forms of physical exercise are easily more important for teacher well-being than updating that curriculum guide.

Multi-tasking is a twenty-first century buzzword. Judicious use of our laptops during those above-mentioned meetings might allow completion of some of that paperwork that seems so endless.

Subversiveness in the service of better teaching is not a bad thing. Perhaps there are occasions when teachers could “just say no”. “No” I don’t want to serve on yet another committee. “No”, I’m unable to make that meeting. (You get the idea.)

If we focus on the reasons we became and stayed teachers, I think we’ll find that it was to share with children and make a difference in their lives. If we can keep our reasons for teaching in focus, then perhaps making time for what you consider important will become easier.