Teacher Evolution: Sean Johnston | EDTL 634 | John Commins

It is one thing to believe one can become a teacher, and have

the desire to do so, but as soon as one is thrust into the classroom
then belief has to be converted into actualization. Sink or swim. A first

internship is certainly many things, amongst which it is undeniably a

litmus test. Do I belong here?, is a question that likely crosses the
mind of many entering the profession upon being suddenly thrust in
front of a classroom. For all my confidence and desire to teach, this
question was one I could not answer until I was well into performing
the actual task itself.
I imagine that many young teachers are surprised to discover the
extent to which classroom management defines the profession. I was
no exception in this regard. When one dreams of teaching it is perhaps
natural that ones imaginings dwell more on the enjoyment of
conveying course material or allowing ones own personal expressive
qualities to materialize in the presentation of content. I am quite happy
to report that these imaginings are far from fantasy, that experience in
the classroom indicates that these desires are certainly fully realizable.
At the same time, it is certainly difficult, a priori, to idealize and dwell
on the smooth management of the classroom and the myriad,
fluctuating dynamics that this entails. Yet, one quickly discovers that
being a good teacher has far more to do with how one manages a
classroom than it does with the quality of a powerpoint presentation.
Any idiot can make a powerpoint with nice transitions with all the
course content handed down to us by the ministry on it, my
cooperating teacher told me one day, but actually being in the
drivers seat and doing a good job, now thats the tricky part that not
everybody can do well.
Nobody is going to know how to manage a classroom to the
height of their abilities after their first internship, or even their first
year of full-time teaching (or five more for that matter). It is certainly
more an art than any other aspect of teaching, but I would also claim it
to be something of a science as well. Certainly, much of this science is

gathered through experience in the classroom. Yet, I am weary and

skeptical of teachers who believe, or indicate through their practice,
that it is simply a process one feels out by doing it. Making use of the
considerable empirical research and first-person accounts of effective
teaching strategy is not only very valuable in its own right but also has
the added effect of instilling a self-reflexive quality about ones own
praxis. After all, how does one evaluate the efficacy of new ways and
means without invariably contrasting with ones current approach? One
hears constantly rhetoric about lifelong learning both within the
education field as well as amongst scolding neoliberals who believe
everyone should be prepared to do an entirely new job every few
years. But the teachers who actually live lifelong learning, as opposed
to mouthing empty platitudes, are far more likely to be the more
efficacious and impactful teachers as evinced by any multi-week stay
in a teachers lounge. The teachers who feel they have it all figured out
because they have been at it some years or decades seem to be the
more rigid-types who also tend to inflate their own sense of
accomplishment. These also tend to be the teachers who often display
a reactionary antipathy for theory or chauvinism towards approaches
outside of their own comfort zone. My time in a classroom and in the
school environment has probably more accentuated the teacher I do
not want to become instead of pointing the way towards being the
teacher I desire to become.
As someone committed to social justice struggles both within
and outside the classroom, it was disappointing (though perhaps
inevitable) to witness and experience the weight of institutional
dysfunction and social reproduction before me. Paul Willis Learning to
Labor: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs (1981) is
certainly one of the most important books I have read in education
theory, and, unfortunately, Montreal (or Quebec) with its stratified

education streams and decisive split between public and private,

French and English, and so on proved all too willing to demonstrate
these dynamics before me. It soon became apparent to me that
students at my school were virtually exclusively working-class, and,
perhaps as such, the expectations for educational obtainment was
decisively lower than it probably should be. Many students were
certainly more capable than their output would suggest but the
general lack of expectations or guidance effectively capped their
results. Trying or working harder only meant completing ones
workbook at a faster rate. A general atmosphere of being at this school
because of an inherent lack of ability was prevalent essentially,
conditioning working class students to believe they have little to
complain about once they enter the workforce because they have
already failed at life.
This was certainly a school where Paulo Freires insights into
educational praxis, notably found in his seminal Pedagogy of the
Oppressed (2000), had never been put into practice. Whenever I gave
students the opportunity to demonstrate any autonomy in their work
say, choosing their own topic for a short essay, or choosing from a
number of possible assignments they could do, etc. the general
reaction was befuddlement, if not outright panic. These are students
who had spent the bulk of their lives copying material from one section
of a workbook into another. Perhaps some would argue that these
students are the most incapable of autonomous thought or
independent learning, but I would argue perhaps in a much longer
essay that this is far more reflective of institutional parameters and
approaches. I get the sense that many of these students prior
teachers took the easiest or most complacent approaches to their
education and the weight of that conditioning was not something that
could be easily reversed in an instant. It certainly puts into perspective

how difficult it will be to institute new approaches and self-directed

learning into the classroom, but I hope that once I will be given a class
from the beginning of the year I can begin to reverse some of the
deeply inculcated limitations students are conditioned to accept.

Bibliography
Friere, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London, UK: Bloomsbury
Academic.
Willis, W. (1981).. Learning to Labor: How Working Class Kids Get
Working Class Jobs. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.