If you believe that this book will solve the problems with our educational system, or even your difficulties as a teacher, finish reading this sentence, slowly close this book, and put it gently back where you found it, trying to forget that there is no perfect way to educate human beings.
Also, so we are clear, this is a book from a teacher to other teachers. When I say “I,” I mean me, Dr. Paul Marks, a professional (if weird) teacher. When I say “you,” I am referring to fellow teachers who serve in, have served in, or will serve in the classroom. If there are people reading this who are not fellow teachers, they should put on their hats of imagination and place themselves figuratively into the role of a teacher while they read this book.
Be warned, I am quite passionate about our public education system, as I believe that it is a necessary component of the success of our democratic republic. Hopefully, you are reading this because you feel the same. If you feel otherwise, I ask that you take this book and repeatedly bash it into your clueless head until you find some degree of rationality in the rat’s warren of a brain you are currently pretending to use. This is not a matter for debate–let’s start bashing away then.
Education is weird. What's the best way to teach students?
Teaching is magic. Although there is an underlying science behind it and an artistic flourish within it, there is ultimately no certainty that any method of teaching will work with any particular student in any particular circumstance. The same student can have one methodology work for them at one moment only to be completely at a loss at a different time in the same day with the same methodology in the same subject. The same is true for teachers: what works wonderfully in one class might fail spectacularly in the one after it; the same is true from one year to another and is certainly true from one teacher to the next. Anyone who says differently is trying to sell you something.
Thus, as teachers, we need to first work with what works for us. The worst experiences that I have had as a teacher were when I tried to teach like someone else. I’m not saying that collaboration and new ideas are not beneficial, far from it! However, I have been at my most successful as a teacher when I have taken new ideas and combined them with my own ideas in a way that creates my unique educational style.
Our educational style will not work for all students all of the time. As a teacher, you need to be ready to fail and fail often. You need to be ready to be the worst teacher that a student has ever had (or, more often, that a parent has ever dealt with). However, you need to try to reach as many as you can. You also need to adapt as times and students (and you) change. I am not the teacher that I was when I started–for better and for worse, nor will I be the same teacher years from now when they pry the dry erase marker from my cold, dead hands.
On that note, our current educational system is a zombie. Its lifeless, tortured body has somehow still managed to propel itself forward by some mystical means despite being drained of blood and torn apart by one calamity or another. It is a corpse from another time that gets dragged around with less of it left year after year. In short, it needs a resurrection–the inspiration of virtuous purpose breathed back into its new and vigorous body.
… I may have gotten carried away with my metaphor …
Decades of disrespect and negligence from politicians whose care for education is only a weak façade have left our public education system with greater demands and fewer resources. It is only through the sheer determination of inspired individuals that it has managed any level of success. It needs a full overhaul, but it’s like saying that it’s time to buy a new, high tech automobile when we’re barely given the funds for gasoline.
Our schools should be palaces to knowledge and wisdom, not prisons that our students are just hoping to escape. They should be temples of beauty and contemplation that fill our students’ with nourishment for the mind and body, not mausoleums contracted by the lowest bidder with scant supplies and aging resources. As the cornerstone of our society and the foundation of our future, our schools should be the shining beacon of hope for our coming generations, not the leftover vestiges of previous ages. … I think that I've made my point.
So, what would I do with infinite resources?
... That's all that I have so far.