What Your Education Degree Didn't Teach You

My degree is in secondary science education with an emphasis in physics.  To earn that degree, I took many courses in educational psychology, theory, and methods.  I had standard general education classes, which I loved.  I took every science class I could fit into every minute of the day.  I even had a zero credit seminar in physics and engineering, which I also loved.  (I think I just really just loved classes, so it is probably good that I made that my life.)

In seventeen years of teaching, every one of those classes has been valuable.  I have never taught an Anatomy class, but I have shared much of what I learned in anatomy with my students, and the understanding it gave me of how light and sound and electricity interact with the human body certainly make me teach the physics differently than I would have otherwise done.  I have never taught English, but writing skills have been important in my life nonetheless.  I enjoy talking about the novels my students are reading and believe it is important for them to see a well rounded life.  I am grateful for everything I did learn in college; but after seventeen years in the classroom, I've come to realize how much I didn't learn while earning my degree.  I'd like to make a few proposals.

Drama - Teachers spend much of their day pretending.  That doesn't mean we aren't genuine with our students, but it is sometimes important to pretend that something is less funny than it is just to maintain classroom management.  Some days, you might not be enthusiastic about the necessary but not thrilling topic of the day (e.g. required steps for showing your work); but it would be detrimental to your students' motivation if you show that.  You might be a single person who has just had your heart broken; it would be unprofessional to bring that into your classroom.  Some days you have to pretend to be in a better mood than you are really in because, while being real is good, being completely transparent is not.  You have to pretend at least a little.  A theater class in improv might prove useful in the development of those skills.

Lab Storage Safety
This one is, of course, meant for science teachers.  My first teaching job was in a brand new building.  We were putting all of our equipment and chemicals on the shelves for the very first time.  While all six science teachers had an understanding of chemistry on a level they could teach, none of us knew the safest arrangement of chemicals on shelves.  We knew that alphabetical was a recipe for disaster, but no one had been trained in proper storage.  I'm guessing that most colleges believe that we will glean this information from our understanding of chemistry, but that is like hoping that we could write a novel in Arabic just be learning their alphabet and a few passages.  There are simply too many combinations chemicals and their compounds.   A semester of lab safety would make us all safer.

Group Crisis Management
In the years I have been teaching, I have taught through a variety of difficult circumstances.  My second year in the classroom, my school received a shooting threat.  I was teaching on 9/11.  Ten years ago, a student in our school died.  During a homecoming pep rally, one of our teachers experienced a serious injury, which we believed at the time to be life threatening.  Recently, one of our teachers has battled cancer.  When we were told on Friday that the cancer had returned, you can imagine what it was like to step into a  classroom of hurting kids while dealing with our own shock and sadness.  When I tell you that I taught through those circumstances, I mean it.  It was not healthy on 9/11 for students to travel from room to room, watching television footage of terror; so I taught science.  When our school was threatened with a shooting even, I couldn't just decide to make the day a wash.  I taught differently, with my eyes alternating from window to door and back again all day, but I did continue to teach.

When we gathered in chapel to be together and ask questions after the death of a student, my friend came by my room with boxes of tissues for us to take with us and said, "Here's something they didn't teach us in teacher school."  She was right, and that should not be.  I know they couldn't have addressed every potential problem, but any teacher who teaches more than a couple of years will experience a class in crisis.  Some training in how to deal with groups of frightened, sad, or angry students just makes sense.

To the people who write degree plans, all the things we learn about content and methods are important, and I am grateful I had them.  The real work of teaching, however, involves much more than I ever learned in college.  Consider adding a few of those "rubber meets the road" type of courses - even a seminar with veteran teachers as guest speakers could be useful.  Please consider.