Mike Parker: Approach of school opening makes me miss the classroom
A little more than nine years ago, I said good-bye to my students and my classroom at Farmville Central High School to enter the world of retirement. After sitting out the required six months, I started teaching again – part-time in the English Department at East Carolina. My last class at ECU was May 2018. Since then, I have been fully retired.
What turned my mind to this subject is a contact with a former ECU student, Michael. He messaged me through LinkedIn. After a few exchanges, he even asked if I would take a look at some of the stories he was writing and “make them bleed.”
Now, I was never one to grade with a red pen. Red ink looks too much like blood. Red sends the wrong messages, such as “danger” and “stop.” I tried using green ink for a while, subliminally encouraging students to “go” and “grow.” Then I settled on using blue and black ink to mark papers.
Michael was one of my best students. He worked hard. He willingly and gratefully accepted constructive criticism. No writer becomes better when the only feedback he or she receives is positive. Good editors always see ways writing can be improved. I did my best to be honest, but not be brutal and soul killing.
After our LinkedIn conversation was over, I thought about how fulfilling teaching was. I enjoyed seeing the proverbial “light bulb” flash on when a student had an insight. I could always tell which students went through the motions to “complete” an assignment and which students poured themselves into their work.
When I taught Julius Caesar to my English II students, I pointed out the passage where Caesar says, “Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.”
I paused and said: “My job is to make you dangerous – to make you think deeply, critically, and to accept nothing at face value.” Education is not a hunt for random right answers. Education is about building a knowledge base so all facets of reality can be woven into an understandable whole. One of today’s educational failings is the overemphasis on technology over amassing knowledge. The “I can Google it” attitude is far too prevalent in students today as a way of dismissing putting information in their heads.
When students argued that they did not have to remember things they could Google, I tapped my head and said:
“My Google works faster.”
I miss challenging students to think. One time I asked students at ECU to give me a rational explanation as to why some months have 31 days, other months have 30 days, but February has only 28 days. I always enjoyed posing questions that left them dumbfounded. After a while, I asked:
“How many months have 31 days?”
“Seven,” they answered.
“How many months have only 30 days?”
“Four,” they responded.
“What is seven times four?”
“Twenty-eight,’ they said.
“So now you have a rational explanation for why February has only 28 days.” They looked shocked.
“Of course, what I just told you is total bunk,” I said. Laughter erupted across the room. “But it was rational, wasn’t it? Rationality is not the be-all and end-all of everything. Learn to look more deeply than surface rationalism.”
Once when I was teaching the concept of tone to my ECU students, I played a video of Jeff Foxworthy and his “Redneck Test.” Then I read a selection from Lewis Grizzard, a loving tribute to the most important and influential man in his life, his redneck granddaddy. When I finished that selection, not a dry eye was in the room. The lesson so impressed a previous student that when he wrote to me years later, he mentioned this experience and how moving he found it.
What I miss most about teaching is touching the lives of my students.
Students like Michael and so many others like him.
Mike Parker is a columnist for Neuse News. You can reach him at mparker16@gmail.com.
