seem overwhelming, with its enumeration and discussion of challenges, negative statistics, and various hurdles, readers should continue on, as the second chapter of each part will uplift, inspire, and comfort. That is, the second chapter is devoted to finding practical solutions to the problems that I’ve outlined; it offers detailed, research-based suggestions that can improve classroom teachers’ chances of thriving amid change and finding or rediscovering meaning and purpose in their careers. This is where the book will lay out actionable guidelines for teachers, and each strategy will feature a Ride the Wave prompt that asks readers to tangibly articulate and record their thoughts and plans for the next steps through checklists, tables, graphic organizers, and written responses.
Note that strategies and Ride the Wave action pieces are designed to be intensely practical to those who are actively using this text to help address the problems associated with constant change. However, while each strategy or Ride the Wave is intended to facilitate practical assistance, it is not necessary for readers to engage each prompt in order to maximize the utility of the overall text. Teachers are free as classroom practitioners to pinpoint which problems, strategies, and action pieces are relevant to their specific troubles. In other words, each piece serves a purpose independently of the others. While I believe in the efficacy of the designed activities, they are not collectively more useful than when done on a one-by-one basis.
Finally, each chapter in the book will have a brief summary section that, for each why chapter, sums up the challenges or, for each how chapter, reminds us just what we can achieve now that we’re armed with this knowledge and versed in the personal and collaborative fixes.
Recapturing the Magic
This book is a labor of love written by a teacher in the middle of his career. Twenty years in the classroom affords a unique perspective as it situates a teacher in a position as neither a novice nor a veteran on the cusp of retirement. On one hand, the beginning of my teaching career feels like forever ago. When I walked into my very first class, Bill Clinton was president, the 9/11 attacks were still three years from occurring, and Facebook and the iPhone did not exist. On the other hand, retirement and the wonders of a life free from the school calendar’s constraints still feel so far out of reach that there is little use in trying to imagine them.
The good news is the mature perspective that comes from having taught for two decades means I have enough wonderful classroom memories to know that high-sounding phenomena—splendor, enchantment, enthrallment—are not just the province of movies and musicals. You don’t have to visit Hollywood or Broadway to know these phenomena are real. They can, and should, make an appearance in the classroom. Sometimes, in the turbulence of change and disruption, the magic seems to vanish. This book is an attempt—albeit a modest one—to help teachers find this magic and to put it back where it belongs: in the classroom.
PART 1
the self
It’s never overreacting to ask for what you want and need.
—AMY POEHLER
It’s the stuff of an overwrought Hollywood screenplay.
A young man on the cusp of graduating from college has no idea what he wants to do with his life. On Thanksgiving break of his senior year, his elder sister unexpectedly passes away of congestive heart failure. He returns to school to take his final exams emotionally broken, empty, and at a loss. As he walks home by himself from class one afternoon, it hits him as hard as any idea has ever hit him in his entire life. He stops walking. He looks up at the broken clouds that have small sunrays poking through them. Suddenly, time folds in on itself, and he knows—truly, soulfully knows—what he wants to do with his life.
I used to tell this story—my story—to my students to let them know that I consider my job to be a calling, not a simple profession. “You know what happiness is?” I used to ask them. “It’s knowing you are exactly where you are supposed to be in this life. It’s the absence of daydreaming about being somewhere else and about doing something else.”
I stopped telling this story to my teenage students. I figured either they would think I was being dramatic or they wouldn’t know how it applied to them. Over the years, though, I have noticed that most teachers have their own tales to tell about their unique paths to the teaching profession. Their stories show that most teachers consider their craft to be an elemental part of their being. Teaching anchors them. It largely defines them. You can take them out of the classroom, but you can’t take the classroom out of them. Even when they retire, they permanently bear the teacher label. However, when teachers experience constant change in education, it can place strain on their sense of self.
This reality raises a significant, perhaps even decisive, question about the teaching profession: How do challenges affect the teacher label and teachers’ deep-seated, long-held belief that this is a calling?
It is imperative that we identify the origin and scope of the challenges facing teachers in the 21st century and determine how we, as conscientious professionals, can proactively confront these challenges. This process is valid and important no matter where a teacher finds him- or herself in a teaching career. It can help the new teacher in creating a professional identity; the established teacher in remaining relevant and effective in the classroom; and the nearing-retirement teacher in finishing on a positive note and extending his or her legacy. But we can achieve these ideals only if we are permitted—by ourselves and by others—to ride the wave of change by practicing self-care and giving proper attention to our well-being. When we understand the issues affecting teachers and develop healthy habits to neutralize them, it will ground us, sustain us, and allow us to confidently step into the classroom better prepared to serve students.
Ultimately, it is painful when teachers disengage from a profession they once celebrated. In the following pages, we’ll understand why this schism emerges and, more to the point, what to do about it. It is natural as a teaching career progresses to experience decay or even boredom. But what an environment of unrelenting change unleashes is something closer to burnout and despair, propagating a feeling of alienation from one’s own unique motivations for having entered the profession. To prevent such an outcome, a teacher must both notice the wave and learn how to ride it.
CHAPTER 1
Recognizing the Need for Self-Care
The last day of a teacher’s career is instructive for those still teaching. Some teachers enthusiastically reach for the door of retirement without a single moment of pause or reflection. Most soon-to-be retirees, however, take the opportunity to look back at those of us still living the life of a classroom teacher. What they say to us is both fascinating and enlightening because teachers who stand at the door of retirement are usually imbued with a powerful tone of honesty. Sometimes their honesty is brutal, sometimes it is humorous, and sometimes it is inspiring. What they reveal is instructive because it is a form of pedagogic wisdom they wish they had received when they were younger, when they sat where teachers in the middle of their careers now find themselves. Honesty, it seems, can be hard to come by until the twilight of one’s career.
Some remark on how much things have changed in schools and in society. Some reminisce about students and colleagues from long ago. Some tell amusing stories, while others
