Questions
description
Transcript of Questions
Qu estio n sBy Edward Leach
In his first year as a mentor teacher,
the author learns that he doesn't always
need to have the perfect answer.
?o?
o
She's getting ready to ask me a question. I know it, because
she's staring into that leather notebook of hers. For weeks,
my first student teacher has filled pages in that notebook.
I've never looked in it, but I'm sure she's writing notes
about me. What she sees me do. What she sees the class
do. And she's got this knack of asking me the perfect ques-
tion every time.
She looks at the notebook, pauses, sighs, and moves her
pen in a semicircle. I know what she's doing. Shet looking
for the perfect question-the one that pulls everything
together. This is what she's good at. Every day she watches,
writes, and then pulls together a question I carit answer.
"Hmm..."Shepauses.
I wait, knowing what's coming.
"Can you tell me how you decide to use group work?
When you decide to do a group assignment, rather than
individual seat work?"
She's got me again.
It's not that I can't answer her questions. I can. But it
sometimes takes me as much time to answer her questions
as it does for her to generate them. And she's always apolo-
getic as she asks them, as she watches me struggle to find
the answer.
"Don't apologize," I say. "Itt a good question. It
deserves a good answer. Besides, if I can't answer this ques-
tion, then I really shouldnt be doing this job."
This job, of course, is being a mentor teacher. After 12
years ofteaching students, I'm now supposed to have
answers for student teachers. Why else would Bard College
have brought me into this program?
So I struggle. I think. And eventually I come up with
an answer."Horv do I decide when to do group work? Well, there
are a feu'things that come into play here. The class, for
example. Some classes just arent as good at being in groups
as others. They'Il get better in time, the more they do group
work. But not on a Friday. With a vacation coming up, this
is not the day to throw the eighth-period class into a group.
But the si,rth period almost needs to be in a group, because
they'll take the points you're trying to make and run with
them to places you cant anticipate. And do we have differ-
ent ability levels in the class? Of course we do, so a coopera-
tive group might be a good fit. Have you read . . . oh, I can't
think of their name, but they wrote ^
grezt book on cooper-
ati\,r groups. I ve got my copy at home. I'11 bring it in if you
want, though I bet there's something better out there now."
26 MAT PROCRAM
She nods. Does she buy it? In my best seminar-leader
style, I have attempted to cover my babbling response with
a softball question to her. She responds. I listen, nod, and
shortly wete into a good conversation about cooperative
groups and 10 other topics ofinterest. Forty-five minutes
later, we need to wrap it up. She's got a seminar, and I need
to go pick up my daughter.
I've never been good at straight answers. But I love
good questions.
It took me three or four years ofteaching before I
really began to develop a respect for good questions. Lynne
Laffie, then my department head at Newburyport High
School, suggested I read Mortimer Adler, who had come to
the Massachusetts school several years earlier to teach a
workshop on Socratic Seminars. In his book The Paideia
Program, Adler wrote that seminars could "be described in
a single word: they are conversations." Adler's approach
hooked me. I began to prepare for classes by writing out
questions. The questions were designed to evoke further
questions. Sometimes I would even create flow charts of
questions: one set of questions to ask if the class went one
way, one set to ask if they went another. Then I began
reducing my questions to only two or three. Eventually I
got to the point where I could prepare for my seminars
with a few notes on the back of an index card. The better
the questions, the fewer of them I needed. At about this
time our seven-person department began writing essential
questions for our courses. Predictably, I loved it. I loved the
conversations that flowed from a good question.
As I learned the value of good questions, I learned the
fascinating paradox of teaching. Good teaching does not lie
in having all the answers. It's in asking the right questions.
Granted, there's a place for having some answers, and
there's a place for asking questions that are designed to get
the right answers.
But in the fall of 2008, when I became a new teacher
ofteachers, I forgot this essential truth for a few, thankfully
brief, moments. And I struggled with the questions my
apprentice posed, partly because I knew they were good
questions, ones that I should be able to answer.
How do I set up my groups? I'm sure I have a better
reason than the day of the week. And thus our conversation
began.
Sometimes it took place in the back of my classroom,
long after the students had left. Wed sit, and talk about the
lessons, the students. Wed talk about the life of a teacher,
and the need to roll with the punches that the highs and
lows that beginning a teaching career bring.
And sometimes the conversation would continue after
she left. Behind the wheel of my car, driving out of
Kingston, through the traffic circle, up Route 28, into the
mountains, I'd continue thinking about the problems we had
discussed. Sometimes Id talk them out aloud. Sometimes
those conversations led to a coherent answer. Sometimes
they simply led to more questions. Sometimes, I suspect, I
didnt even come close to an)'thing approximating an answer.
But maybe thatt OK. In 2007 a group of teacher educa-
tors from the National Council ofTeachers of English iden-
tified four critical stances necessary in beginning teachers:-open to collaboration with other teachers;-able to face challenges and find necessary support;-deal with the binary tensions inherent in teaching;
-develop their own identity as teachers.
All of these essentially reduce to questions. How do we
best collaborate with other teachers? How do we deal with
the challenges of teaching? How do we balance our personal
and professional lives? What does it mean to be a teacher?
These are questions that engage us throughout our careers.
Here's one binary tension of teaching: once you answer
one of these questions, you probably need to revisit it. Like
the proverbial river or the curriculum map wete now revis-
ing, the answers to these questions are fluid, different for
everyone, changing with time. So I learned in my first year
as a mentor teacher that I dont always need to have the per-
fect answer. What's needed is to welcome our new colleagues
into the professional conversation that is taking place among
all those who care deeply about teaching and learning.
So maybe it's a good thing that my rambling
responses led to some interesting conversations. Hopefully,
we'I1 find a few answers along the way. And when those
answers no longer suffice, we'll go back and taik some
more. That's how we learn.
Works Cited
Adler, Mortimer J. The Paideia Program. New York:
Macmill ian, 1984."What Should English Education Consist of During the
First Years of Teachers' Careers?" National Council of
Teachers of English, Conference on English Education.
September 18.2008.
FIELD NOTES 27