Standing in a teacher's shoes
Laura Rompf
Beyond the Bubble
I remember vividly a night in middle school when I went out to dinner with my parents. It took forever to get our drinks, even longer to place our orders, and by the time our food got to the table, it was cold. While my mom, my siblings and I were initially upset by the service, my dad said something that caught my attention: "This place is packed tonight and it's not like she's sitting around doing nothing. Waiting tables is a hard job, and I think it is something everyone should have to do before they can critique service." For the first time that evening, I saw things from the waitress's point of view.
Almost a month ago, I moved 850 miles away from my home of Winchester, Ky., and began my two-year Alliance for Catholic Education experience. While I believe my father's statement was correct for waitresses and waiters, I am seeing even more clearly how true it rings for teachers.
For example, we all know the teachers in high school who may not have been the brightest. They often made mistakes in lecture, couldn't always answer questions and sometimes even conceded to the smart kids in class to draw conclusions about the material.
I never sympathized with those teachers. In fact, I was the first to criticize them. Until now.
My first day of teaching, I handed out reading to my honors students. A little Locke, a little Montesquieu and a little Hobbes. "You don't actually have to read Hobbes' `The Leviathan,' I told my students. "It's a bit long and wordy, and this introduction I'm giving you actually summarizes it well."
A student in the front row raised his hand and quickly corrected me. "I read `The Leviathan' this summer, and I don't think Hobbes is wordy at all." I'm not sure if my mouth dropped open, but I felt my face turn hot and red.
"Is this kid for real?" I thought. "Who in the world reads `The Leviathan' for fun?" For the first time, I regretted giving my high school teachers a hard time. I regretted making one of them feel so dumb that he left the room and screamed, "Fine, then you teach the class!"
As I stood in front of my genius student a little dumfounded and a little embarrassed, I saw from my high school teachers' perspective. Another example comes from last year during my final semester at Notre Dame. I will admit, senioritis had set in and I was more interested in picking out an outfit for Heartland than doing extra reading for my classes. In one class I took, my professor assigned reading and a one-page reflection due at the beginning of class each day. "Am I still in sophomore year Core class?" I thought to myself. "Does she really need to make sure I read?"
While I saw some immediate effects of those assignments last year (i.e., I actually had to read) it wasn't until two weekends ago, when I sat and graded for seven and a half hours straight, that I saw the effects of those assignments on my professor. While I only had to turn in one reflection each day, she had to grade 18 each night. And she did.
Each day of class we would get back a reflection with numerous comments and a grade. Last year, I assumed she was only giving the assignments to be mean and petty and to create busy work for me. However, in actuality, the assignments created more work for her, and only ensured that I gained something from the hour and 15 minutes I sat in class in DeBartolo Hall.
After teaching for only a month, and seeing the hours of lesson planning, grading and reading that goes into the job, I have gained the utmost respect for my previous teachers and professors. It's more work than I ever expected, and I realize now that during the first 22 years of my life, I never had the right to criticize or complain about how an educator did her job. In fact, just like my father's advice about criticizing waiters and waitresses, I believe all critics of educators should first have to teach.
Laura Rompf is a 2002 graduate of Notre Dame. Currently she is teaching in Oklahoma City as a member of the Alliance for Catholic Education. Her column appears every other Monday. Contact her at lrompf@nd.edu.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Viewpoint Stories for Monday, September 9, 2002
