Today Dave Molina (hereafter called “Mo” unless I want to sound more official), who works for the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation, mentioned something in our afternoon meeting that sparked my curiosity. Some background on Mo first: he is a graduate of Amherst College and an alumnus of the Teacher Corps program, having taught and led the Jim Hill Civil Rights/Civil Liberties Club at a school in Jackson, Mississippi, and after a few years became a Project Coordinator (something like second-in-command) for the Winter Institute. He mentioned that he didn’t like the motto that many teachers take upon themselves of serving/helping/changing/saving/enabling/empowering “one child at a time.” This is a significant statement, because the old MTC slogan once was “Making a Difference…One Child at a Time.” It also popped up on my radar as especially important because I had said something similar to my friend Matt from the Naval Academy last night on the phone. It’s troubling to me, and it was troubling to Mo, also.
My questions around it stem from a simple understanding of the teaching environment. How can I possibly have a one-at-a-time attitude if I’m paid to teach a class full of thirty students? How can I possibly take credit and find cause for boasting in one student’s success while I watch twenty-nine fail? How can I take credit anyway, when that student’s success probably wasn’t dependent on me?
Mo, a bit more extreme than I, suggested that it’s ridiculous to take credit for having taught someone who was already excelling above the system before they came to you. It makes a bit of sense: if my student is clearly very intelligent, then it wasn’t I who gave him the intelligence, and then surely it’s not I who rescue him from some privation. But I wouldn’t say I completely agree with Mo’s take on it.
What bothers me most about the one-at-a-time attitude is what it would do to me as a teacher. It would make me teach for the sake of the few brilliant students. I would invest all my hope, all my standards of success, on the coming and going of someone that I really shouldn’t take credit for anyway. I would exalt myself as a savior, an occasional savior. Sure, it does seem likely that I will have a special kind of joy at seeing a student do well, and I would never want to take away from that. I don’t, however, want their brilliance to be my measure for success as a teacher, nor the foundation of my work ethic. If I did go on to teach here, I don’t see myself as a connoisseur picking out the best fish from the net to be “my pride and joy.” I see myself casting a net and heaving it in with all my strength, regardless of what the prediction is for my catch; and I’ll cast where I’m told to cast. I wouldn’t teach with the hope of saying, “Behold, I taught that successful person,” but instead with the persistent joy of having reached out to people that no one else wants to look at. I’m hoping to build foundations in a community, not pedestals.
But after all I am only an inexperienced, idealistic Christian kid. And idealist who rejects, in this case at this time, the one-at-a-time ideal.
And to do this post more justice in little time, I recognize that not everyone means what I implied by reaching out to “one child at a time.” It has some very positive implications, especially in evangelism (another thing I am passionate about) and community service projects like mentoring programs; but those require a different kind of work from teaching in the public education system. I may come to change my mind before the end. If I do, I’ll let y’all know.
My questions around it stem from a simple understanding of the teaching environment. How can I possibly have a one-at-a-time attitude if I’m paid to teach a class full of thirty students? How can I possibly take credit and find cause for boasting in one student’s success while I watch twenty-nine fail? How can I take credit anyway, when that student’s success probably wasn’t dependent on me?
Mo, a bit more extreme than I, suggested that it’s ridiculous to take credit for having taught someone who was already excelling above the system before they came to you. It makes a bit of sense: if my student is clearly very intelligent, then it wasn’t I who gave him the intelligence, and then surely it’s not I who rescue him from some privation. But I wouldn’t say I completely agree with Mo’s take on it.
What bothers me most about the one-at-a-time attitude is what it would do to me as a teacher. It would make me teach for the sake of the few brilliant students. I would invest all my hope, all my standards of success, on the coming and going of someone that I really shouldn’t take credit for anyway. I would exalt myself as a savior, an occasional savior. Sure, it does seem likely that I will have a special kind of joy at seeing a student do well, and I would never want to take away from that. I don’t, however, want their brilliance to be my measure for success as a teacher, nor the foundation of my work ethic. If I did go on to teach here, I don’t see myself as a connoisseur picking out the best fish from the net to be “my pride and joy.” I see myself casting a net and heaving it in with all my strength, regardless of what the prediction is for my catch; and I’ll cast where I’m told to cast. I wouldn’t teach with the hope of saying, “Behold, I taught that successful person,” but instead with the persistent joy of having reached out to people that no one else wants to look at. I’m hoping to build foundations in a community, not pedestals.
But after all I am only an inexperienced, idealistic Christian kid. And idealist who rejects, in this case at this time, the one-at-a-time ideal.
And to do this post more justice in little time, I recognize that not everyone means what I implied by reaching out to “one child at a time.” It has some very positive implications, especially in evangelism (another thing I am passionate about) and community service projects like mentoring programs; but those require a different kind of work from teaching in the public education system. I may come to change my mind before the end. If I do, I’ll let y’all know.
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