My Greatest Success as an English Teacher

 

"Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime."

Although it was nearly thirty-four years ago, I remember most vividly the queasiness I felt when the principal asked me to fill in for Mr. Koy’s Algebra 1 class for the second semester. Queasiness partly from being an English teacher asked to teach mathematics to a ninth-grade Algebra class full of students who had failed the first semester, and queasiness from realizing that I had been a C and sometimes a B- math student in high school.

“Into the breach,” I mumbled as I entered the class the first day. I pushed the large gray steel desk aside with the help of students eager to do anything other than Algebra. Now I was facing a group of students waiting, looking at me to decide whether they would like me or not. I took a seat, opened the Teacher’s Edition (the book with all the answers), looked at the Table of Contents briefly, shook my head, and said: “Oh God, I HATE ALGEBRA!” Whoops of joy ensued, but I had their attention; they, at that moment, knew I was on their side. I regaled them with the rather horrific stories of my own math education, complete with my Calculus teacher who lectured and smoked Camel straights in class, being careful to stand by a window and blow smoke out into the early morning air while yelling at me for my inadequate homework solutions I wrote on the chalkboard. I dramatized my utter demoralization at the hands of Mr. Warner, my algebra teacher, who arranged the class with the students with the lowest grades at the front. I was in the front row the entire year.

Finally, I said I would not be teaching them since I was clearly unskilled in all things algebraic. Instead, grades would be assigned based on how well they succeeded in teaching me. They would be the ones to get me to dance at the board and correct my equations; in short, the class became the teacher, and the teacher became the class. They would score my homework and grade my exams. The class chose for themselves the sections they would teach and be responsible for explaining to me (and the rest of the class) what I so clearly did not already know. My overall grade became 85% of each student’s grade. The final 10% would be a standard final grade on a high-stakes exam they would take at the end of the semester. 5% would be an evaluation by their peers on how well they accomplished their goal: to teach the teacher Algebra.

 Longer story shorted to 451 words: I learned Algebra at the hands of some of the most capable math teachers I have ever encountered.