Working to the Hardest Rule

Examiner column for March 20.

    Teaching is one disjunction after another. One day you’re high, the next you’re low. One lesson works, the next bombs.

    Tuesday, Oakton High School received news that a beloved colleague succumbed to pancreatic cancer. He loved teaching, and he loved students.

    Yet he died relatively young from cancer. Sometimes, life is not fair.

    Despite our mourning, we carried on business as usual. Facing youth day after day means teachers learn to hide personal trauma and ride the “teacher train” until we can get off for the weekend.

    On Wednesday, I read the newspapers. No big school news.

    Halfway through the day, two students asked if I planned to stay after school or would be “working to the rule.” That was the first I’d heard of it.  Fairfax teachers had no such instructions from the unions.

    When I arrived home late, my husband remarked, “Well---you clearly didn’t ‘Work to the rule!’”

    I read with interest the next day’s news story about teachers who “worked to the rule” to protest cuts in the school board’s proposed budget.

    All of this was news to Oakton teachers.

    So the union event that never happened, at least at my school, was the second disjunction of the week. That didn’t prevent the media from covering it thoroughly.

    The last disjunction was my umpteenth career conversation with a senior class on whether an interpretation of a poem can be “wrong.” In this era of relativism and fear of poetry, teachers have a hard time convincing young people that close reading of words on the page reveals meaning.

    Students would like it all to be a matter of “opinion.” That way, close reading is unnecessary.

    There are many ways to interpret poems, but all aren’t equally consistent or valid. Some see nuances of language and tone more effectively than others. Their Advanced Placement essays will be judged by this high standard.

    It’s an argument I know I will lose in the minds of students who think teachers grade in random and arbitrary ways. But I like the inquiry-based model, and always hope that students’ minds stay open until they have enough experience to decide for themselves.

    However, when a student asks, “Is there an answer sheet that tells teachers what poets meant when they wrote a poem?” it’s time to move on. At that point it’s no use quoting John Ciardi, who said it best decades ago: “A poem is a poem is a poem. But it is not an inkblot.”

    Moving on. That’s what teachers do best. We try to move past personal pain and loss, political controversies---both real and imagined---and, most of all, that sense of déjà vu when we realize we have had this same classroom discussion before in 1995, or last week.

    Because the REAL disjunction is the one that puts us before new faces, like a Broadway play in its third year that must remain fresh. We grow older and more experienced, but our students are forever young. And every day is new to them. Recognizing that these disjunctions can’t matter is the hardest rule teachers work to.

 

Comments

[Huy]

“A poem is a poem is a poem. But it is not an inkblot.”

I really like that quote, it's so true! It reminded me of Emerson's quote, "Poetry must be as new as foam and as old as the rock," which I also love.

[Adriana]

I'm going to print this out and keep it forever. Thank you!

[Erica]

What a nice compliment. Thanks, Adriana!