Time and the Student

Examiner column for April 9.

    Teachers are ruled by the clock. When the bell rings we start; it rings again and we stop. Our day is over at precisely the same time every day, and at the end of the year our job is over. Then we go back to the beginning.

    Tick tock, it’s all about time. My column last week argued that teachers have the ability to revise what we do. But that is only partly true. I can teach “Hamlet” differently next year than I did this year, but I can’t teach it differently to the same set of students.

    When we return each year, we are in a new context. On any given day, we’ve been there before, but not exactly. The poems and plays may be the same, but the faces are different.

     Any scientist knows that if you change the conditions of an experiment, you change the outcome. Even if there are many constants---age, school, teaching material---the variables (new students) will affect the learning dynamic.

    Driven by the clock, teachers would like to be able to control the outcome of each year’s class. The formula might be: “If we read x and write y, that will equal z (a pass on the test.)”

    But students are delightfully unpredictable. Some students may love James Joyce and Kafka, while others loathe both. If the class is full of good spirits and fun, as opposed to resistance and contrariness, then there’s a better chance the formula for learning will work. But students don’t fit formulas.

    All year long I cajole them into reading difficult literature. “Can’t we just see the movie?” they whine. Or, “Don’t you realize this isn’t our only class?” Then they flee to Sparks Notes or, worse, get a verbal summary from someone who’s done the reading.

    Yet when given the chance to read a novel that has been made into a film, they usually read the book without the help of Sparks Notes. And when I ask, “Which did you like better, the book or the film?” they invariably answer “the book. It has so much more detail!” I bite my tongue to keep from saying, “I told you so.”

    The best and longest-lived lessons are the ones students learn for themselves. Those differ every year. As much as educators would like to control the learning environment, as much as we standardize curriculum, testing, and expectations, we can’t slot our human subjects into an experiment as though they will reliably react one way.

    It’s different every time we conduct the yearlong experiment we call school. Teachers may be slaves to the clock, but the beauty of teaching is that what’s really important can’t be taught.

    Students will learn, but they won’t always learn what’s taught. That knowledge keeps teachers humble, and keeps us devoted to our profession. We provide what we can, then stand back to watch students’ minds at work.

    Tick tock. Students may follow the clock, yet are not ruled by it. And good teachers learn to teach to the students’ clock and not the one on the wall. Which face would you rather teach to?