“Teach Children, Not English (dummy)”

My first teaching  job was as a 9th grade prep school English teacher, fresh out of Colgate as an English major, totally inexperienced and unprepared,  and therefore really apprehensive about whether (and how) I could become a good teacher.

Somehow I survived my first year, and so, I hope, did my students, but I kept recalling the verse from Proverbs: “When the blind lead the blind, they both fall in a ditch.”

The summer after my first year, I met Harry Meislahn, the legendary Headmaster of the Albany (NY), Academy, at a party in Lake George.  He was something like 6’4″ tall, looked like he was still a serving Navy Officer (probably Flag Rank), with a face like an eagle’s and absolutely terrifying, piercing eyes – or that’s how I saw him, anyway, as a very intimidated 24-year-old who had just survived his first year as a teacher.  The conversation went something like this:

“Well. young man,” he asked.  “What do you do?”

“I [stammmer, stammer, gulp, gulp, gulp] teach, Sir.”

“Good for you.  And where do you teach?”

[More stammers] “At the Pingry School, Sir.”

“Fine school.  You must say hello to [Headmaster] Larry Springer for me.  And what do you teach?”

“I teach 9th grade English, Sir,” I answered, beginning to think I might escape the interrogation unscathed.  I was wrong.

“You do NOT teach English, young man, or any other subject!” he retorted with passion.  (I’m not sure, but lightning may have flashed from his eyes.)  “You teach STUDENTS!  Pay attention to the Indirect Object in this sentence.  First the children, then the subject! Never forget that.”

I blurted out the required “Yes, Sir.  Thank you Sir (barely resisting the urge to salute), I will always remember that, Sir!”

And I always have.  Of course it’s a balance – teachers who know only their subject have no one to learn; teachers who focus exclusively on the students have nothing to teach.  But at the end of the day, as a parent, I wanted my daughters to be inspired and motivated by a teacher  (which happily, they were.)  If the inspiration is there, the subject matter learning will happen as a consequence.  First the kids, then the subject.

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