Forest Lake teachers who don’t feel appreciated, and parents who find
their teenagers sometimes frustrate them, will love a new book by
award-winning journalist David Awbrey.
Joe Nathan
Education Columnist
Forest Lake teachers who don’t feel appreciated, and parents who find
their teenagers sometimes frustrate them, will love a new book by
award-winning journalist David Awbrey.
In less than 140 pages, Awbrey presents some of the most humorous,
humble, honest writing about public schools I’ve seen in many years.
Aubrey thinks we should have higher expectations of schools, but he
apologizes to teachers for some of the criticisms he and others have
directed toward them. Many will cheer Awbrey’s challenges to teacher
preparation programs.
But people who think we should just return to the traditional
neighborhood school won’t find support in A Journalists’ Education in
the Classroom.
This 30-year, award-winning journalist supports public school choice,
including charter public schools. Although he is much more
conservative than me, Awbrey is one entertaining writer.
For example, “…here I am in a seventh grade social studies class
getting verbally slammed by an insufferable 13-year old who is using me
as a human piñata before 25 other highly amused adolescents.”
Or, try this: “After more than 30 years working for various
newspapers…I decided to teach history in Springfield, MO…I enrolled
at a local liberal arts college noted for its education program,
received my teaching certificate, and entered the classroom with the
idealism and naïveté of a 23-year-old on his first job.
In other words, I was totally unprepared for Marshall Perry (the insufferable 13-year-old).”
Awbrey has covered education in nine states. He’s written editorials
for the Wichita Eagle Beacon (my hometown, where I talked with him a
few times) and the Burlington (Vermont) Free Press. He’s attended
conferences sponsored by the National Governors Association, Education
Commission of the States, and National Council of State legislators.
He’s read hundreds of reports.
Then he decided to teach 7th graders in Springfield. It was not what he expected.
Acknowledging that he wished he had been more effective, Awbrey
describes great teachers as “unique individuals with eccentric teaching
styles (and) a remarkable ability to capture your attention and
interest you in their subject.
None were pedagogical clones engineered by education professors to
kowtow to school bureaucrats or conform to progressive ideology.”
Awbrey loves history. To get 7th graders interested in St. Augustine
and the Middle Ages, he asks, “Who here is a virgin?” (Then he says,
“don’t answer,” but goes on to show how current values were shaped in
part, by past debates).
He tries to convince 7th grade boys to stop calling girls “ho’s”, and
“bitc….” He uses among other things, the medieval Code of Chivalry,
John Wayne, and Luke Skywalker. He praises a 7th grade “princess” for
refusing to “dance dirty, “and tries to guide her toward ending the
“exquisite torture” of less attractive girls. The man knows middle
schoolers, as well as the Middle Ages.
A political and social conservative, Awbrey praises President Barack
Obama for his efforts to promote higher achievement, more public school
choice, and more personal responsibility. The book says schools,
teacher preparation and the broader society need changing if students
are to achieve their potential.
A Journalists’ Education in the Classroom is ideal for an educator who
feels folks don’t understand classroom reality. It’s a wise, wonderful
warning for someone preparing to be a teacher.
And for anyone who wants insight into what may and may not make a
difference in public schools, it’s a hugely entertaining, insightful
read.
Joe Nathan, former public school teacher, administrator, PTA
president, parent of 3 public school graduates now directs the Center
for School Change at Macalester College. Reactions welcome,
jnathan@macalester.edu
