Out with the Old Techne, In with the New
The training was over. One of the teachers was having quite a reaction to it. Standing in the hallway after exiting the meeting room, she leaned against the wall, sobbing.
She was literally crying, aghast at the realization that after all of the years she’d been teaching, she never knew that her preparation program had sold her a story.
She had been given a credential to teach in elementary school, but nobody had bothered to teach her how to teach reading!
She’d been flying blind all those years. If she had been a carpenter who had built unsafe houses with families living in them and people were hurt, she would feel horrible. This was worse. She had lost trust in her superiors who were responsible for telling her what to do. And just look at all the damage she had done unwittingly. She hadn’t known. Nobody had told her!
A sympathetic teacher who attended the inservice for a refresher noticed her and came over to cheer her up. There was much to know about teaching phonics. She had been grateful for the experts who had finally told her the secrets. She now knew about the magic of open and closed syllables, and the knowledge saved her teaching career. Here is what she said to her colleague.
Her colleague stopped sniffling, happy to learn she was not alone. Someone else had been victimized by the system. How had those uncaring professors in credential programs kept their jobs? Their bosses should have fired them. She wanted, née, needed to hear more.
Feeling safe with her new friend, she wiped her eyes. With time, it would all be a bad memory. She felt a fresh wave of hope all over her body. Her colleague went on to talk about how she had sleepwalked into her first teaching job. She hesitated to accept the offer.
The older teachers tried to dissuade her from taking the Science of Reading training the first time, she said. They had learned the ropes long ago and didn’t want to change a thing. The peace that comes with surrendering your selfish desire to improve yourself and going on autopilot had settled in. Here is what they had said.
This time, after her first training, when they mocked her for wasting her time with a second training, she had a comeback for those teachers who were marking time, punching a clock. She would poke at their conscience, stir up a little well-deserved guilt.
It was all making sense now to the sobbing teacher, this simple view. It put her mind at rest. At least someone knew what to do.
She began to see a future in teaching now. She would not have to think about it, not have to wonder if she was doing it right, not be crushed by the awful responsibility of teaching young children to read. Thank heavens for scientists. No more confusing questions that gave her a headache. And the bosses were moving in the right direction. All was well, at least for a moment.
