Do you believe in magic?

Written by: Brian Garfield

“Mr. Garfield, do you believe that unicorns are magic?” 

         I was in my first week as a brand new teacher of English as a second language.  Even though I had spent my entire summer with the DC Teaching Fellows being exhaustively trained on how to answer every conceivable question my students could throw my way, my training had not quite prepared me for this one.  Ngan, an inquisitive first grader from Vietnam, was making me work hard for the money.

       I quickly scanned my brain for the right approach.  The wrong reply to a question as crucial as this could ruin my entire year.  Since I was teaching in our nation's capital, a few blocks from Embassy Row at Hearst Elementary School, I made a snap decision to go the diplomatic route.  I turned the question back to her: “Do you believe in unicorns?”  

    “Of course, Mr. Garfield.  Everyone who knows anything believes in unicorns.” 

      Humbled, I pushed on with our lesson on animal names.  I didn't know it then, but my exchange with Ngan would prove the first of many interactions with my precocious pupils in which the teacher would become the student.  Thanks to the DC Teaching Fellows program – and to dozens of students like Ngan – my life as a first-year teacher has been as rewarding as it has been humbling. 

 

            I made the career change into teaching after serving as a lawyer in the Army JAG Corps.  The training I received during a summer of intensive coaching and hands-on classroom instruction was like boot camp for teachers.  Along with a hundred other teaching fellows, selectively culled from a pool of over a thousand applicants, I spent my summer days in a strict routine: rise with the sun to prepare for the day, teach summer school until 1500 hours, and then, after scrambling for an afternoon coffee, launch into several more hours of training with Teaching Fellows instructors.

 

            Though the routine was strict, it was never predictable.  My students were mostly English beginners, and the challenge of engaging them required equal parts discipline and flexibility.  Because my students were new to the language, my first task was to break down their “affective filter” – educator-speak for the wall that beginners erect as a defense mechanism for dealing with the discomfort of expressing themselves.  Because of these filters, many of my students didn't speak much during the first week of school.  But the Teaching Fellows program made sure I had the resources and support to create a comfortable learning environment.  After a week, my students' filters came down, their natural enthusiasm shone through, and their achievement skyrocketed. 

            The most valuable of all these resources were the expert instructors who coached me through the summer institute.  These brilliant teachers were like drill instructors with smiles.  Each one brought to the job a wealth of experience teaching in high-achievement schools.  More important, each one was as demanding of me as they expected me to be with my students.  Whenever I had a doubt or a question – in other words, every day – they were quick with an answer, and, more than that, quick to demonstrate a technique themselves.  This first-hand modeling allowed me to see a first-rate professional in action every day.  It was like learning how to play quarterback by having one-on-one tutoring with RG3. 

            The best part of this coaching is that it has continued throughout the school year.  My DCTF coach observes me in the classroom several times a month, and always follows up with a de-brief session filled with ideas on how I can make myself a better teacher, with an emphasis on data-driven lesson planning and comprehensive objective-setting.  This allows me to implement suggestions in real-time, to the benefit of my English language-learners.  Because of this professional mentorship, I have grown as much in a few months as I would have grown in a year without it. 

 

            As a result, I've been able to broaden my students' horizons, and that feeling of satisfaction has been more rewarding than the most successful day in the courtroom.  My experience as a first-year teacher has been a living illustration of Yeats's dictum: education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. 

 

            As for Ngan, whenever I plan her lessons I try to steer clear of material that could give rise to impromptu questions on unicorns.  But she continues to teach me every time we meet, and it's nothing short of magic.