Teaching: It's Harder than it
Looks (I know many did this book but it’s awesome!)
Canada’s
worst teacher? Gerry Dee is best known for his role on Mr. D a hilarious satire
about a teacher who seemingly doesn’t care and uses the classroom as a
playground for his personal use. What most people didn’t know about him is that
he actually spent years teaching in the Toronto private schooling system where
he gets most of his stories from. Personally I watched his show with the idea
that this was just a show about a funny teacher but as I progressed into my
schooling I realized the stories and the way the show was set up that there had
to be real teachers working on the show and low and behold Gerry was himself a
teacher. The reason why this book is so relevant is because the perspective
doesn’t sugar coat the teaching profession. As Gerry states, “I’m saying the
things we’ve often thought of as a teacher, or we’ve secretly done. And there
is this myth out there that teachers are perfect and they will never do any of
this stuff. Well that’s not the case. There is a lot of truth to these stories
that I think a lot of teachers won’t like, but I’m exposing it-and I can expose
it because I did it.” A few myths he
debunks;
All
teachers are experts in their areas of work- basically it’s a common idea that
all teachers who are let’s say science teachers or math teacher all went to
school to become such. Well not true at all, many teachers go to school to be
experts in their given areas and then are offered a job in something completely
out of their comfort zone but because of the sacredness of jobs they take what
they can get and just try to survive their first few years. Gerry was no
different; “My first years of teaching I was in the social sciences and I
literally had no idea what I was doing, I’m not a well-read person. It’s not
something I ever really got into being reading so for me to teach those
subjects which are very based knowing your history and reading, I was out of my
element.” This is a reality we all will face which makes me think what the hell
did we just go to school for if not be hired in the areas we went to school
for, this makes the school system suffer in my opinion because the degrees I
have up on the wall now mean nothing unless I’m using them and the subjects
that I am teaching are now cheapened because I have no background in how or
what to teach them. This is a circle we need to fix in order to create a better
learning environment for the students and ourselves; don’t we think that
teachers who teach in their own element would be better teachers than thrown
into an area of greyness?
One question I always wondered was do teachers who maybe
have a slight grudge against students ever get revenge or subtle payback? Before
I thought that it was something I just dealt with but according to Dee there
are ways around this. As a fellow physical education teacher I can completely
relate to how he used a game of dodge ball to seek revenge upon a student who
was bothering him. Seems a little childish but as someone who participates in
student dodge ball games I can agree that this kind of release takes place on
both sides of the court. The students take just as much pleasure of really
letting the teacher have it as much as we do hitting them for all the drama
they have caused us through the semester. This book it a light hearted look at the
things teachers do in a really life setting. They put so much pressure on us as
we go through the education faculty and through our practicum that when someone
reads this book they feel a sign of relief that there can be some fun times to
be had. He goes on to describe a lot of
the terminology and processes such as pedagogy and basically tells us that
after graduation those words are rarely seen or heard from which makes us think
a little bit about the importance of them in the current university curriculum
we are going through.
To admit I see a lot of myself in the way Gerry Dee
taught is yet to be seen if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Gerry believes
that there has to be a mix of good mixed with bad sort of speak. Without the
bad teachers how would we know there are good teachers, and what really defines
those two? Is the teacher who doesn’t give homework or is it the teacher that busts
their kids backs with it? In order to have a solid mix both kinds of teachers
are needed says Gerry. He recounts a time when a teacher told him “I don’t know
how you can do so well in school and be such a pain in the ass.” Gerry says he
took every opportunity to make fun of something that could be funny as a
student and he feels he still is the same way through his teaching as well as
his new life in comedy. One thing he admits is that kids who are very into
academics most likely would fare well in his classes because he would rather
tell jokes and stories to get things across than give homework or assign a
project.
All this time we put into teaching must pay off right?
Well Gerry saw it a little different than most teachers. The more involved you
are as a teacher then better teacher undoubtedly you will become. However all
this extracurricular stuff like clubs and sports teams takes up a lot of your
life and in return they might throw you an extra day off. Dee wasn’t so into
the academic side of things but he was very into the sports side of things, he
tells us that he coached up to 5 teams which if anyone has even coached 1 team
they work involved outside of school is more than having just another part time
job. After calculating his wage once all hours of work was accounted for to be
hovering around the 4 dollar an hour mark he realized that this perhaps wasn’t
the career path for him if we were going to want to live the way he did. Dee
says he got into teaching for the right reasons which were he liked kids and
seeing them grow into young adults as well at athletics were always a passion
of his. Looking back on his younger days of being in high school he never
remembered the teachers that gave homework or taught them about order of
operations, when Dee gets together with old high school buddies they remember
the teachers who told stories and did nice things with their time to help. So because of this, that’s the kind of
teacher he inevitably became.
If you’re looking for a good laugh and some legitimate
inside looks at what could possibly be a fun rewarding career then please read
this book as a new teacher. There are so many laugh out loud moments that it’s
worth a read. If the book is something you enjoy then you will love the TV
series as well which is basically an account from the book made into stories
for the show. The message we should take away from all this is that as teachers
there will be so much time to focus on academics and assessment and being
organized, but let’s not forget when we were in those desk begging for
something or someone to change our day around for the better with either a
laugh or a story. Gerry Dee uses this book to tell the lighter side of what can
be a life consuming job, so take the time to take a step back break from the
usual and just laugh, smile, tell a story and through this students will also
thrive academically.
“Was
I a horrible teacher? No not all. Was I a great teacher? Not at all. I think I
was just a good teacher. Most of the stuff I hear is good, but I know there are
teachers out there that don’t like what I’m saying. That’s the nature of
teachers to me. They tend to be split on stuff anyway, and there are teachers
that like to complain and there’s teachers who that get it’s a joke and don’t
take it too seriously.”
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