Tuesday, 11 March 2014

Evan Maltman- Teaching: It's harder than it looks by Gerry Dee

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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