I became a Certified Public Teacher by accepting an offer to merge my fifth year of college credits with my first year of full time teaching. This serendipitous combination was a time saving strategy for multiple stakeholders, although some onlookers objected to doing things in the wrong order; i.e. backwards. No fair.
I had never heard of reverse engineering, but in that pivotal year I began a naive pattern of functioning that fit my needs and sensibilities, and I’ve continued to apply heuristic methods in lieu of listing and checking off Goals and Objectives.
Instead my usual sequence goes: 1) observe and participate in an experience, 2) reflect, write, and analyze what happened, 3) build on the successful parts, 4) repeat.
In the early 1970’s California’s coastal counties around Monterrey Bay and the Salinas Valley were experiencing a population surge. The new University of California at Santa Cruz was drawing Distinguished Scholars and bright-eyed students from all over the country and beyond…just as the Age of Aquarius was dawning.
When I arrived from the Midwest, it was easy to find cottage rentals by the beach for the school term. Until UCSC opened, Santa Cruz had been an idyllic haven for serious surfers, sailboaters, and occasional weekend beachcombers from over the mountain in San Jose.
As word got out about how charming the area was for students, tourists, businesses, and the rising ‘hipoisie’…the population grew, and that meant crowded classrooms in the elementary schools.
By partnering with the University’s experimental Teacher Intern Program, the communities were able to accomplish several mutual goals.
UCSC contracted with public schools to hire thirty new graduates with various BA degrees as teacher interns who would receive their Teaching Certification at the end of a successful year of team teaching with veteran teacher.
It was a pilot program with an unusual premise: applicants were accepted based on various subjective characteristics, interests, and backgrounds, after interviews with a group of local community leaders, business owners, non-profits, and public school staff/parents.
We were not hired because of our grade point average, or pedagogical research presentations, or by taking courses that unveiled the magic transfer of knowledge to a group of short people with a lot of energy.
We were an ad hoc cohort formed from both the humanities and sciences. There was no Teacher Education Department on campus, so none of us had taken courses on theoretical teaching or practical classroom management . We didn’t even know each other, and weren’t familiar with terms like ad hoc, cohort, or pedagogy.
The hip seaside town of Capitola proposed running ‘double sessions’ in the elementary school to address overcrowding. This is where I was assigned. The logistics prescribed a major change for the families and teachers. But it was ALL new to me anyway, so I met with my mentor teacher ’at the edge of town’ to ‘make plans’.1
The Morning Class of 30 students would occupy the classroom from 8 a.m. to Noon with two teachers: the lead teacher (Experienced Veteran/Mrs. Gardener) and an assistant (Rookie/Intern/ME.) At Noon the Morning Class would go home.
The Afternoon class of 30 students moved in from Noon to 4 p.m. with two teachers: the lead teacher (Rookie/Intern/ME) and an assistant (Mrs. Gardner).
The first morning I was ready/not ready for an intense, real time, boots on the ground, hands-on learning ordeal. For four hours I assisted, observed and memorized Mrs. Gardner’s techniques. My anxiety decreased in the first ten minutes, along with the children’s. I noticed her demeanor, her posture, her gestures, the subtle changes in her tone of voice. She had the kids in the palm of her hand from the get go.
She was an unruffled sheepdog. With a box of Kleenex, open arm gestures and smiles, she mimed, “This is your new world…find your place.”
She shared her delight when they discovered the desk with Their Own Name Tag. It was as though she had tossed a magical net over them, shaping them into a cohesive group. From the front of the room she introduced herself and suggested they choose a way to decorate their name tag while they thought about their favorite animal because she wanted to hear all about that in a few minutes.
While they hummed, she strolled the room putting a face with each name she had already met on paper last week when the lists were posted.
She was an unruffled sheepdog. With a box of Kleenex, open arm gestures and smiles, she mimed, “This is your new world…find your place.”
The first afternoon: my turn. I tried to imitate her with ‘my group’, referring to a clipboard with bullet points to keep me on track. I felt an exhilarating plunge of ‘sink or swim’, a screaming roller coaster ride, caught in my throat.
She moved around the edges quietly, offering me props and nodding, helping me feel comfortable in this classroom that I would return to and dream about for the next nine months. We were from different generations and styles, but the cordial partnership we built that year ignited decades of amazing growth for me.
Signing up to ‘be a teacher’ had been a sudden impulsive decision, rousing me out of my foggy hideout in English Lit and Sociology classes during the Viet Nam War. But looking back, it’s clear that childhood and school days are my lifelong niche.
Six months earlier, I had assisted part time in a local special ed classroom as one of my undergrad electives. It had been an eye-opening introduction to some of the different ways ‘we think and learn.’
I observed that eight year old Danny was reluctant to complete a math activity that called for sorting small wooden dowels by color, then counting the sticks in each set and recording the results.
“Actually, I don’t want to do this.” he said. “Actually, I want to go to Art now. ”
The teacher assured him that he could go to Art soon, but first there were a few more sets of sticks to count.
He repeated several times that actually he wanted to go to Art, but he returned to the counting task and began to hum as he tallied the last group.
“Good job finishing your work here, Danny,” she smiled. “Now you can go to Art.”
He stood up and brushed his hands as a gesture of completion, asking, “Art Who?”
Smiling, she walked him to the door and pointed to the ‘Art Room’ sign down the hall. He was on his way. I was fascinated. Very curious. What just happened?
Once I started the next school year as an Intern, the University arranged dynamic Saturday Seminars that inspired and guided my practice for the next forty years.
As Rookies, we encountered real time challenges in the classrooms every day. Our questions prompted weekly presentations that targeted our specific needs in the classrooms. These experts were Professors, researchers, scholars, and current authors from the Berkeley and the San Francisco Bay Area.
We got an early equivalent of TED Talks, every Saturday. Research results alluding to powerful connections between intelligence, learning obstacles, and behaviors. It was the pre-runner of the now ubiquitous ‘Deep Dive’, or ‘unpacking the paradigm,’ in this case the development of learning in the whole child.
Why do some children find it difficult to perform normal ‘age-defined’ functions such as recognizing letters of the alphabet, storing and retrieving phonics codes, connecting visual symbols on a page to make meaning? And why do they not pay attention?
One Saturday we carpooled to San Francisco for a symposium where we personally experienced what it is like to function with various spatial and perceptual brain-based ‘handicaps’ or ‘differences’.
This was still early days of defining, identifying, and labeling: Learning Disabilities, Attention Deficit Disorder, Hyperactivity, Autism, Dyslexia, Mild, Moderate, and Severe Retardation, Alcohol Syndrome Babies, Drug Babies, Developmentally Disabled, Different Learning Styles, Dominant Learning Style, Multiple Intelligences, Neurolinguistic Reprogramming, Conditions of Self-Esteem. Cowabonga!
There wasn’t much to find about these categories yet in the library stacks, even though we were all conversant with the Dewey Decimal System from our own elementary school days. The 70’s were the days of landlines sans Google.
During the symposium we were asked to consider our understanding of how we learned, personally. I had no idea. We all shrugged. Pressed for an answer, we agreed that we just figured things out. Practiced. Studied. Tried to make our parents happy. Obeyed. Or rebelled. Why do you ask?
Well, as it turns out, there are many ways we learn, and many variables that determine each person’s paths. It is not so simple. Many determinants are in the brain structures and chemistry, that can quietly call the shots. And there are techniques that can help optimize ‘learning’.
On the 90 minute ride back to Santa Cruz, I remembered something that clicked for me as a teenager, the summer I got a job as a Life Guard and swim instructor at the local public pool.
I had spent every hot, humid summer as a child playing in water and learning to swim: breathe, coordinate arms and legs for different strokes; build muscles, endurance, confidence; dive and flip off a spring board, front and back, with and without twists; chicken fight, build pyramids and dunk other kids; and I earned Red Cross Swimming Certificates, eventually up to Water Safety Instructor.
The week before I started, the pool manager had me observe him teach a new class of beginners. I watched him ask the little kids to ‘follow the leader’ around the pool and do everything he did, like little duckies.
He stopped at the drinking fountain and took a drink. They giggled and each followed suit. Then he put his hands together and made a bowl of water with his palms. They giggled and took turns doing the same. He took a big breath and held it. So did they. Next he filled his palms with water, took a big breath and blew bubbles in his hands. They all tried the bubble blowing several times.
Next he pretended to get confused. He pantomimed sucking up some water! He exaggerated a cough, grabbed his throat, winced, crossed his eyes, and jumped up and down. They all giggled, excited to remind him what important thing he forgot. They moved on to sitting on the side of the big pool, kicking water with their feet.
Within a week they could hold their breath and put their head under water, float on their back while kicking their feet. A big step toward self confidence, self validation, self reliance! I noticed contributing elements that made the lessons successful:
fun, laughter,
whole body participation,
more gestures than words,
safe and inclusive environment,
both individual and group participation,
self improvement, no overt competition,
family approval
Our experiences at the Teacher Training Seminars provoked more complicated emotions, thinking, and reactions. But in some ways they shed light on the relevance of the basic elements during the swimming lessons.
That Saturday in San Francisco, we sat at long tables facing the panel of presenters on stage, our chairs only inches apart. There was little space between the back of our chairs and the table behind us. We were all crammed together by the furniture, obediently. Wondering how long till we could move, stretch, take a deep breath or pass gas.
The first presenter asked several volunteers from each table to stand and make their way out to one of the spacious aisles at either end of table, squeezing between the people seated in chairs and the long table behind them. The guinea pigs were asked to describe and report to the group their observations and reactions about the experience.
I was relieved to hear that they, too, were uncomfortable in such a tight space. Self-conscious. Claustrophobic. Embarrassed to be bumping and touching strangers, reluctant to cross boundaries. Like trying to navigate past people with popcorn and drink in a dark movie theater.
We considered our degree of discomfort…mental, emotional, physical. Anyone feel like running out of the building? Pushing or punching someone? Who among us is confidant enough to listen and learn from an unknown authority figure at the front of the room, anyway?
That broke the ice somewhat.
A presenter asked us to remember this experiment when it was time to arrange furniture and space in our own classroom.
“Don’t forget how inhibiting, stifling, restrained, and suppressed it felt to be so crowded.”
Next, hand mirrors were passed out, and we tried to read text with letters that were backwards and upside down. The text looked like a foreign language. We could decipher some letters, but we couldn’t read the whole sentence or paragraph smoothly. We felt stupid.
We tried writing with our non-dominant hand and noticed how that felt. Our writing was clumsy, looked scribbled and meaningless. We tried to reverse the directions of our marks, but it was going against nature. The Aha moment faded, and more practice did not yield perfection. It was annoying.
Another sensory experience was to try on different pairs of glasses They were made with different magnifications that changed our normal vision to random degrees of blur and depth perception.
This sensitized us to the difficulties that face kids with perceptual challenges. Not only does it make reading a headache for them, but it causes misunderstood frustration and irritation, which causes behavior and social problems.
I can’t express how valuable my Teacher Training was to me. Beyond ‘on the job’ practices, I learned how I learn, how I respond and process. It awakened empathy and a new perspective about others whose experience is different from mine.
One Golden Tip I can pass on for working with any children on anything: Encourage lots of whole body participation. Make room to accommodate music, rhyming, arm swings, hopping, humming, tapping. The brain loves different ways to connect. For some brains, it’s just fun. For others, it is essential. Win-Win.
A weekly pleasure from childhood in the fifties was listening to the radio with the family, as we ‘returned to the days of yesteryear.’ The Lone Ranger and his sidekick Tonto would always agree to ‘meet at the edge of town to make plans’…to right the impending wrong.
Wonderful. Wonderful that you can recall all those times. Wonderful that you learned so much about yourself & learning. Wonderful that you can describe them so compellingly. Wonderful to read (& be able to save) more of what you shared when we met up for our 1st Bday together as adults.
Your essay beautifully captures the unique journey of unconventional learning and teaching experiences. I'm especially drawn to how you describe the blend of personal growth and innovative educational methods that shaped your career. The vivid anecdotes and reflections provide a wonderful glimpse into the profound impact of hands-on, immersive learning environments. Just subscribed to keep up with your inspiring work!