Letters to a Young Teacher

“I sometimes think that every education writer, every would-be education expert, and every politician who pontificates, as many do so condescendingly, about the ‘failings’ of the teachers in the front lines of our nation’s public schools ought to be obliged to come into a classroom once a year and teach the class, not just for an hour with the TV cameras watching but for an entire day, and find out what it’s like. It might at least impart some moderation to the disrespectful tone with which so many politicians speak of teachers.”

Kozol insists that the most important thing a teacher can rely on is actual classroom experience rather than theoretical knowledge or so-called “expert” opinion. He criticizes politicians and other commentators who opine that the problem of public schools is lazy or incompetent teaching staff. Teaching, especially in an under-resourced facility with large class sizes, is an enormously difficult job, and Kozol insists that the brave men and women who sign up for these demanding careers deserve more respect than they are given.

“The best teachers are not merely the technicians of proficiency; they are also ministers of innocence, practitioners of tender expectations.”

For Kozol, teaching young children is multifaceted and difficult. Apart from the full-time work involved in lesson planning, leading a classroom, and dealing with parents and administrators, primary and middle school teachers have an obligation to nurture and protect the youthfulness of their students. Young people at these ages are still coming to learn about themselves and the world, and Kozol believes that teachers must carefully shepherd and in some ways parent young students through these exciting and emotionally delicate times.

“[M]ost of the children seemed to trust me, and one reason for this, I believe, is that they could see that I did not condemn them for the chaos and confusion they’d been through, because I told them flatly that they had been treated in a way that I thought unforgivable.”

Toward the end of his first teaching year in Boston Public Schools in Roxbury, Kozol made the decision to be honest with his class about the injustices they faced. After being subjected to a revolving door of stressed-out teachers in an underfunded public school, Kozol’s students were educationally stunted and impatient with the feckless adults in their lives.