Teaching is Art

By Anita Kreitzman

What does it take to succeed as a court reporting instructor? One of the keys is making what your students are doing in class relevant to them.

The future of the nation is on the shoulders of teachers and how they teach ...; the future of the world is in the classroom where the teachers are. And if we have any chance to guarantee a positive bridge to the 21st century, it is how we educate ... in the classroom today.

—Richard Reginald Green

With the events of September 11, 2001, ever present in our minds, it should be evident that never before has the role of teacher been more important. How can you meet the increasingly difficult challenges of a troubled world? There is a plethora of material on methodology, and colleges offer an astonishing variety of courses on how to be an effective educator. But in order to meet today’s unique challenges in the classroom, the key is to be found not in the academics of methodology; the key is to be found in the teacher who faces up to the challenge, who is willing to learn from the students and who truly loves teaching. The noted writer Gail Godwin wrote, “Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.” So much for methodology.

A Love of Teaching

After 37 years of teaching, retiring from public education and then re-entering the teaching profession as a second part-time career, educating eager court reporting students, I can assure you it is the love of teaching that keeps me going. There is never a morning that I do not look forward to meeting with my students. There is never a morning that I am too tired or impatient to hear what they have to say. There is never a morning when my students do not open a door for me, and there is never a morning when I leave class and head for home that I do not feel that my life has meaning. Teaching does all that for me and more. I mention this because if you are to be successful as a teacher, you must love teaching and must have compassion and understanding for the students. Do not misunderstand what I say here. But in all fairness to the students, no one should enter the teaching profession unless they truly feel the “calling.”

Let us assume, then, that there is no doubt in your mind that this is, indeed, your future. A paper could be written on the methodology, on how to teach, how to prepare a lesson, how to create tests, but for the present, I would rather deal with the philosophy of teaching. How do you reach students? How do you motivate students? How do you get them to realize their potential? And even more basic, how do you get them to even come to class — and on time? If your students are turned off, all your knowledge is worthless.

Serving as a Role Model

First on the agenda would be to set an example. Nothing need be said. Just set an example. How, you ask? Are you prepared to be a role model? Well, how about coming to class on time prepared for the day’s lesson? What about your attire? Are you dressed professionally? If your school has a dress-down day, does that mean you show up in sweats? I think not. Maybe this sounds Victorian to you, but I can tell you from experience that students do notice what you wear and how you look, and teaching does not only mean textbook material.

Your students are going out into the business world. They will network with other court reporters, attorneys, judges and businesspeople. Who do you think will be hired, or for that matter, recommended: the reporter with the professional appearance or the mismatched, carelessly groomed individual? By coming to class on time and being prepared, you are also setting an example. No one will hire a court reporter who is noted for chronic tardiness and not having enough paper.

Let us continue with the concept of role model. It is very important that court reporting students learn the significance of being good listeners. Start with yourself. Pay attention to what students say; encourage their participation, invite their input, and do not be afraid to accept suggestions. Put your ego on the back burner. Your ego is not important, theirs is.

Sometimes the greatest gift you can give to students is that of raising their self-esteem. They are to be encouraged to be the best they can be. If they do not, then they must realize that the only ones they let down are themselves. Teachers must notice their students and their attitudes and must intervene at the earliest signs of difficulty. A quiet talk, maybe even a pep talk, is what is needed. More often than not, students are looking to open up to a friendly approach.

I mentioned the World Trade Center attack before, and it is significant when you start to place a value on what is important today. If you have never before been flexible, then now is the time to start. On a scale of 1-to-10, how important is it that an assignment is not handed in on time? Perhaps if you remind the students of the significance of responsibility as it affects their futures, maybe this approach will make them realize the connection between taking on responsibility in the classroom and going out into the business world. I firmly believe that if education is made relevant for the student, learning takes place.

Make it Relevant

Relevance is synonymous with education. If students understand why the lesson is important, it has relevance. Think back to all the rote learning you did throughout your school years. You might as well have been a robot as you memorized dates, capitals, mountain ranges, lakes, etc. If you still remember some of what I mentioned, it is only because there was a connection, relevance. I remember a student learning by rote all the prepositions in an English text, but who had no concept of the role of those prepositions. Since there was no relevance, that list of prepositions is useless knowledge, soon forgotten.

Gail Godwin mentioned education being “three-fourths theater,” and that does mean you are on stage. Let us suppose you are the well-dressed professional; you know your material. What next? Get out there and show your enthusiasm; do not be afraid to smile. Relax. Show your confidence and your students will respond accordingly. Set the stage for student-teacher, student-student interaction. Let them know they are entitled to their opinions and should feel comfortable expressing their thoughts, ideas or anecdotes. I tell my students that they can argue with me on any point, but they must have the material to back up what they say. If they feel free to do so, you will be surprised at what you can learn.

Getting back to your ego for a moment, do not be afraid to admit when you have made a mistake. Be gracious and thank the student for pointing out the error. Be grateful. In order for them to find a mistake, they had to be paying attention. That’s a point for you and a point for them.

Be Flexible

Let us get back to the stage. If you really know your material, you will free yourself from the textbook. Know your lines; get out there and make your point. Do not be afraid to change course. Let your audience direct the flow, but learn to be adept as a moderator so as to never stray too far from course. Do not talk down to your students. Address them as though they are your peers, all the while avoiding too much familiarity. If the language they use is inappropriate, tell them so, and explain why it is so. Encourage their interest in expanding their vocabulary and their horizons.

Many years ago when I started teaching, I was told by an experienced educator not to smile for at least a week or my students would think me an easy mark. When I walked into my first class, a fifth-grade class, and I saw those beautiful faces, I had to smile. I never regretted that approach.

When I started teaching at Long Island Business Institute over five years ago, I found that my students and I had more in common than I had imagined. I discovered that my earlier life, before getting my college education, paralleled many of my students’. I remembered how difficult it was for me as I tried to balance home and school. I found it a very effective tool in reaching my students to tell them about this parallel. I continue this approach with every new class. I want them to know I understand what difficulties they face, because I had the same problems. The point of this is that if you are to reach your students, they have to be able to feel they can reach you, that you are there for them. Kierkegaard said it best:

To be a teacher in the right sense is to be a learner. Instruction begins when you, the teacher, learn from the learner, put yourself in his place so that you may understand what he understands and in the way he understands it.

So far this all sounds ideal. A teacher happy to be a teacher and students happy to be students. Of course, it does not always happen that way. There is the student who has excessive absences and/or chronic lateness. There is the student who rarely hands in assignments on time or maybe not at all. There is the student who has an attitude and maybe a two-by-four on the shoulder.

Don’t you develop an attitude; deal with it. Do not let this type of behavior go on for any length of time. Recognize the problem, make time and approach the student to discuss what is really going on. Do not be reluctant to talk to other teachers who may have had this student in their classes. There have been occasions when the input alerted me to serious problems the student was trying to handle that interfered with class performance. And if all else fails, go to a higher authority — the dean, principal, director of student affairs, etc.

There are students who do not make it, but we should never be the ones who failed to recognize their problems, and we should never be guilty of not doing our very best to help them on their way to becoming the very best they can become. If we are to teach them responsibility, then we must demonstrate responsibility. Leo Tolstoy calls it a “talent”:

The best teacher will be he who has at his tongue’s end the explanation of what it is that is bothering the pupil. These explanations give the teacher the knowledge of the greatest possible number of methods, the ability of inventing new methods and, above all, not a blind adherence to one method, but the conviction that all methods are one-sided, and that the best method would be the one which would answer best to all the possible difficulties incurred by a pupil, that is, not a method, but an art and talent.

With all the tragedy we are facing today, those of us who truly love teaching have an even greater responsibility: We must make what our students are doing in class relevant for them. They must be made to realize that they have a future in court reporting, because in spite of what has happened there is a future, and that applies to students and teachers as well.

Originally published in the May 2002 JCR

About the Author

JCR Contributing Editor Anita Kreitzman, CRI, teaches at Long Island Business Institute in Commack, N.Y. In 2001, she was recognized by the Suffolk County Business Teachers Association as “Teacher of the Year.”