Qu estio n sBy Edward Leach

In his first year as a mentor teacher,

the author learns that he doesn't always

need to have the perfect answer.

?o?

o

She's getting ready to ask me a question. I know it, because

she's staring into that leather notebook of hers. For weeks,

my first student teacher has filled pages in that notebook.

I've never looked in it, but I'm sure she's writing notes

about me. What she sees me do. What she sees the class

do. And she's got this knack of asking me the perfect ques-

tion every time.

She looks at the notebook, pauses, sighs, and moves her

pen in a semicircle. I know what she's doing. Shet looking

for the perfect question-the one that pulls everything

together. This is what she's good at. Every day she watches,

writes, and then pulls together a question I carit answer.

"Hmm..."Shepauses.

I wait, knowing what's coming.

"Can you tell me how you decide to use group work?

When you decide to do a group assignment, rather than

individual seat work?"

She's got me again.

It's not that I can't answer her questions. I can. But it

sometimes takes me as much time to answer her questions

as it does for her to generate them. And she's always apolo-

getic as she asks them, as she watches me struggle to find

the answer.

"Don't apologize," I say. "Itt a good question. It

deserves a good answer. Besides, if I can't answer this ques-

tion, then I really shouldnt be doing this job."

This job, of course, is being a mentor teacher. After 12

years ofteaching students, I'm now supposed to have

answers for student teachers. Why else would Bard College

have brought me into this program?

So I struggle. I think. And eventually I come up with

an answer."Horv do I decide when to do group work? Well, there

are a feu'things that come into play here. The class, for

example. Some classes just arent as good at being in groups

as others. They'Il get better in time, the more they do group

work. But not on a Friday. With a vacation coming up, this

is not the day to throw the eighth-period class into a group.

But the si,rth period almost needs to be in a group, because

they'll take the points you're trying to make and run with

them to places you cant anticipate. And do we have differ-

ent ability levels in the class? Of course we do, so a coopera-

tive group might be a good fit. Have you read . . . oh, I can't

think of their name, but they wrote ^

grezt book on cooper-

ati\,r groups. I ve got my copy at home. I'11 bring it in if you

want, though I bet there's something better out there now."

26 MAT PROCRAM

She nods. Does she buy it? In my best seminar-leader

style, I have attempted to cover my babbling response with

a softball question to her. She responds. I listen, nod, and

shortly wete into a good conversation about cooperative

groups and 10 other topics ofinterest. Forty-five minutes

later, we need to wrap it up. She's got a seminar, and I need

to go pick up my daughter.

I've never been good at straight answers. But I love

good questions.

It took me three or four years ofteaching before I

really began to develop a respect for good questions. Lynne

Laffie, then my department head at Newburyport High

School, suggested I read Mortimer Adler, who had come to

the Massachusetts school several years earlier to teach a

workshop on Socratic Seminars. In his book The Paideia

Program, Adler wrote that seminars could "be described in

a single word: they are conversations." Adler's approach

hooked me. I began to prepare for classes by writing out

questions. The questions were designed to evoke further

questions. Sometimes I would even create flow charts of

questions: one set of questions to ask if the class went one

way, one set to ask if they went another. Then I began

reducing my questions to only two or three. Eventually I

got to the point where I could prepare for my seminars

with a few notes on the back of an index card. The better

the questions, the fewer of them I needed. At about this

time our seven-person department began writing essential

questions for our courses. Predictably, I loved it. I loved the

conversations that flowed from a good question.

As I learned the value of good questions, I learned the

fascinating paradox of teaching. Good teaching does not lie

in having all the answers. It's in asking the right questions.

Granted, there's a place for having some answers, and

there's a place for asking questions that are designed to get

the right answers.

But in the fall of 2008, when I became a new teacher

ofteachers, I forgot this essential truth for a few, thankfully

brief, moments. And I struggled with the questions my

apprentice posed, partly because I knew they were good

questions, ones that I should be able to answer.

How do I set up my groups? I'm sure I have a better

reason than the day of the week. And thus our conversation

began.

Sometimes it took place in the back of my classroom,

long after the students had left. Wed sit, and talk about the

lessons, the students. Wed talk about the life of a teacher,

and the need to roll with the punches that the highs and

lows that beginning a teaching career bring.

And sometimes the conversation would continue after

she left. Behind the wheel of my car, driving out of

Kingston, through the traffic circle, up Route 28, into the

mountains, I'd continue thinking about the problems we had

discussed. Sometimes Id talk them out aloud. Sometimes

those conversations led to a coherent answer. Sometimes

they simply led to more questions. Sometimes, I suspect, I

didnt even come close to an)'thing approximating an answer.

But maybe thatt OK. In 2007 a group of teacher educa-

tors from the National Council ofTeachers of English iden-

tified four critical stances necessary in beginning teachers:-open to collaboration with other teachers;-able to face challenges and find necessary support;-deal with the binary tensions inherent in teaching;

-develop their own identity as teachers.

All of these essentially reduce to questions. How do we

best collaborate with other teachers? How do we deal with

the challenges of teaching? How do we balance our personal

and professional lives? What does it mean to be a teacher?

These are questions that engage us throughout our careers.

Here's one binary tension of teaching: once you answer

one of these questions, you probably need to revisit it. Like

the proverbial river or the curriculum map wete now revis-

ing, the answers to these questions are fluid, different for

everyone, changing with time. So I learned in my first year

as a mentor teacher that I dont always need to have the per-

fect answer. What's needed is to welcome our new colleagues

into the professional conversation that is taking place among

all those who care deeply about teaching and learning.

So maybe it's a good thing that my rambling

responses led to some interesting conversations. Hopefully,

we'I1 find a few answers along the way. And when those

answers no longer suffice, we'll go back and taik some

more. That's how we learn.

Works Cited

Adler, Mortimer J. The Paideia Program. New York:

Macmill ian, 1984."What Should English Education Consist of During the

First Years of Teachers' Careers?" National Council of

Teachers of English, Conference on English Education.

September 18.2008.

FIELD NOTES 27