Question: Why should
teachers tell their stories about teaching?
Answer/Quote: “Remember the
power you have as a teacher—the power of a smile, a touch, a look, an
encouraging word. Through telling our stores, we collectively are telling the
truth—a powerful accomplishment, because story is the most powerful way to get
an idea across. We need to tell our stories for the sake of our children, our
profession, this country, and its future. We are teachers and we touch the
future and we are in this for the long haul, not the quarterly report.”
“I
challenge you. I implore you. Go forth and tell your stories far and wide.”
“Believe
me, telling your stories will not be for naught. You all matter, because
teaching is a calling not just a job—as we all know.” P. 328.
Comment: This eloquent call for teachers to tell
their stories, to tell what they do, was taken from a speech by the president
of the National Council of Teachers of English, Yvonne Siu-Runyan. Many of
these stories, of course, appear in professional journals as teachers introduce
problems that they will attempt to solve in the articles that follow. I told my
stories about my life as an English teacher and as an English K-12 supervisor
in a book entitled, Teaching English, How To…. (2004, Xlibris). Nobody
read it. Not even my “friends.” The stories are good. In conversations, people
listen, spellbound, as I repeat the stories that I put in the book, but they
will not read them. I guess I just have not found the right vehicle for telling
my stories.
I have stories
about how I learned to teach grammar, how I published my first article in a
professional journal, how I learned to teach spelling effectively, how I
learned to teach speed reading, how I learned to teach writing, how I learned
to help students develop their reading skills in the content areas, how I
learned to be an effective K-12 English supervisor, etc. RayS.
Title: “The 2011 NCTE
Presidential Address: Telling Our Stories….” Yvonne Siu-Runyan. Research in the Teaching of English (February 2012), 317-329.
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