Hoekstra, Molly, ed. (2002)
Am I Teaching Yet? Stories from the Teacher-Training Trenches.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
An education professor recently told of her surprise when one of her students complained that she made teaching sound like it was hard work. Am I Teaching Yet? Stories from the Teacher-Training Trenches is most definitely proof that yes, teaching is hard, and but it also confirms that for those blessed with pedagogical talent it is the only place to be.
On the surface, Editor Molly Hoekstra’s arrangement loosely follows a path from the beginning of student teaching to the fulfillment of a career spent in education. But as the reader journeys through this collection of essays written by new teachers, veteran teachers and teachers who decided that the classroom wasn’t for them, a fitting rhythm appears. The uplifting, happy stories of finally reaching the resistant student are not all bundled together in one pretty package. But at the same time, the frighteningly sorrowful works are not joined in a group of overwhelming despair.
Rather these realistic tales bounce around from success story to anger to hope to sadness and back to hope again. Before the reader can become too caught up in happy endings and feeling that everything is rosy, an all too real essay on disappointment or failure brings back reality and the reminder that teaching is indeed, hard.
However, a feeling of hope pervades. Juxtaposed against an angry vent aimed at a substandard master teacher is the story of Olympia, a low achieving student finding her voice in Maya Angelou’s words. Contrasting with recitations regarding master teachers abandoning student teachers to the class so they could smoke, the essay “Best and Brightest” displays the camaraderie and fellowship between teachers, as a new teacher learns from the experience of her colleagues.
Nontraditional teachers are not forgotten. A poet-in-residence smiles at the end of a grueling day. An unschooled tutor tries valiantly but unsuccessfully to teach an elderly immigrant to read. These voices are heard along with those who chose a path other than teaching.
The lone essay in the final section, “Final Word of Advice,” ends the collection reflecting on a career well-spent and the importance of finding the colleague/friend who will “chew the bones of life with you.”
On the surface this collection appears to be for the student trying to choose a career path or for the student teacher feeling alone. But it is also nobly illustrates how hard and how fulfilling it is for those teachers in the trenches.
Pages: 168
Price: $17.00
ISBN: 0-325-00402-1
Reviewed by Melissa Cast, University of Nebraska at Omaha
