The Teacher's Journey

The Teacher’s Journey

Brian Costello

Contents

1. The Teacher’s Journey

Separation: Life Before Being an Educator

2. Archetypes: Who Becomes a Teacher Hero?

3. A Call to Edventure

4. How We Educate New Teachers

5. A Strange New World: Entering the Classroom

Initiation

6. Developing Our Spiritual Aides: Bringing New Teachers into The Profession

7. How We Grow Teachers through Personal and Professional Development

Return: Giving Back to the Ordinary World

8. A Culture of Mentoring

9. Multiple Heroes’ Journeys

10. Call to Action

References

About the Author

Other EduMatch Books

Notes

The Teacher’s Journey

by Brian Costello

Published by EduMatch ®

PO Box 150324, Alexandria, VA 22315

www.edumatch.org

© 2018 Brian Costello

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact sarah@edumatch.org.

These books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for use as premiums, promotions fundraising, and educational use. For inquiries and details, contact the publisher: sarah@edumatch.org.

ISBN-13: 978-1-7322487-0-0

ISBN-10: 1-7322487-0-2

Created with Vellum Created with Vellum

Dedication

First, I need to acknowledge my wife Lindsay, my daughter Emily, and my son Lucas whose love and support have been my strongest motivation for everything in my life.

This book is dedicated to my first mentors: my Mom and Dad.

Also:

To the late Richard Mathis, Dawn Skomsky, Sherry Bosch, Dr. Donna Van Horn, Phyllis Lopez, Amy Sack, Dr. Spike Cook, and so many others from Lower Township, Weymouth Township, and Egg Harbor Township who have helped me in my journey.

To the amazing students I have had the pleasure of working with over my career. You inspire me, and I can never thank you enough for allowing me to learn with you.

To the families who have trusted me with their children throughout my journey. I can only hope that as they become adults, I will have proved helpful in their journeys.

To Art La Flamme, who was my original inspiration for all my research and learning about mentoring and development.

To the seven incredible educators who were brave enough and willing to share their own personal journeys in this book.

To the all the other people who have helped make me the person I am today…

Thank you.

1 The Teacher’s Journey

A Strange New World

On a warm September day, I walked into the first day of school for my new job as a permanent substitute. However, since no teacher is absent on the first day, the district placed us in specific buildings daily until we were called to serve in other places. Walking in that day, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I felt nervous and excited as I entered the building. The walls were lined with colorful handprints of students and teachers that had come before me. I signed in and asked, How can I help?

Little did I know that I would meet someone who would affect the rest of my career. I was directed to guide new students into the building and help them find their classrooms. In truth, I felt useless because I did not even know where most of their classrooms were located. These wonderful tiny people came wandering down the hallway, some with faces filled with joy, others with fear. I helped some of them find their way, calmed some fears, and returned many smiles.

The next thing I was asked to do was unpack boxes of books, label them, and deliver them to classrooms. This may sound like torture to some people, but seeing kids learning in classrooms lit a fire inside me. This is where I was meant to be. In each room, I saw the excitement of young kids as they began their new year and the interaction they had with their teachers. This was my call to action. I had been chosen by education to serve its needs. In reality, I may have been called many times before and refused; it was only now that I was finally ready to embrace the call. Education has been lighting my fire ever since that first unassuming day, and it will continue to be a part of who I am until all my fires have been extinguished.

Fast forward three years. I had spent weeks during the summer getting everything ready: the room, the first day’s lessons, the folders, desks, and boards. I was going to be the greatest thing that ever happened to kindergarten! These kids were in luck! I had so many great ideas, so of course, they were lucky to have me. I greeted each student one by one and gave them simple instructions to start the day. They were all smiling. I was, too. Working with my incredible aide and these bright young faces, I knew we were going to do amazing things.

That was the most positive and optimistic I remember feeling in those first few months. That euphoria was short-lived. As the door closed on my first day, I can remember feeling a rush of excitement that was quickly replaced with a sense of utter terror. It was a feeling I would come to know a lot in my first year, and one that would repeat on occasion throughout my career. It was a feeling that other teachers would later share with me as well: I have absolutely no idea what I am doing.

That wasn’t entirely true. In retrospect, I was incredibly well-prepared. At times the chasm between being well-prepared and actually teaching is like the Grand Canyon. Despite all I had learned over those first three years in education, I still needed (and continue to need) to learn so much more. Since that day, I have grown tremendously as both a person and educator. At times I was merely treading water, wandering aimlessly through the depths and difficulties of teaching just trying to survive. At other times, I was overflowing with creativity, successful learning experiences, and gliding effortlessly toward success. The hot and cold swings were tempered by an occasional balance of struggle and success.

During all the ups and downs throughout my career, the most important catalyst for my success has been people. Too often we believe the myth of self-made success. Along the journey of every teacher, there are scores of unsung mentors, guardians, allies, temptations, and more who have shaped our path. As we learn who those influencers are and how they impact our development, we can gain an understanding of how we grow great teachers in the profession. Whether by fortune or by design, I am able to draw upon the many experiences of my life to help me and in turn positively influence others. There are many cases of exceptional educators that have walked the path toward success, and there are also many cases where the journey has defeated them. As we continue to reflect upon our own experiences and those of others, we will work together through this book to minimize those cases of defeat. Creating setbacks rather than endings means knowing ourselves and each other.

In communicating with many educators, I have found that I am not alone in my observations of these experiences and have come to two very important conclusions:

The education profession does not do a good enough job of creating and supporting the next generation of educators.

As a profession, we need to evaluate and improve how we create master teachers, starting from their pre-service learning experiences and throughout their entire career.

In this book, we will use the framework of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey to understand the how we become teachers and what enables the journey from novice teaching to mastery (1993). Throughout this journey together, we will discover more about who we are as educators and how we grow ourselves and the profession. As I share my own personal stories and those of many other educators, we will learn how our differences and similarities allow us to promote growth and success for all educators. I hope you enjoy the journey.

The Hero’s Journey

When I look back on all the crap I learned in high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all. (Simon, 1973). This Paul Simon song may ring true for many of us, but one of the most vivid memories it conjures for me is Mr. Mathis’s Humanities class. It was the first time I really felt challenged, not by content, but by ideas and passion. From a deep dive into Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, a four-day epic tale told in German opera, to the quirks and creations of R. Buckminster Fuller my classmates and I were challenged to think. One experience that stands out above the rest was reading and watching Joseph Campbell, or Uncle Joe, as Mr. Mathis called him. As we learned about Campbell, the monomyth, and the Hero’s Journey, my classmates and I observed and discussed how these themes were pervasive in both modern and ancient storytelling (Campbell, 1993).

I can think of no better parallel to tell the story of developing educators than through understanding the ways that each of us is on our own personal Hero’s Journey. The journey of each Teacher Hero carries its own unique story, but the overarching themes hold true. Understanding those themes helps us understand how we can be successful. Framing our own Teacher Hero in the light of Campbell’s Hero’s Journey helps us understand that success tends to come with struggle, effort, and help. We will see how my story and the stories of other educators fit this allegory. Before we do, however, let’s explore the Hero’s Journey in more detail (see the TED Talk, What Makes a Hero ¹).

After studying thousands of mythological stories from around the world, Joseph Campbell identified the common traits running through most of the world’s great traditions and stories. While these stories are often fairy tales and myths, the format often holds true in the real world. Campbell provides numerous examples of how these stories fit into a common narrative. While their stories are unique, the underlying themes are prevalent throughout history.

The teaching profession is no different. No two teacher’s stories are the same. What makes a story relatable is the ability to tell it with our own unique identity. Despite the commonalities in the legends, myths, and stories we tell, each maintains differences that allow us to connect with them on a more personal level. Campbell explores how each culture builds their myths and stories, but at their essence, the stories all follow the same cycle. We each play a role within our story filled with unique characters, situations, and challenges. Even with the vast differences in detail that make our stories unique, many common themes and experiences emerge amongst educators in their career at different points in their careers.

A hero’s journey starts in the ordinary world. Our unsuspecting hero is simply living an ordinary life, or in our case, a life before teaching. Through some means, our hero is called to action. The hero is presented with a quest: a call to save or do good in the world. This calling isn’t always accepted. Refusals are quite common as famous archetypes in the modern canon Luke Skywalker, Bilbo Baggins, Moana, Katniss Everdeen, and the Lion King’s Simba demonstrate. Each one attempted to refuse their destiny, only to have that destiny thrust upon them in different ways.

At some point, whether initially accepted or otherwise rediscovered, our hero almost always takes the call and begins their journey by leaving the known world and venturing into the unknown. This beginning the journey is referred to as Separation, where our hero steps away from their status quo. Despite anything this hero may have done in a previous life, they are now thrust into a world of new challenges, new learning, and new obstacles. The hero must quickly learn the new rules of this unknown world to survive the repeated tests of their worthiness.

During this portion of the journey, our hero often meets with some supernatural aide, typically a being who has already mastered the experiences of the new world.  This aide’s guidance is crucial to the hero’s development. The hero also typically finds helpers and companions along the way who will help them endure and potentially conquer the challenges that await. The hero’s companions and helpers allow for the hero to learn more and grow into a stronger individual, before facing additional tests and a supreme ordeal. This part of the hero’s journey is known as Initiation.

Each test along the way serves to make the hero strong during this Initiation period. At some point in the journey, the hero undergoes an unusually trying situation. After having either succeeded in some way or not, the hero begins the portion of their journey known as the Return. The hero comes back to the ordinary world, but they are changed. Our hero is greater than before, and thus the ordinary world is different for them.

There have been many tests and ordeals in my own career and in the careers of other educators I know, but we rarely share these parts of our own journeys. So many of our teacher stories center around the ending. We focus on the final success more than all the learning and work that has gone into finding success. As a hero returns from this other world that was encountered, they are changed. Often our hero returns with something to show, some spoils of their journey that signifies change. In education, we often share the amazing achievements and the great triumphs without sharing the struggle that took place to reach those moments. The struggle is the journey. Many of you have heard the saying, that it is not the destination, but the journey. Being a teacher is no different.

While triumphs are important to celebrate, the purpose of this book is to celebrate the journey itself and to understand how we move beyond survival to create more triumphs throughout our careers. As our journey progresses, we will see how current practices do not necessarily do enough to help teacher heroes to identify our supernatural aides and helpers (mentors and coaches) along our journey. I order to provide multiple opportunities to connect with ideas throughout your career, we will live this journey through the eyes of many teachers. I will suggest a different model for each vital step of the journey, with tips to improve and understand success in the midst of the journey. Through sharing stories of my own struggles and those of others, the journey through this journey will highlight common themes that either cultivated or stunted growth, enabling us to examine the steps that are likely to lead from mere survival to true success.

The Teacher’s Journey

Each one of us has our own remarkable story. Our journeys through learning experiences, school years, and particularly our careers are filled with dramatic highs and lows. We survive remarkable challenges and meet unforgettable characters throughout our careers - and sometimes within the course of a single day! For so much of the history of Education, teaching has been a very singular, lonely profession. We close our doors and engage