By: Dr. Gillian Steinberg, English Faculty
I’d cried in gymnasiums plenty of times before. As a child in tiny Fredonia, New York, I’d
failed at rope climbing, waited miserably to be picked last for teams, and was
inevitably felled by the weight of the giant medicine ball in endless games of
Nuke ‘Em. But crying in the gym because
I was happy? That had never happened
before I came to SAR.
As a
college professor for 15 years, I have been asked again and again this year how
teaching at SAR high school differs from teaching college. The answer, as with many things, is that it’s
incredibly, profoundly different and that it’s really pretty similar.
The
biggest difference is a very practical one: the schedule. I’ve lost the extraordinary freedom I had
before, when I taught only two or three half-days a week as part of a full-time
position. The rest of my time as a
professor was filled with writing and scholarship, and the office hallways were
generally deserted as professors, myself included, came to campus only for
their classes and office hours and spent the rest of their time in libraries or
coffee shops, writing in solitude.
I
absolutely miss that quiet writing time, but I don’t very much miss the
oppressive pressure to publish, which was not limited to my former university
but is integral to professorships everywhere.
High school’s commitment exclusively to teaching feels like an amazing
gift. At the university, I always felt a
tension in my bifurcated existence: when I focused on my teaching, I knew I
should be researching and writing instead, but when I was writing, I worried
that I was shortchanging my students, who were entitled only to a fraction of
my time and attention.
The
enormous upside of teaching the same high school classes every day, rather than
two longer or one very long college session per week, is that the teaching is,
frankly, better. Having tried both
schedules now, I realize that we can accomplish more in multiple short bursts
than in longer but less frequent meetings.
Students (and teachers!) need not steel themselves for hours of
concerted attention at a time, and everyday meetings allow for a continuity of
learning that I didn’t realize I’d missed until I finally had it.
Along
the same lines, I’m thrilled that, as my university colleagues now reach the
end of their semester and begin to prepare for a new batch of students in
several weeks, I can continue working with the same students for six more
months. At the college, just as I began
to know my students well, they were gone, on to new classes and new learning
experiences. But at the high school, my
insight into the students’ unique needs and learning styles is just being
concretized, and I can devote the rest of the year to meeting their needs as
effectively as I can. Simply put, we
have more time and space to grow together just because of the differences in
high school and college scheduling.
Without
the obligation to publish, and with the commitment to being present all day, I
find that I have many, many more conversations about teaching and pedagogy than
I did at the university. Because I share
an office with my colleagues, we have spontaneous discussions about our classes
constantly. We share teaching materials
and strategies; we share frustrations and offer each other solutions to our
teaching questions. The isolation of the
university environment, which always felt to me like a privilege, has been
replaced for me by a much more valuable commodity: the opportunity for
spontaneous and ongoing collaboration.
The
similarities are notable too: in particular, I love the college students and
the high school students equally. Both
groups are deeply committed to learning, have fascinating opinions and ideas,
struggle with their busy schedules and the many pressures they face, and bring
me enormous joy. Both groups remind me
of how lucky I am to be in a profession that can touch lives, even in a small
and local way. Each group has surprised
with its many talents and occasionally frustrated me with its various needs,
and I have felt wonderfully challenged in both environments to focus on what
students need and how I can best facilitate their learning.
All
of these comparisons, though, speak to the difference between college and high
school teaching generally. But SAR High
School is its own creature, and I have had to adapt as well to this distinctive
environment. I've had to learn a
surprising number of acronyms (SLC, GLC, MPR, PTC, RPT: I keep a running list),
become accustomed to a level of ambient noise I haven’t experienced since I was
a camp counselor during my own high school years, expect a new special schedule
on a daily basis (so much so that the “regular” schedule feels awfully special
now!), and develop an almost Pavlovian response to that electronic bell.
More
importantly, I’ve had to adapt to levels of joy, kindness, beauty, morality,
thoughtful leadership, and meaningful introspection that were foreign to my own
high school experience and have never before been part of my work life. The phrase that often comes to mind when I
think of SAR is “intentional community,” which, although generally referring to
a municipality rather than a school, suggests organic and communally-based
mindfulness about its philosophies and principles. That environment doesn’t happen by accident,
and I have been so impressed by SAR’s empowerment of its constituents, at every
level, who are treated with respect and who therefore act with respect. SAR High School has created a
self-perpetuating environment of goodness, in its broadest and most inclusive
sense.
Which
brings us back to the gymnasium. It was
my first Rosh Chodesh chagigah, another special schedule, another new
event. We began with the students, arms
intertwined, circling the entire gymnasium and singing heartfelt praises of and
longing for Eretz Yisrael. Those slow,
moving moments gave way to raucous dancing, students racing around the gym with
joy. The event overwhelmed me, initially
seeming chaotic. But then I noticed the
seniors purposely separating from their friends to grab groups of freshmen,
sophomores and juniors and pull them into the circles, dancing and celebrating
their Jewishness and their membership in this incredible community. Some students grabbed me too, and I danced
with them, noticing not the typical high school cliques that have ruined high
school experiences for so many of us but
something else entirely: a sense of togetherness, of responsibility for one
another’s joy, an arvut that spread through the room in great, crashing waves
of love.
I
felt Hashem’s presence with us in that room, and, with tears in my eyes, I said
a small prayer of thanks: that this place exists, that this moment occurs, that
I am part of it.
