Frank Thoms, Teacher in the Rye

After my first seven years teaching social studies, I wanted to expand my knowledge and understanding of teaching. I became curious about the new progressive primary school movement in Oxfordshire and Leicestershire, England. I read books by John Holt, Charles Silberman, Charity James, Ivan Illich, and others. Something was on the horizon, something fascinating, something to take on to expand my repertoire, and deepen my understanding of the process of education.

I resigned from teaching in Hanover and took up a PhD residency in elementary education at UConn. The highlight was the seminar with the incomparable professor Philo T. Pritzkau.

My choice to write my Substack “Teacher in the Rye” is a shot in the dark. Many voices are expressing themselves, some with large followers and many like mine beginning to reach out. I have decided on Substack, because I now live in Mexico and cannot participate in civic action in the States. Writing is my best option. My love for teaching and many adventures in the classroom might encourage todays’ public school teachers.

I have taken Timothy Snyder’s principle that we need to know the past to bring into the present to create a better future.

Cory Booker: “Did you speak up?” The question for all of us. Whether we are willing and able to go into the streets, protest Tesla, write postcards, call Congressmen, speak on social media, whatever we choose for our resistance. When we do, we “speak up.”

I write this Substack from Mexico as my way to speak up. I urge readers to get involved in today’s crisis in public schools. Whoever you are, a parent or a citizen of your community, you need to speak up. Teachers need your support.

Think of your classroom, first as a conversation, a two-way interchange between you and your students and among students themselves. A place where personal restraint is absent, where speaking up is the norm. Paraphrasing Rebecca Solnit, ideas go back and forth like a tennis ball, ideas that grow and change with every volley. Conversations, especially when exploring the unfamiliar, enable you and your students to bite into absolutist thinking, to seek nuances, openings, each person contributes to the shape of what is being discussed. Different ideas stimulates thinking. Affirmations build community and lead to understandings.

I remember my first year entering my first classroom with its desks lined up in rows, the teacher’s desk up front, behind a scratched blackboard with some white chalk. I may have assigned seats, but I’m not sure. But I recall sometime during the that year, probably in the spring, I rearranged the desks into a horseshoe shape, the first in my school to do it. I am not sure what my rationale was. Upon looking back, the important result was that it freed my students to look at each other in the eye rather than the backs of heads.

How can I, and what right do I have as a former 20th century teacher, to speak into today’s challenging issues in public schools? My perspective is far removed from today’s fast-paced school life. But my experiences that I am sharing on this Substack have both advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, I have had multiple opportunities to develop a creative curricula with varied and deep learning experiences. I could be the teacher I wanted to be, and could invite students to make choices in their learning. But on the other hand…

In August 1962, I signed a contract to be a public school teacher, a time when schools were a collective home for children and teachers. We walked in and out of doors to the outside. Our cars were left unlocked in the parking lot. No students walked into classrooms with coffee. Parents and visitors appeared without signing in. Parents and teachers serving children together. No police at the front door. We monitored study halls and the lunch room. Occasionally, I encountered an angry student who shouted at me or threatened another, fewer times than I can count on one hand.

I visualize the classroom where teacher and students engage imbuing the fundamental principles of democracy. The American public school, now under threat, has been the backbone of the country. Children come to school at an early age not only to learn but to experience America’s values. When teachers educate, engage, their children become who they are, not a clone of some authority’s bidding. Recent outside demands, such as state testing, political interference, and parental anger have constricted teachers.

The most important value of a democratic education is that it demonstrates that it is only ‘we, just us’ and ‘no other.’

The Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984, decreed what words were allowed and not allowed. Its language, Newspeak, was designed to control vocabulary and limit thought. Something in a novel, something not in our democracy. Yet, here we are.

The New York Times reported that the Trump administration listed 294 words claiming to be the vocabulary of DEI and are discriminatory and wiped away. Words have been eliminated from hundreds of federal websites. The Times shared examples using red strikethroughs to indicate words that do not ‘belong.’ From the many examples in the article, one stands out for me.

When I was considering writing a Substack, I needed to know why. To write in anger about the Trump onslaught of the US and our allies, I would not bring much depth. But I believe I can as a former teacher.

I spent forty years in the classroom most in public schools and twelve years consulting to teachers. On this Substack, I share my unique experiences with an eye to contribute to today’s teachers to help them toward a better future. Public education when properly funded is the backbone of America providing opportunities for all children including the poor.

America’s teachers are in crisis. They are threatened by selfish politicians, angry parents, unruly students, and serious mental health issues. State and federal tests demand time away from their classrooms. Outmoded textbooks deprive opportunities to think and learn. Curriculum directives deplete initiative. They force teachers to become conduits rather than nurture conversations and creativity. Choosing to be a teacher should not mean to become a purveyor of information but to be an educator, not to teach to inevitable outcomes but to seek the unpredictable.

Meera Sharma, a new teacher, sought advice from Mr. Harding a former teacher now retired twenty years. Anticipating a challenging classroom with students coming in with digital-device-based lives, she knows that she needs help. And what better than to speak with someone with a good reputation who was his own person as a teacher. She decided she wanted to be her kind of teacher but knew she would need guidance. She understood the challenges that would face her.

This is an excerpt from the Preface from my fourth published book, Listening is Learning: Conversations Between Twentieth and Twenty-first Century Teachers. The book is written for  teachers but also is directed to the public to come to know and understand teachers.

You can’t do it alone. Yet it’s one of the practices expected of you. School opens. You’re in your classroom. Students pour in. You think you’ll handle it. But you are quaking in your shoes. Today is your wake-up call. You’ve decided to teach. Now you will––or hope you will.

Just what I am afraid of: today’s middle school teenagers disengaging, coasting, not actively learning. No wonder when they are saddled with the presence of their phones. But aside from that, increasingly they are not interested in learning in class and at home, nor do they want to make sense of it. When younger, learning was integral, moment to moment, everyday. Now they are checking out.

Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop, in “The Teen-Disengagement Process,” February 26 in the Atlantic, coin the term ‘passenger mode’ to describe these teens.

I left the classroom in May, 1999 and left consulting in 2012. In 2010, I published my first book, Teaching from the Middle of the Room: Inviting Students to Learn (Stetson Press). I discovered that writing was becoming my passion after all my years teaching. Looking back today, I have a library with six published books, one self-published, four with Rowman & Littlefield, and the other with Spark Press. And I have four manuscripts awaiting publication. If and when they are published, I will have ten books in my library!

The writing of each manuscript has been an enterprise in itself…

I discovered these three wondrous questions by Leo Tolstoy from Thich Nhat Hanh in his book The Miracle of  Mindfulness.

What is the best time to do each thing?

Who are the most important people to work with?

What is the most important thing to do at all times?

Hanh recounts Tolstoy’s story of an emperor, who after receiving no satisfying answers to the three questions, sought out a hermit said to be enlightened. Upon arriving and after he asks the three questions, the hermit puts him to work in his garden.

In these turbulent times, spurred by countless executive orders and the Muskovite invasion, We wonder what we can do. It’s happening so fast, a month now, and we can barely keep up let alone comprehend. Perhaps we are tempted to think “It’s over, we are done, what could I possibly do now? Too much happening, too fast, so many firings, deportations, agencies cancelled.”

But they, the oligarchs, are few. We are the majority. They can act fast, we gather our responses slowly. So, what can we do, readers of this Substack, for teachers and public schools?

I don’t think I need to convince my readers that reading is an integral part of our lives. We read books, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, essays, newspapers, magazines, because we want to. Many read to stay in touch with what’s happening. Reading gives us a framework to understand our world.

Having information, truthful information, has been a foundation of humanity. Early hunter gatherers informed each other about their hunting and gathering skills and sat around campfires sharing knowledge, feelings, and understandings. The ancient Greeks memorized wisdom, e.g., the Iliad and the Odyssey; Socrates was miffed when he learned of writing…

Many of us thought the coming of television in the mid-20th century would spark armchair entertainment for hours on end. Children would succumb to its charms. But we seemed to have gotten through that times somewhat unscathed, well not unscathed but still a people who talk to each other.

The 21^st century is taking us down a new path, a path of continuous entertainment. We have become a culture that prizes being entertained above all else. Not only in the home but everywhere we are. We have phones and all of its inputs, beeps, blings, alerts. 24/7!
When clicking…

The classroom is the backbone of every school and teachers are an integral part of the backbone of the country. Where students can be who they are, discover their gifts, and learn to become agents in society. It offers multiple ways to engage, connect, to be with students. Despite the glitz of social media and its ubiquitous role in our culture, the classroom can be––must be––a safe place without devices where students can be face to face, listen and talk together, trust one another, and understand who they are, and discover their agency to bring into the world.