The demise of the character teacher

By John Hellner
Remember any of these teachers?

I loved the history teacher who made me stand on a desk for giving a poor essay
introduction and posted a picture on the door of himself in his sporting strip. We were eager
to do well and we knew it really mattered to him to get the best from us.

He was a New Zealand weight lifting champion. When we were in the fourth form, he
pressed a kid over his head in the front of the class. No one talked out of turn again.

She was an engaging, zany history teacher who relied on humour and misdirection to
instruct her students. When she arrived late, she ran in as if she was coming on stage from
fright, then sliding to a stop. The usual crazy, attention-getting entrance.
We could always distract him into telling us stories about the past. He told them so funny.

She looked so unusual with a funny face and she sometimes dyed her hair in different colours. She
had a doctorate and never let us get away with anything. She liked teaching teens better than any
other age.

We loved him because, in an all-girl Catholic high school, he was the one strong voice that said
challenge what you're told and being a woman is more about how strong your mind is, not about
your appearance.

His car was junky and never started unless we pushed it. At 2 minutes before the bell, he had us out
in the car park pushing. He really knew his subject, but not cars. He loved going to Vegas.
I had a Latin teacher who would lie across a row of desks at the front of the class as he taught - in
the manner of a Roman reclining at a banquet. He also insisted that he had been reincarnated
several times, including as a playwright in the Elizabethan era. He could not remember what his
name had been as a playwright, but he had written a play called Hamlet.

Not to mention the English teacher who insisted on wearing something red all the time - red
glasses, a red tie, or red trousers. Even red shoes.

She never knew our names, but she always had good, real life stories to support her point. I am not
even sure they were all true. One time one of the other teachers dressed up like a student and sat in
the class. She never knew. At least we were all equal.

A ray of sunshine, outstandingly polite, never seemed stressed, supported all around her, but
wasn't crazy ambitious, really knew her subject and we trusted her. She got results. Oh, and the
clothes she wore - like a colour blind Hawaiian.

This teacher didnt have a grass lawn. It was all paved with cemented-in garden gnomes. He had
long wispy hair, somewhat dishevelled and a distracted appearance, but what a teacher. Passion
defined him. One year someone stole one of his gnomes and put it on the stage at school.

Chalky would write on the chalkboard with one hand and erase it with the other as he went along.
The dust flew everywhere. One morning, when he had the flu, he came to school with his pyjamas
on under his clothes in order to write the notes all over the board, so we wouldnt miss out. We
could see them sticking out of his coat. He never left until 10 oclock.

Lets call them character teachers. They livened the place up. They added spirit to the place.
Characters who could teach well and felt free to express their personality and speak their minds.
Those somewhat quirky eccentrics, who kids loved and learned from and totally dedicated, but who
didnt quite fit the mould of what a teacher should be like.

Did the character teachers leave the room? If so, why?

Try these answers out:

Social diversity and a need for inclusion increased necessitating a more individualized approach.
Research to achieve these goals exploded. Demands for success and measuring success grew
Policies, programmes and best practice guidelines proliferated. More money spent. Socio-babble?

As education has become more complex and costly at the taxpayers expense, the demands for
accountability has increased. Compliance has followed. Fair enough. Thats everywhere now.

Loose cannons dont fit with the business model most schools need now. We cant have people
who may ruffle some feathers, who dont fit into a mould, who shun compliance. Character teachers
seem risky. Schools are answerable to customers now. The customer is always right. Customers
might get titchy with someone who doesnt do it the way everyone wants it done. But we have to
sell the product. Psycho-babble?

Maybe the bureaucracy of the new normal, since the early 1990s beats the eccentricity out of
everyone, not just teachers. We get bits of ourselves chiselled out as we go through the system.
Maybe more regulation and training has resulted in characters being weeded out. Hail to
conformity.

Greater generic skills, for curriculum compliance or whatever, are needed by a teacher and the
'crazy' teachers don't generally have them, or want to have them, because they are 'out of the box'
thinkers.

Nah! Too many sweeping and unsupported generalisations. Cant have that we need evidence.

We miss em

The character let kids know being different or being yourself was OK. Maybe helped kids to think
they are normal, relatively speaking, at a time of life when they might be putting a critical spotlight
on themselves hey, Im pretty all right next to that one.
The characters added humour to many situations in what can sometimes be the difficult and tedious
business of learning. The good kind of humour bringing the joke down on ourselves. Humour or a
good story made the day brighter. Kids felt involved, part of the group, all were included.

And those types of teachers make an organization stand out as being authentic, real people who are
passionate for their subject and the people they work with.

Edu-babble?

Good riddance
Use the rule of universality if all teachers were character teachers the system would break down.
Odd would be normal and we would live in the mad hatters tea party. Who could measure that?
How could we know who was doing what?

Remember the bad old days and all the kids who slipped through the cracks because we didnt
have all the policies, programmes and practices to help them. We need the bureaucracy to provide a
safety net for the greatest good for the greatest number.

Ethics-babble?

Mess with their heads

Test if you are one or if you want to be one:

Develop humorous, odd and anomalous trademarks, traditions, routines, rituals and ceremonies.
Celebrate eccentricity. Accept that failure leads to accomplishment. Herald the meek, the unusual
and the uncommon. Revel in diversity. Rage against conformity. Critically challenge the
conventional.

A colleague at an international school I worked at said:

A great teacher on my teacher training once said to us go forth and be the 'Trojan mice' of
schools. Spread creativity and intrigue and still get the results on the standardized tests.
Mess with their rigid system when no one is looking.

But, always maintain a jewellers eye for the acceptable boundaries to your character.

How kids learn?

In a TED talk, Rita Pierson, a teacher of 40 years, says she once heard a colleague say, "They don't
pay me to like the kids." Her response: "Kids don't learn from people they don't like.

. Ritas thoughts reflected a motherlode of research dressed up like boxes of chocolates in fancy
packages and programmes and rolled out over many years at great expense.

Very simple: character teachers liked their students and connected with them on a real, human and
personal level by being themselves and sharing this with their students. Students learned subject
material from them. Students learned that the boundaries of normal expanded over a wide range.
Students learned to be themselves. Character teachers still teach all that in all their very different
ways.

Thanks to Alex Bing for sharing the idea of the demise of the character teacher, from his farewell
speech when he retired from Auckland Grammar School. And thanks to ex pupils and teachers who
sent their stories along.

This article will appeared in Good Teacher magazine in Term 2 of 2017