Which Teacher is the Most Important?

Orange Elementary Superintendent, Paul Burnim and I agreed earlier this summer that we would be working together to build a sense of community across our districts. There is much to be gained by our efforts and working together makes perfect sense when you think about it. Take a look:

For most of our students, the road to Mahar travels through the Orange Elementary Schools.

We work with the same families.

We work in the same community.

We work for the same purpose.

So, yesterday morning I had the opportunity to meet briefly with the teachers from the Orange Elementary Schools and Superintendent Burnim paid our faculty a visit today. We are already working together to secure influenza vaccines for our students and staff and we are working together on a competitive grant that focuses on school safety. We are also having discussions about areas in which the elementary and secondary curriculums could interlock in some project based learning opportunities for our students.

The partnership that we are developing caused me to really think about the education system and those who really make a difference working with children and adolescents. Having worked in high schools I know that it is common for one teacher to see himself or herself as more important than another teacher on the basis of the grade or subject matter that he or she teaches. This phenomenon is even more profound today because the federal and state government bases a school district’s effectiveness on the results of Mathematics, English, Language Arts, and Science examinations. Therefore a teacher of mathematics may see what he or she does very differently than a teacher of art, music, or foreign language.

So, which teacher is the most important? Is it the Kindergarten teacher who teaches children the alphabet, their colors, and how to count or is it the First Grade Teacher who teaches the children to read? Perhaps the Fourth Grade Teacher who teaches the children to write a three paragraph essay is more important than the Sixth Grade Teacher who teaches multiple digit division? Is the Physics Teacher who conducts laboratory experiments on acceleration more valuable than the Music Teacher who teaches a child to play the piano, a trombone, or a guitar?

Truth be told, while the teacher is a solo act in his or her classroom he or she cannot do it alone. The Physics Teacher will have a difficult time teaching the principles of acceleration to a child who has not learned basic math. The Fourth Grade Teacher can’t teach a child to write an essay unless the child has learned how to hold a pencil, how to write letters, and how to read. It is a fact that every teacher in the life of a child is important. Reading, writing and arithmetic are just as important as creativity, problem solving, and respect. The teachers in our high school cannot do the work that they do unless the teachers in the middle school provide the requisite instruction. Just the same, the teachers in our middle school cannot do it without the work of the teachers at Orange Elementary, Petersham Center School, and Swift River Elementary.

The Most Important Teacher: The one who prepares the children for the teacher who has them next.