The Snowball General or How Do We Get Good Teachers to See Themselves as the Heros They Are?

The first-grader smiled, as she recalled her dream from the night before:

“Mrs. Jones (name has been changed) and a bunch of her friends and family – and some of our friends and family – all came over to our house. And there was a big meeting. And Mrs. Jones decided that she was going to be a general and Daddy was going to be a leader, too.”

After the meeting, the newly formed band of grown-ups and children quickly made their way to Antarctica. But once they got there, a problem was discovered:

“We realized that we didn’t have anything that an army would need to fight –no supplies or anything to defeat any kind of enemy.”

But quickly, this 7-year-old’s skillful teacher came up with an effective solution:

“Mrs. Jones told us we didn’t need much – that we could be victors just by throwing a lot of snowballs. So we threw snowballs, and threw snowballs, and then threw some more.”

In the end, the faceless, nameless enemy in the dream was defeated.

“Everything was ok because of Mrs. Jones, and also because of all the people that got behind her and what she was trying to do.”

On the surface, this is just a meaningless childhood dream – maybe even a common one. But within the context of what is going on in this young lady’s school – and in many others like it – the dream is arguably more enlightening.

This teacher’s students view her as powerful – powerful enough to lead armies and fight off enemies with mere snowballs.

But often, the teacher doesn’t see herself as so empowered. She sees herself as limited – a bit of a pawn, at times, subject to the whims of the district office, and to what she sees as inconsistent messages about everything from testing to curriculum to discipline to budgeting.

This teacher is one of the brightest we’ve seen – very much up to date on the latest research and dedicated to implementing that research in her classroom in ways that strengthen the learning of her kids.

She has a warm relationship with her students and they know that she cares about them. She cares about their stories about everything from their dog’s kennel cough to the second level of the latest Lego Wii game.

She works miracles. Every day.

She turns children on to science through experiments that go well beyond the district curriculum requirements. She manages to do required testing, but refuses to merely teach to the test, without pushing children to think in deeper, more critical ways. She is comfortable using technology in the classroom – even when she has some students who can’t use a mouse and others that probably have the knowledge to hack the district server if left unsupervised.

She meets the needs of emerging readers, while also challenging other readers who have already spent a year or more reading chapter books.

And for that, she is not just a dream of a general. She is a hero. Now, if we could just get her to see herself as one, there is no telling what she could achieve.