Phil Done and "The Art of Teaching Children"
The kids you'll find in every classroom, the down sides of educational technology and the power of a handwritten note.
Philip Done is an award-winning veteran teacher and education writer. His most recent book, “The Art of Teaching Children,” gently and thoughtfully outlines the work of teaching from the perspective of an educator who has seen just about everything.
Tell me the story of this book. How did it come to be?
About three years ago, I retired from the classroom after 33 years of teaching, mainly elementary school. My niche was Grades 3, 4 and 5. When I retired, I wanted to write another book. I thought the perfect book to write at this time would be a book for teachers — veterans, and new teachers, and aspiring teachers as well — from the perspective of a retired teacher.
I knew there was a huge need for it because, as you know, teachers are just having such a hard time, and they have had for years. When the pandemic hit, things just got worse. So many teachers are leaving the profession. Teacher burnout is at an all time high. New teachers just need all the help and guidance they can get.
A couple of my family members have homeschooled. I have found that parents, and particularly parents who home school, they haven’t done it before, they don’t know where to start, they don’t know what’s important. Where do I start with the reading, how do I teach math? That was also in my mind. I wanted to give something to parents to say, This is where you start. This is what’s important. This is how you teach writing.
What are some other things that you think translate to the home — other lessons from the classroom that parents might find useful?
So many things, because the parent is the first teacher. Nurturing creativity, for one. I have a whole chapter on the importance of nurturing creativity and how to go about that, and it’s so important. This is a little more obvious, but the reading aloud section. Many parents already know about the importance of reading aloud. The math section — I find that a lot of parents don’t know where to start. They don’t know the basics if they’re helping their kids, like about moving from the concrete to the abstract.
And writing — writing is one of the hardest subjects to teach, any good teacher will tell you that. My experience with homeschool parents is that that’s the one that scares them the most. You don’t have a workbook. I thought very much about my parent audience when I was writing that section. So there are many things in the book that translate to the parents.
When I wrote the book, I wanted to write about the universal truths of teaching. As I say, the pendulum swings back and forth, and it does every few years. It did certainly when I was teaching. But I wanted to hit those universal truths that don’t change, like the importance of reading aloud to children every day if you can. And I think parents would really enjoy learning that.
You’ve really emphasized in your book that for the most part, kids haven’t changed that much. But you do mention technology as one of the things that has changed. I wonder if you feel that’s been a net positive overall, or a net negative? Or is it more neutral?
Technology in the classroom? It’s definitely here to stay, and it’s pervasive. For example, in a typical third-grade classroom now, a third-grader will play math games on the computer, they’ll read e-books during silent reading time, they’ll practice their spelling words on Spelling City, they’re searching the Internet (with guidance) to do a research report, then they go home and have to do things on the computer as well.
These laptops and iPads are used all the time in the classroom. And as I point out in the book, some parents may not even realize that. They may not realize to what extent the iPads and the laptops are used in an elementary school classroom. The hours that kids are on these computers is a lot. So we’ll start there — that some parents might not know that.
Of course, there are benefits to technology. Kids become technologically literate, and it’s fun for children, so of course there are advantages. But, as I say in the book, there are also disadvantages if not used carefully. I’ll focus on writing. The trend now is to get these iPads and laptops into elementary school kids’ hands for their writing, and I do not believe they should be writing their first drafts of anything on the computer. Because what happens is — and I’ve seen it a thousand times — these little ones who don’t know how to type are focused on finding the letters, and they're thinking about what kind of crazy fun font they’re going to use, but they’re not focused on the writing.
So I tell my student teachers, you can use the computer for the final draft, but not the first draft. That’s when they need to focus on writing. With the reading, you have to be careful with that as well. In my experience, I don’t find that kids’ comprehension is any better reading an e-book rather than a real book.
I guess where I’m going with this is, you absolutely need to have a balance. And teachers are aware of this. It’s not like teachers are just saying, I’m going to use technology for everything. It’s a subject we talk about a lot. Parents are asking for low-tech classrooms.
When kids are using technology and they’re in front of a screen — there’s just so many minutes in a day. There are things they're not doing that are important. They’re not interacting with their classmates; they’re not manipulating objects; they’re not outside. I’ve been into many a math classroom where kids are all focused and on their computers playing math games. But it’s what they’re not doing during math that is worrying.
One thing I hear sometimes from educators is this idea that parents have changed. That they are more demanding, or that they are more likely to side with their own kid rather than with the school if a child is in trouble. Is that anything you’ve experienced?
I don’t think parents have changed. I really don’t. All parents, whether it was 35 years ago or three years ago, want the same thing. They want their children to succeed in school, they want their children to have the best year ever, they want the teacher to get their child and they want the teacher to care for their precious baby as much as they do. So what parents want has not changed at all, in my experience.
Now of course, parents are like kids. There are all different kinds of parents, and they have all different kinds of needs. Most parents are absolutely fantastic. They help, they drive on field trips, they send in birthday cupcakes. Most parents are great. Every year — and any teacher worth their salt will tell you this — you will get one or two challenges. But this has been the case for my entire career. And it wasn’t like, Oh my gosh, five years ago, it just became worse and half the parents were problematic. No. Every year you get one or two challenges.
There’s something I talk about in the book. I was a new teacher, it was my first year, and I had a parent come in and just bulldoze me in the first week of school. I went to the principal, and he said, Listen, Phil, if you can please 90% of the parents, you’re doing great. And that was the best parent advice I’ve ever had. I had one parent say, You give too much homework, and the very same day, another parent said, You don’t give enough homework. You can’t please them all. You need to know your stuff, and do it well, but you can’t please them all.
And to piggyback on this, you hear the same thing about kids. Kids have changed, kids aren’t what they used to be. I absolutely disagree with that. Kids are the same today as they were 30 years ago. Their gadgets have changed and their clothing has changed, but the kids are the same. You will always have your challenging children, every year. And every year you will have your children who never stop talking. And every year you will have your shy children.
But I will say this, so that nobody misunderstands: The challenges have increased. You’re seeing more trauma, more homelessness, more poverty. Definitely. That’s a very important distinction.
What do teachers need to be successful?
Support from the principal. You have to have that support from the principal, and a lot of teachers unfortunately aren’t getting that. There’s a saying in education, which is that if you don’t feed the teacher, they eat the children. So it’s being verbally encouraging, and also having teachers’ backs, so that when a parent does complain, they don’t automatically listen to the parent. They will send the parent to the teacher to sort it out. And thirdly, to understand that teachers are human. Teachers have lives and families and the human element as well. And if you have one of those principals, you are lucky.
And what about parents? What can they do to support their child’s teacher?
Don’t bombard the teacher the first week of school. Stay away. Let the teacher get to know the kids. You don’t need to have a conference the first week of school. That teacher’s responsibility is to get to know the children as well as he or she can. Don’t view back-to-school night as just a chance to get information. And don't wait for Teacher Appreciation Week to show appreciation. The best way to show it is with a handwritten note. Not email — a handwritten note. Teachers save them!
Thanks to Phil for speaking with me about the art of teaching. Subscribers can look for the audio version of my conversation with Phil in your in-box next week. In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you!