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Putnam
197pgs/$11.99
The end of the school year. The time when even your favorite students start to get under your skin. Grades are due. Assignments are missing. You’re tearing off each calendar day with the ferocity required to wrestle an alligator. Then you read Taylor Mali’s What Teachers Make, and it reminds you of why you entered this career in the first place. Because yes, there are times when the moon is full and your classroom is full of kids high on Pixie Stix. And sometimes administrators say one thing and do another. But ultimately, it comes down to you and your students and the difference being a teacher can make. The connections between teachers and students go well beyond the paycheck.
The basis for What Teachers Make originally emerged as a poetic response to a lawyer who questioned why anyone would want to be a teacher considering how poorly they are paid. Posting the poem on his website ignited interest, and soon after a video of Mali performing the poem hit YouTube, things went viral. I’d heard of the poem before I knew Taylor Mali’s name. In fact, I had been one of those skeptical link clickers on Facebook, believing I was about to witness yet another teacher basher. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Needless to say, when the book presented itself, I jumped at the chance to read it. I wasn’t disappointed.
Mali shares stories from his nine years of teaching without sounding boastful. His tight prose told through heartwarming vignettes showers positive reinforcement for the good teachers in the world- those who make positive phone calls home, instead of always the bad; those who demand a child’s best work and don’t reward the highest grade for anything less. He provides heart-wrenching moments including a bullying incident during an Uno game between some of his middle school boys. One boy defended another who had started to cry. That night the boy who defended his friend earned one of those good phone calls home.
Maybe because I too, teach middle schoolers I have a greater appreciation for these moments when the lesson transcends the classroom. I can visualize his stories among my own students and experiences. Regardless, what Mali shares is a formula for life, for striving to achieve your best and not handing in anything less than that. In those ways, this is a story that can easily relate to people who don’t operate their lives in a room with a chalkboard and student desks. You don’t have to be a teacher to understand what teachers have done and continue to do. You don’t have to be a teacher to realize how teachers have impacted your life.
Peppered throughout the novel are other Mali poems- education related mostly, including one about a student with cancer who inspired his class to shave their heads. The boys didn’t want their classmate to feel out of place returning to school bald after chemo treatments. Even if you hated school, you can’t deny the humbling feeling Mali must have had that day- the sense that in some cases students can teach each other and their behaviors and reactions can teach you.
Hearing Mali perform his poem,”What Teachers Make” you can’t help but get choked up and feel empowered like you want to rise out of your chair and fist-bump him on stage.
“You want to know what I make? I make kids wonder, I make them question. I make them criticize. I make them apologize and mean it. I make them write, write, write, and then I make them read. I make them spell definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful over and over and over again until they will never misspell either one of those words again…”
His novel stretches that poem into nearly 200 pages of explanations behind the lines of his poetry, bringing light to the dark instances of parent phone calls, and drawing attention to what a strong educator can coax from a kid. He addresses issues of standardized testing; commenting about how so much that is learned cannot be measured by a bubble sheet test. And he shares stories of humbling moments when he realized he was in the presence of students who were smarter than him.
Mali also fiercely defends teachers, suggesting the best teachers should be rewarded for going to the worst schools- to serve those most needy students and to bring a rise to a nation of children. He discusses the more than one billion dollars American teachers spend to buy classroom supplies when school budgets no longer cover the cost. Not only that, he brings light to the fact that teachers who enviously have summers off, usually spend those months working part-time jobs. Often, those jobs are not limited to the summer.
“The truth is that teachers don’t teach for the money. The people who enter this profession these days do so because they want to make a difference working with children. What do teachers make? We make sacrifices. Daily. We do what we can to make ends meet. We’re educated professionals who are passionate about what we do.”
Taylor Mali is no longer teaching in the formal sense of the word instead, he spends his time sharing his positive teacher message and encouraging others to join the ranks. I suspect he misses the classroom. Teachers who feel the passion for their job are difficult to lose. This is part of the motivation behind his quest to get 1,000 new teachers through his New Teacher Project.
Even if you’re not a teacher- give this to a teacher, read it on your own and reflect back on the teachers whose efforts are mirrored on these pages. You don’t have to be a teacher to love one, and reading this novel will usher back those magical moments where you learned, an idea clicked, or you felt special thanks to the influence of a teacher.