Instructor talks to Rod Paige: the U.S. Secretary of Education discusses the role of a teacher and what brings him joy - Interview

Leading the charge for the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige wants to hold schools and teachers accountable in helping children succeed. And he believes that children will succeed. He recently sat down with Instructor to discuss NCLB, testing, the impact of teachers, and his own passion for education.

Q What will teachers have to do to successfully implement the NCLB legislation?

A The purpose of the No Child Left Behind Act is to provide those students who have difficulty meeting high standards with assistance in terms of a quality teacher in every classroom, and in terms of each and every child having an identity, so we're not teaching just to some mythical middle of the class....It doesn't mean the federal government is going to come down and start regimenting things, but we believe that if the public knows how their children are doing and how the schools are performing, that's a factor in terms of the school's performance.

Q How do you define the success of this program?

A There are three measures of success: student growth, student learning, and student achievement. Everything else is there to support student learning, student growth, and student achievement. Now the question is: How do you measure student growth and achievement? The most objective measure is through appropriate, valid, objective tests. Are rests perfect? No. Do we administer tests perfectly? Most of the time, no. Do we use the test data perfectly? Many times, no. But it is our best tool for measuring success. And there is no way to authentically have high-quality teaching without appropriate testing. We can only measure a teacher's success through the improvement of his or her students. In my opinion, there is no other measure.

Q What, in your opinion, makes a good teacher?

A The first thing is a person who loves children. All of the teachers I've [encountered], you can feel that they care and they love children, they want them in their classrooms, they feel good about them, they'll forgive them, they'll pick them up and pat them on the back. They won't put them down; they have high expectations. A good teacher cares. I don't mean fakes it, I mean genuinely cares.

The second thing is, good teachers are strong in their field. If they're teaching math, they know math up, down, and sideways. They're not just two chapters ahead in the book.

The third characteristic is, a good teacher understands the student. They know how the student learns. They know how he or she develops. They know about his or her environment.

Fourth, a good teacher is patient. She or he understands that learning may not occur quickly, and it also occurs at different rates with different people. If the student across the desk got it and I didn't, that doesn't make the student across the desk smarter and me stupid. That means, I didn't get it yet. A good teacher understands that and is patient with me.

Finally, a good teacher continues to learn. Teaching is a lifelong occupation, requiring constant preparation. I don't think there's any such thing as saying, 'I got prepared to be a good teacher and now that's it.'

Q What would you say to inspire teachers to keep their momentum going?

A Teachers have to reach down to their souls and see if this is the world that they were cur out to be in. This is what our challenge has [aid before us. This is our time to make a difference in the world. This is our calling, and this is our chance, and these are our problems. It's not, 'I could be great if these weren't the problems,' or 'I could do well if the students worked at it, or if the students had parents who had a strong literary foundation.' This is what it is.

So the first step is [asking themselves]: 'Is this what brings me joy? Is this what I'm cut out to do? Is this the environment that I want to be in?' If the answer is 'No,' then there is no slogan, lecture, or inspirational message that is going to change that.

Teaching is a mission, and teachers are missionaries as much as they are professionals. The challenge in America of teaching young people is not the same challenge that our grandmothers and our grandfathers and our mothers and our fathers met. It's a different world. And we can't wish these children a strong family or two parents. So we need to make sure we get our minds fixed on that.

Q What teacher had the greatest impact on you when you were a student?

A Her name was Margaret Walker Alexander. She taught freshman literature at Jackson State University. What was it that made her different? It was unequivocally clear that she had a fantastic love for the literature she taught. She presented it to us in such a way that we were just dying to read it. You didn't want to miss a minute of her class.

When the bell sounded that it was time to go, nobody was ready to go. We were sitting there spellbound, listening to Margaret Walker Alexander speak. I can see it in my mind's eye now, Margaret Walker Alexander talking to us and telling us stories of literature. Sometimes she wasn't even looking at us. She would walk over to the window and look out the window, and relate what she saw out there to what was going on in The Iliad and The Odyssey and these other stories. She was a fantastic teacher. She loved teaching, she knew her subject, and she knew how to frame it so that we understood it and loved it, too.