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'Chasing something they haven't caught yet'
Hatton offers seasoned educators chance to reflect
By Carey King
Think back to your school days and call up a few memories of your favorite teachers.
Who do you see? The first-grade teacher who treasured that rock you brought for show-and-tell? The third-grade teacher who came up with a creative way to remember the multiplication tables? The middle- or high-school guide who pointed out your talents and helped you become the person you are today?
Reading Sara Hatton's new book is just like sitting in a room with all those schoolhouse greats. "Teaching by Heart: The Foxfire Interviews" is a compilation of Hatton's talks with 15 of the most prominent educators of past decades – Robert Coles, Vivian Paley, Ira Shor, Alfie Kohn – but instead of discussing educational theory, the interviewees get personal and share what they've learned after spending years in the classroom.
Sylva author Sara Hatton will be at City Lights Bookstore this Friday, Jan. 28, at 7 p.m. to read from and sign copies of her new book, "Teaching by Heart: The Foxfire Interviews." A compilation of discussions with 15 of the country's most prominent educators, "Teaching by Heart" was recently published by Teachers College Press, the print arm of Columbia University's top-ranked Teachers College. – Herald photo by Carey King
"What always amazed me was how accessible, honest and down-to-earth these people were. How willing they were to share their thinking and mistakes," said Hatton, who conducted the interviews while working for the non-profit Foxfire organization in Rabun County, Ga.
Begun in 1966 by an English teacher who wanted his students to take ownership of the lessons they were learning in class, Foxfire is an educational and literary non-profit that grew from the magazine those students created into a museum, teaching center and educational philosophy. The students left their textbooks to interview the people of their rural Georgia community, then wrote from experience about Appalachian ways of life. From that developed the "Foxfire Approach" – a set of teaching practices that create classrooms where student involvement and collaboration are key.
The Foxfire method is now taught in workshops across the country, and from 1996 to 2001, Hatton edited a journal for participating teachers called The Active Learner. For nearly every issue, she or a colleague would track down a well-known educator – most of them professors, researchers and authors at various universities – and ask them to share their experiences.
"We always included teachers to help us with our work," Hatton said of Foxfire's small, four-person staff. "We sat down and talked about what teachers wanted to know, who they'd want to hear from. We came up with a list of questions to ask, then said, 'Let's talk to this person, because their ideas are wonderful.'"
While most interviews began with Hatton seeking out the interviewee through book agents or college administrators, meetings were for the most part easy to arrange because the Foxfire name is so well-known in educational circles, Hatton said. Any pretense or ego the professors may have had melted away in light of the questions she asked – inquiries into the learning experiences each of them had as children and novice educators.
"We wanted to know what as children had put them on the road to education, their experiences as learners and then their experiences as teachers," Hatton said.
"Some of their stories gave me chills," she said.
Child psychologist and "The Moral Life of Children" author Robert Coles told of a fifth-grade teacher who, through tears, taught the lesson of Abraham Lincoln's decency and fairness during the Civil War. In that "dramatic, personal, moral moment," Coles said, his "own working life began."
Whole-language professor Yetta Goodman spoke of being humbled by a child's courage during a middle-school current events lesson she taught during the McCarthy era. When a student said his father thought communism wasn't bad, she "squirmed out" of an answer, only later realizing the importance of teachers putting their own "necks on the line" for free speech and democracy.
Much-honored educational philosopher Maxine Greene summed up her never-ending struggle to be a better teacher, saying that "there is nothing more fascinating, nothing more life-affirming, because teaching ... is an open-ended kind of undertaking. You never really know if you are successful. You are working with human possibility."
That notion that nobody's perfect, that all teachers are working toward becoming better at their craft, is a thought that pervades each educator's story and makes the collection accessible to seasoned and novice teachers alike.
"My intent for this book was to inspire teachers in their teaching and let them see that these great thinkers experience the same challenges and the same uncertainties they do," Hatton said. "Most of (the featured teachers) have been in education for many years, and they're still learning. They all say they're chasing something they haven't caught yet."
One teacher friend who recently retired from the profession told Hatton the book made her want to get back in the classroom, and Hatton said that's her goal. She wants to help teachers remember the significance of what they do day in and day out – to recognize the crucial role they play in helping kids understand and communicate with the world around them.
"If someone who reads it wants to keep teaching, it was worth all the work," Hatton said.
As someone who's worked in jobs ranging from silversmith to adult educator to Sylva Herald reporter to Southwestern Community College public relations officer, Hatton said she realizes that education happens in more places than inside classrooms.
"Certainly I'd never compare myself to a public school teacher – I have such a deep respect for them – but I think we're all teachers," she said.
Moms, dads, grandparents, neighbors – they all impact children's lives, and in that way, the interviewed educators' insights apply to more than just career teachers. The Foxfire approach of recognizing the whole world as a classroom shifts the concept of "learning" from a task parents place on educators to responsibility of the community as a whole.
"Think about how we influence each other every day, the great impact we can have on each other's lives," Hatton said. "Think about how interdependent we are. That's a good thing."
Hatton will read from and sign copies of her book at 7 p.m. this Friday, Jan. 28, at City Lights Bookstore. For details, call the store at 586-9499.
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