{"id":19824,"date":"2013-08-13T10:37:57","date_gmt":"2013-08-13T14:37:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=19824"},"modified":"2013-08-13T19:20:28","modified_gmt":"2013-08-13T23:20:28","slug":"classroom-contemplations-how-teachers-find-success-from-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/08\/13\/classroom-contemplations-how-teachers-find-success-from-failure\/","title":{"rendered":"Classroom Contemplations: How Teachers Find Success From Failure"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Paying<\/a>

markhillary \/ Flickr<\/p>

Paying a student to read Animal Farm didn't inspire him to read more. But he reminded the teacher of who she should be in the classroom.<\/p><\/div>\n

Editor’s note: Names of students and teachers have been changed.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Knowing we were going to be talking about former students, Lisa Perry told me she got out some letters she had saved and read through them. \u00a0The exercise inspired her to get in touch with four of her students from over 20 years ago. \u00a0(\u201cFacebook is a wonderful thing,\u201d she told me.)<\/p>\n

But it also showed her some themes about her teaching, things that were mentioned repeatedly by students as they expressed appreciation.<\/p>\n

Perry told me that she saw again and again phrases like: \u201cYou really opened my eyes;\u201d \u201cYou valued what I said;\u201d \u201cYou took me into the world of literature and helped me relate it to life.\u201d<\/p>\n

But her most memorable story was what she sees as her failure as a teacher.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

When she first started teaching she had a student, Robert, who didn\u2019t listen to anything she said.<\/p>\n

During class, he slept or he looked out the window. \u00a0He simply wasn\u2019t interested in school and he told her that, point blank. \u00a0She felt, with the missionary zeal most of us have as young teachers, that there had to be a way to turn him on.<\/p>\n

The class was reading Animal Farm<\/em> and she offered Robert $20 to read the first chapter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the catch?\u201d he asked, full of suspicion. \u00a0He told her he knew teachers, knew there was always an angle, always a catch. \u00a0He expected that, after he finished the first chapter, she would withhold payment until he read another, or passed a test or completed some other task.<\/p>\n

Perry told him there were no strings attached. \u00a0The day he came in and told her he had read the chapter, he\u2019d get $20. \u00a0No questions asked.<\/p>\n

Robert came back a few days later, told her he had read it. Perry gave him the $20.<\/p>\n

Now, in the teacher stories we are used to, this is where Robert would get turned on by his experience of reading that first chapter. \u00a0He\u2019d love it so much that he\u2019d read the rest of the book, then maybe everything Orwell wrote. \u00a0He\u2019d move on to read other classics and, eventually, he\u2019d become a writer himself.<\/p>\n

But that isn\u2019t what happened.\u00a0 Robert continued to do nothing in school, and he eventually dropped out.<\/p>\n

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