must be convinced that what you are saying and doing makes sense and they should go
along. To paraphrase a quote by Abraham Lincoln, you can control all of the students some
of the time, some of the students all of the time, but you cannot control all of the students all
of the time. The effort to control everyone either promotes rebellion or teaches students to
accept dictatorship. I do not think either of these ends is a worthy goal.
My experience is that the combination of relationships with students and effective organi-
zation eliminates 90% of the classroom problems new teachers anticipate and fear. This al-
lows you to concentrate on your primary task, which is teaching students. As a teacher, you
must learn how to structure lessons and set up a classroom to minimize conflicts and en-
courage student participation. But effective classroom organization is difficult, especially for
young and inexperienced teachers. I find that this is an area in which people who have had
other work experience usually have a decided advantage. As you start your career, experi-
enced teachers, including myself, will give you a lot of conflicting suggestions about how to
be successful as a teacher. Take all advice “with a grain of salt,” and see what makes sense
to you.
The rest of this chapter examines ways that high schools and middle schools are orga-
nized, including the tracking of students. I offer suggestions on how to adapt enough to find
and hold onto a job in a traditional school setting, tips for organizing a classroom and devel-
oping class rules, and approaches to inclusive teaching. The chapter concludes with essays
by four new teachers. Laura Pearson talks about the first day of the school year, Nichole Wil-
liams discusses her experience adjusting to life in a traditional school, Ken Dwyer compares
being a student in a rural school with his experience teaching urban children and adults in
rural Africa and in an affluent suburban community, and Kate Simons Smith describes teach-
ing in public and parochial schools in different areas of the United States.
SECTION A: IF YOU COULD BUILD A SECONDARY SCHOOL
FROM SCRATCH, WHAT WOULD IT LOOK LIKE?
In October 2000, a highly regarded magazine for teachers and school administrators,Educa-
tional Leadership, selected Raymond Callahan’s 1962 classicEducation and the Cult of Effi-
ciencyas one of the 100 most influential books on education written during the 20th century.
Callahan studied the period between 1900 and 1940 when the modern American school sys-
tem emerged. It is an era when the goals and practices of industry were widely celebrated,
so it is not surprising that business and industrial management philosophies shaped the de-
velopment of public schools. The assembly line was the model; economy, the ideal; effi-
ciency, the goal.
Two other powerful forces shaping the American secondary school at the same time were
Christian religious beliefs and opposition to immigration. Between 1880 and 1924, more than
26 million immigrants, the largest number from Eastern and Southern Europe and either Ro-
man Catholics or Jews, arrived in the United States. This new population changed the face of
the country and threatened to transform its culture and politics. The response of traditional
elites, industrialists, established ethnic groups, and political and religious leaders was
forced assimilation. New laws prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages
and virtually barred new immigration between 1924 and 1965. Political radicals were ar-
rested and deported, and schools were specifically designed to control, process, assimilate,
and sort the new Americans and prepare them for manual labor and factory work. Progres-
sive education, education for understanding and leadership, was reserved for the economic,
124 CHAPTER 5