The Education of Ms. Groves

For Monica Groves, her first year of teaching was not only tough, but was captured entirely on camera for everyone to see.  “The Education of Ms. Groves,” the Dateline NBC segment which chronicles Groves’ first year of teaching, was screened at the Askwith Forum on Tuesday, April 3.

Groves, now a master’s candidate in the Teacher Education Program at the Ed School, said that on her first day of teaching she felt sick to her stomach and unsure whether she could actually be a good teacher.

With no experience as a teacher, Groves started in the Teach for America program confident that her teaching would make a difference to her sixth graders — much like her own first grade teacher had impacted her. However, as the film shows, within a month of being on the job, Groves was struggling to gain the respect of her students and even, at times, herself.

Many of the emotions Groves shared on camera resonated with audience members, who wiped away tears as she confided to the camera how much of herself she puts into teaching every day.

Producer Izhar Harpaz said he shot over 100 hours of footage that year, ultimately deciding to turn Groves’s experience into a full-length feature to air on the Sundance Channel this August. In many ways, the film offers an inside view on what it’s like to be a teacher.

“The entire time, I kept waiting for the tough part to be over,” Groves told the Askwith audience after viewing the feature. “It never happened. There was always something I could do better.”

And Groves did do better. When midway through the school year, the majority of her students were failing, and a large portion of class time was being spent on controlling behavior rather than on lesson plans, Groves had a change of heart that shaped both the future of her students and her future as a teacher. “When I made changes within myself, I saw changes in them,” Groves told the audience. “I learned a lot, and it was humbling.”

Now with two years of teaching under her belt, Groves said she sees this film as evidence of how hard teachers work combined with the highs and lows of being a teacher.

Although Groves plans to return to the same school when she completes her degree this year, the number of teachers who continue along Groves’ path isn’t promising. The high attrition rate among new teachers is alarming. Within this decade, U.S. schools will have to hire 2 million teachers to replace those leaving the profession and to accommodate a growing number of students. Evidence suggests that attracting and retaining a high quality teaching force will be a challenge.

“How can schools ensure that people like Ms. Groves do their best work?” Professor Susan Moore Johnson asked. “How do we find the best?”

If finding the best is an issue facing schools, then undoubtedly so is keeping the best teachers in the classroom. As part of Johnson’s research, the Project on the Next Generation of Teachers, she tracked 50 first and second year teachers. After four years, one-third left teaching, one-third changed schools, and one-third remained in teaching.

“In our study, only three out of 50 planned on being long-term classroom-based teachers,” Johnson said. “Many don’t think of [teaching] as forever but just stints — which puts more pressure on the system.”

And, as “The Education of Ms. Groves” proves, teaching is anything but easy. Many teachers need more support, opportunity, and encouragement, as the reality is that teachers are “responsible for gas in our tank.”

“Public schools have to change in fundamental ways,” Johnson reiterated. “It is an incredibly stuck system.”