Why Ph.D.s belong in the high school classroom

The undergraduate majoring in education was looking to fill her observation hours at our school. One of my colleagues suggested she come see me teach. I was the only AP English teacher who taught seniors this year, and she had an interest in becoming an AP English teacher. She came at the beginning of first period, introduced herself and sat down in the back of the room.

As the students worked on some freewriting, I gave her a copy of the handouts and the day's lesson plan. I also told her a bit about what we were doing that day.

She observed me teach a period of AP Literature and one of AP Language, two classes high school students take to receive college credit. But I try to conduct my class as though it were a college classroom. Some of my college-level expectations are clearly stated, and some of them are in my head. But when my students don't meet those expectations, it reminds me that I need to make them clear.

At the end of both periods, the undergraduate and I had the chance to talk as I erased the board during lunch.

"The students respect you," she said.

"I'm glad they do. I respect them too. Respect is one of my rules of engagement in the classroom."

"You treat them like college students. They respond to that." It had never occurred to me to treat them in any other way.

Then she asked: "Why aren't you in a college classroom?"

"Job market," I said. "There aren't a lot of tenure-track jobs in higher education, and universities just want to hire more adjuncts."

I thought I'd shrugged the question off, but for weeks afterward I couldn't get it off my mind. She had struck a nerve. Why aren't I in a college classroom?

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In the moment, I interpreted it as a question about the logistical problems I had getting into a college classroom, and it brought up the old feeling, born of semesters of labor insecurity, that because I was always on a contract position, something must be wrong with my teaching abilities.

But then I realized what really bothered me was the unspoken but commonly held assumption behind her question: Of course a university teaching position is more desirable than a secondary gig. Somehow, the implication was, I had cheated myself, or I was lacking some quality that kept me stuck here, unable to make it there.

For weeks, I lived with this feeling. I worried that I shouldn't be teaching, high school or otherwise. As I planned lessons, graded essays and met with students, the question weighed on my mind: What am I doing back in the classroom? It didn't help that I was also going through a teaching certification program at the same time, and I had to juggle my new job with all the extra work I had to do.

Would I ever find the confidence to teach?

MONTHS LATER, I was planning my second semester of AP Literature. I had tried all semester long to fit my course into the one-size-fits-all lesson plans: Do now, hook, objectives, TEKS, assessments. But I knew my strength lied in the content.

Initially, I chose texts that I thought most AP classes taught or texts that we had in our book room. My first mistake as a teacher was to step away from what I knew best. Before the fall semester was over and winter break arrived, I told my students about their reading for the break: Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein."

It was a text I enjoyed and a text I knew the students could take with them to the AP exam and write about any open-ended question. It wasn't an easy text, but it would be rewarding.

It was difficult to teach "Frankenstein." However, my excitement about teaching had been renewed. I decided that instead of focusing on how best to work the objectives of the class in the lesson plan boilerplate, I should focus on getting them to think about the content

Every lesson started with a big-picture question: Is the creature human? What is the nature of evil? How does the novel represent relationships?

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As an instructor and as an editor, my forte had been asking questions, and I had honed this skill with decades of reading and writing. The spring semester I built my objectives by starting with the text. How did I want them to engage with the words, the characters, the ideas present? I felt more confident in my teaching — and my students seemed to enjoy the classes more than they had the first semester. At least they were talking about the books!

As I look back at that moment with the undergraduate, I no longer cringe with self-doubt. Instead, I think it's more useful to flip the question around: Why shouldn't a Ph.D. be in the high school classroom? My students deserve to be in touch with passionate and accomplished scholars — those scholars should not only be in college.

I am not certain that having a Ph.D. in the room increased their chances of scoring a 3 or higher in the AP Language or AP Literature test. But knowing that their teacher was a first-generation college student who went all the way to a doctorate made a difference in their outlook on what they can achieve.

The next time someone asks me why I'm not teaching college, I'll say: Because I belong here.

Liana M. Silva (@liana_m_silva) is a high school English teacher and freelance editor. She is managing editor of Sounding Out! and an essayist.

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