I love what Todd Palmer had to say in a note to me about what makes him happiest as a teacher. Todd was one of my favorite colleagues at a small school in Los Angeles. What matters most to him, he wrote, is that “I get the chance to be the kind of teacher that I didn’t always have – someone who is sympathetic and empathetic.”

 

Todd’s a great teacher not because he’s surveyed the evidence and decided to do what works best, but because he brings a passion to his teaching that fills in the empty places for himself and for his students.

 

A teacher like this is more than skilled; he’s not going to put in a good day’s work and go home. He’s motivated by his entire sense of who he is – or more accurately, who he wants to be – to make a difference for his students. He won’t tire, he won’t check out early, and he won’t leave the task of reaching these kids half-done, because his passion for teaching is about setting right things he has felt for a long time. There’s a personal, moral quality to what he does as a teacher, and it is powerful. I wish I had more colleagues like him.Todd’s heart is clearly engaged in his life as a teacher.

 

Even though he often seems restrained and has an orderly approach to his class preparations, he is driven by principles rather than practices. He’s not a teacher for dispassionate reasons; his personal engagement is so obvious to his students that even the slightest change in the tone of his voice can create a dramatic ripple. When he offers a student praise – or tells a student to change her behavior – everyone understands that this quite-seeming man is fully engaged. His quiet praise has the full impact of a man saying something he truly believes, recognizing the person he’s talking to and making a lasting note to himself about the genuine success he’s seeing unfold in the classroom.

 

And when he tells a student to stand up and leave the classroom – again, quietly, though firmly – there is no chance for a student to mistake Mr. Palmer’s actions for a teacher simply operating out of the school rulebook. This is a man facing you, a real person, genuinely seeing what and who you are, and unhappy with what he sees.

 

His full presence in the classroom makes every small gesture deeply meaningful. He keeps his students engaged specifically because something in his classroom feels different from so many other parts of school life. The ordinary dynamics of human behavior have been left in the on position – not turned off and substituted by a different and less personal set of rules called “school.” When Todd talks to his class, he commands attention in the same way that any man with something to say would command attention by standing up and talking to the people around him about global warming or earthquakes, calling people by their names and taking note of their behavior. He’s not playing a game, and he has not left parts of himself in the teachers’ lounge. He’s all there.

 

Having observed Todd in the classroom, I can testify that he hears every word that his students say. There’s little chatter in this room because he doesn’t overlook his students’ words, even if they’re spoken in whispers in the back of the room. He’s known as a serious disciplinarian, though not a mean one. His middle-school students behave noticeably better in his class than in some others. What’s the magic? “My students,” Mr. Palmer says, “understand that I mean what I say.”