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- Dr. James Paul
College of Education Faculty Oral Histories
Dr. James Paul
JP: Right. Yes.
LB: That was a very pioneering program when it began.
JP: It was, very much so. Jim Gallagher and I worked closely as colleagues for about 21 years while I was at Chapel Hill, and I was very much aware of the gifted education program here that Dorothy was heading. She was here for a year, I think, after I came, and then she went to Texas as a chaired professor. Hilda took over that program and did an excellent job leading the gifted education program. Elizabeth Shaunessy now is heading that program and doing an exceptional job. We just added another new faculty member in the Gifted Education Program, Michael Matthews.
LB: I wonder if you have any memories or stories perhaps humorous, maybe not humorous, that you’d like to tell. Everyone has a Bill Katzenmeyer story to relate. Anything unusual?
JP: A funny, personal story with Bill Katzenmeyer? Which one do you want me to tell? When I was here at his invitation to discuss the program, we went to out dinner one evening. Betty Epanchin, her husband Alex, Bill, Marilyn and I went out to dinner at Don Jose’s. We had a wonderful dinner and conversation. Bill had picked me up at the hotel and drove me to Don Jose’s where we met Marilyn, Alex, and Betty. After dinner we went outside and talked briefly and then went our various ways. Well, I was riding with Bill, so he went around and got in his car. I was standing waiting for him to unlock the door on the passenger’s side. He just got in and drove off, leaving me standing there. Fortunately, Marilyn, Alex, and Betty saw it happen, and we enjoyed a good laugh about an absent-minded dean. They drove me back to the hotel. Well, when Marilyn got home she asked, “Bill, do you know what you did?” He was really taken aback and called me, apologizing profusely. We still laugh about that.
LB: You were fortunate he wasn’t flying his plane, and you were standing on the tarmac.
JP: Bill is so bright, and he was lost in his own mind. Yes, that was really funny.
LB: Well, lastly, what sentiments would you leave with students going into education and/or special education, coming in to the College in terms of what you think they need to be aware of as they enter the teaching profession?
JP: I’d like to stay away from platitudes. It’s hard because the platitudes stake out some very real territory. It is when you think about teaching in the first part of the 21st century, it has to be one of the most challenging jobs that a person can choose to do. I like to think about it more as work than a job, but it is a job as well. Teachers are expected to do things from people who are expecting them to do those things that they can’t do. With the growing diversity in our society, those things are getting more complex, and it may be the case that teachers are increasingly less prepared to do them. The world is getting smaller and what that has done is cause a lot of different value systems and different traditions to rub up against each other. I worry a lot about the ideological extremism and how thoughtfulness and mindfulness get lost in ideological battles. The last line in Dover Beach is something like, “…ignorant armies clashed by night.”
Every classroom is sort of a microcosm of the increasingly diverse and complex world. Teachers need to know so much more than they ever needed to know. They need to know so much more about culture, about politics, and about themselves. The assumptions about identity no longer are comfortably in place. When you’re coming into the teaching profession, you’re entering a space that is not well understood and very complex. A lot of people vying for authority to tell you what ought to happen in there, whether they are politicians or whether they be people like ourselves who have some piece of the picture that we would like to influence. So it’s very challenging and very demanding. The resources are not great. Teaching is becoming more of a mission in a way. It’s not for everyone. You know, unfortunately, the demand still far exceeds the supply. When you’re in that situation, you’re going to have people go out and teach that shouldn’t be there. I wish we had much, much more opportunity to select the people who choose to come in to our teaching programs than we do. We have very little selectivity, and if a person comes in, they pass the courses and basically don’t do anything terrible; they get out and get a teaching certificate.
What do I have to say to teachers? I really wish I had more to say that I thought would be wise. There’s no profession I know that needs more caring in the people who come in, that needs more character in the person who is called a teacher. It needs more commitment to being technically competent. All of that together and still the rewards come much more in the form of seeing a child learn, seeing things change for children, than anything material. It such a romantic idea in a materialistic world I don’t know how high it flies. It’s not for everyone I wish everyone coming in to teaching and the teacher education program would take a semester or two to really think seriously about if this is “really for me” and do something else if they think it isn’t.
Schools are going to have to change and teacher education programs are going to have to change, we know that. The terms of those changes are still up in the air. Now having said all that, I’m still excited about the work that I do. I’m still excited about the opportunities that are available for someone who decides they want to teach. I’m still doing a study parenthetically that I started about 15 years ago, about how adults remember their teachers. When you think about teachers you had that really influenced your life, some of them are very positive. You remember them as being caring. A teacher who made a difference in your life is someone you wish could have taught your children. There are other teachers who you remember as cruel and mean-spirited. I’ve been studying caring and thoughtful teachers and cruel teachers through the lens of minds who have had the time to construct an understanding of it. Little kids don’t know what’s happening to them in this way. As they grow up, they’re able to put it in a context and tell you this happened, this is what it was, this is how it influenced my life. I’ve had 60 year old people weep telling me stories about teachers who were cruel to them and others who weep remembering a teacher who loved them and cherished them. Teaching is a wonderful, wonderful profession for those who are up to it.
LB: Now, are there any questions that I haven’t asked you that you were hoping I would or wished I had?
JP: None come to mind at the moment.
LB: Okay, well, thank you for coming in today and sharing this with us, Jim. We appreciate it very much. I also want to thank you for your many contributions to the College of Education and the University of South Florida.
End of Interview