Instructor Spotlight: John O’Connor
I had the privilege of interviewing John O'Connor, an MSEd adjunct instructor currently teaching English at New Trier High School, who has decades of experience in education and a PhD in English from the University of Illinois at Chicago. We are sharing his story in celebration of National Reading Month.
John O’Connor’s upbringing motivated him to become a teacher and to attend, particularly, to issues of literacy. The O’Connor family were Irish immigrants; John’s father only had completed second grade, which impeded him from learning how to read or write. This inspired O'Connor to recognize the transformative power of literacy early on, and“how much power it bestowed upon people who were literate and how limiting and oppressive it could be to not have those basic skills.” As a student, O’Connor found school uninteresting, which motivated him to make school more enjoyable for others. He began tutoring, where he witnessed the profound impact of reading on individuals' lives.
Working a variety of jobs helped clarify O’Connor’s beliefs about pedagogical approaches to teaching literacy. Before coming to New Trier, O’Connor worked in jobs that varied from working in Chicago Public Schools to a maximum security prison. Specifically, O’Connor shared his story of working at an underresourced school in an Illinois suburb where he felt that students didn’t have the literacy experiences he believed that they should have. When teachers went to the book closet, they often found books that were damaged or missing pages. Furthermore, academic groups were called alpha, beta, gamma, and delta. The students in the delta group were not challenged in the same ways as students in the other groups, and teachers’ curricula was strictly regulated and limited. These experiences conflicted with John’s beliefs about engaging all students with challenging and meaningful texts. Moreover, he feels modern curriculum should embrace students’ experiences and cultures and the texts selected should be updated to include authors of color, women authors, contemporary authors, and not long-dead authors. To advocate for change, O’Connor joined the equity team, which pushed for diverse and contemporary reading lists. He wanted students to think critically about their classes and to be aware that every educational institution carries biases.
Contrastingly, O’Connor says he enjoys the freedom he has in his current role as an English teacher at New Trier High School. O’Connor has never taught the same classes two years in a row, and so he is therefore able to continuously change and grow as an educator. When O’Connor prepares his writing assignments, he does a lot of personal, interdisciplinary blending that focuses on the passion and knowledge students bring with them to the classroom. “I'm teaching a creative writing class and a [fellow teacher] is a photographer. His photo class happens to meet at the same time mine does, so we got together and did a poem project. I taught a poem exercise to both classes, and his class created photograms, with the subject being an object that brought comfort or that you missed during the pandemic years. We are setting it up as an installation at school for people to see how those classes work together.”
When asked what advice John would give to future educators, he spoke on his personal experiences of what he thought a teacher should be. When he first became an educator, he thought that teachers should have the answers to everything, down to the specific detail. However, throughout the years O’Connor has learned that teachers don’t have to know the answers to every question, and are in fact learning with students. He now feels more like an ally and a collaborator working with them during the learning process. Finally, teachers have a direct impact on how students view themselves and the world, and there are various ways to incorporate meaningful lessons that feel inclusive for all.