Photo by David K. Yamamoto
Special to The Star

"The book comes from my desire to share all those things I learned as a young teacher on my own," said Stella Erbes, an assistant professor of teacher education at Pepperdine University.

Aspiring teachers read all kinds of textbooks filled with lessons on how to teach complex subjects, maintain order in the classroom and grade students.

But in her new book for teachers, "What Teachers Should Know But Textbooks Don't Show," Stella Erbes offers something different: life lessons, along with a peek in to school culture.

These are nuggets of wisdom that Erbes gathered over years of teaching elementary and high school students in Moorpark and college students at Pepperdine University in Malibu.

"The book comes from my desire to share all those things I learned as a young teacher on my own," said Erbes, an assistant professor of teacher education at Pepperdine.

Those things include remembering birthdays, surrounding yourself with good people and eating in the lunchroom to learn from your colleagues.

Erbes' book also addresses details about school culture that new teachers might miss, such as noticing who sits at what table in the teachers' lounge, a world unto itself with its own territories.

"When you're ingrained in a certain culture, whether it's teaching or family life, you assume there are things that everyone knows, but they don't," Erbes said.

The book offers larger lessons, too. One, in particular, warns new teachers about forming expectations based on how a student looks or talks.

Erbes demonstrates that lesson at the start of some of her classes at Pepperdine. Erbes, whose parents are Korean, walks into class dressed as her mother dresses — in a dated suit with stockings, tube socks and clunky sandals — and addresses her students in a strong Korean accent.

Then she shifts into her usual unaccented speech and sheds her mother's clothing, revealing her own stylish dress.

It's a concrete way of demonstrating the assumptions made about people, she said. "As human beings, we're visually stimulated. We don't realize we're casting expectations. But we can choose not to let that get in the way of how students learn in the classroom."

That lesson also typified Erbes' innovative, energetic style when she taught in Moorpark schools, said her longtime colleague, Donna Fulgham, who teaches English at Moorpark High School.

When her Spanish class was learning words for clothing, Erbes brought in suitcases full of clothes and travel accessories, then had her students shop for a vacation using their Spanish, Fulgham said.

"She's a rigorous teacher, but she hasn't forgotten how to play," Fulgham said.

Erbes' book, published in November by Corwin Press, teaches valuable lessons that might take new teachers years to learn. "She demystifies this whole process of how to do teaching," Fulgham said.

Erbes started teaching at Moorpark High School in 1991. Over the years, she also taught at Peach Hill Academy in Moorpark and Oaks Christian School in Westlake Village, and earned her master's degree and doctorate from UC Santa Barbara. She also became a mother to two sons, now 12 and 8.

The book shows young teachers, who can sometimes be overwhelmed, that it is possible to be a mom, wife, teacher and student, Erbes said.

"I hope they see, Maybe I can do it, too,'" she said. "It's hard to sell being an educator these days."