Ever want to
see how far you’ve come as a teacher?
Wait a few years and then go back and look at your planning documents
from your first year. In my case “a few
years” is almost 38, and I just spent a few moments looking through a lesson
plan book from my first full year of teaching high school during the 1979-’80 school
year. My memory hasn’t been so faded at
any point that I thought I was a good teacher in that first year. I even use some stories from that first year
to highlight how not to train and prepare teachers these days. Almost from the start, I recognized my inadequacies
and worked hard to gain the skills I missed prior to starting as classroom
teacher. Although I was as proficient as
the more experienced teachers with whom I worked, I was wholly inadequate. Looking at that document from so long ago highlights
how far I’ve come in my skills, as well as my perceptions of learners, the
relationships among learner, teacher and content, the ways to engage all
learners, and a host of other issues. My
learning over the past 38 years has shaped not only my thinking about the craft
and artistry of teaching, but my thinking about the world overall. To be successful in the classroom means that
you have to think expansively and see the potential of every learner’s
success. You have to believe alongside
learners and sometimes have to believe in them when they don’t believe in
themselves. And you need a lot of skills
to pull that off authentically while helping learners explore and gain the
knowledge they need to build their lives.
It’s an incredible gift to spend part of your life doing that, and an
incredible responsibility to do it well.
In my case, my growth as a teacher has helped me see the world as an
intricately connected web where each of us has an opportunity to participate in
each other’s lives. What a wonderful profession
this has been to allow me such a journey.
