The Most Humbling Profession
It’s 4:30am. Here I sit, at the desk of my childhood and begin to (re)imagine my curriculum for the coming year. I know a lot more than I did two years ago I suppose, but I’m still without answers.
It’s a wonder how a classroom filled with 32 pairs of eyes can momentarily paralyze the quickest, most intelligent adults I know… that even after four years of preparation we draw a blank when Aliyah turns around and back hands Jamal, or feel lost at how you will teach DeSean to read when he’s made it to 8th grade without ever learning.
I don’t have any tips or tricks for new teachers. I screw up about a hundred times before my kids even walk in the door.
My one piece of sage wisdom is this:
I look back on where I began and laugh at my own arrogance. I’m sure it wasn’t funny at the time, but to come before a group of children in genuine fellowship your ego has to take a dive.
Allow yourself to be a beginner.
There is so much peace in that thought. The joy of starting out each morning with “I know nothing” and seeing how you can close each day with “I know something more.”
Everyone builds up their first year: I will be the first FYT to not ________. I will have the perfect classroom, great management, and lessons that engage and excite my students while also *insert trendy education verbiage.* I will move mountains each day in the classroom with my innovative pedagogical strategies.
But never forget that our students must humble themselves every day in order to learn. When DeSean stumbles through a passage in front of the whole class, he’s laying bare his failures for all to see. He is 14 years old, and doesnt know that “then” is then. His classmates laugh. When Aliyah struggles to allow you, the adult, to help resolve her conflict, she’s confessing not just her own faults but also those of the absent woman she calls mom. She has had to raise herself.
They will succeed and fail in front of you each day. Can you allow yourself to do the same?
We all fail in little ways all the time, that’s human. But there will be times that a mistake will hit you in the chest like no other; it could break your spirit.
These are the times that you will need to remember that we all are just beginning.
pixelskylines
yousharknotpass
areudirty
turnnoffyourmind
amandla
