“ROCK ON,” states the Pepsi banner adorning the little stage at the “Asleep at the Wheel Roadhouse” at the Austin Bergstrom International Airport, where I have become a regular monthly commuter, since taking my job as Education Specialist at Region 13 in January of last year. I feel a great deal of responsibility in this job – to the students in the school I serve, their teachers and principals, not to mention their parents. We send our kids to school every day with a silent prayer, playing it on a loop inside our worried minds: “Please let this be a good experience for them. Please let them learn.”
Schools can really make you sad if you think about them in a certain way. Consider the first day of Kindergarten – all those five year olds come in, nervously clinging to their parents’ pant legs. But there’s also a sense of sheer excitement, of wanting to conquer the unknown, wanting to know new people your own age, wanting to learn new things.
Now consider the first day of teaching. For those of you who have never experienced it, I’ve done my best to describe my own first day in a previous post. In short, it’s that mix of nerves and excitement, just like Kindergarten.
I was fortunate to spend the majority of my educational career (about twelve and a half of the nearly twenty years so far) working in an extraordinary school where we managed to sustain that sense of excitement and nervous, fun energy for years. I’ve realized, in my travels to schools all around New York City and now Texas, that this by no means represents the norm. There are few things more disheartening than being in a school where that sense of joyful excitement has given way to abject boredom and drudgery.
I’m not saying my school was by any means perfect. We had some wonderful teachers and classes, but I wonder if we pushed our students hard enough; I think we could have challenged them more. Academically, I mean. On the social/emotional side of things, we were red hot. When our advisory program was firing on all cylinders, we were a sight to behold. In my next school job – whatever, and whenever, it may be – I’d like to see us use that great caring for our children as a lever with which we can build up the rigor of their intellectual work. It’s tough not to talk about this stuff in platitudes and tired “edu-speak” truisms. We can talk about “engaging” our students with “rigorous” work, but what does that mean? What does it look like?
For me it’s about aspirations and skills. If we can get our students excited about coming to school, get them feeling safe in our building, and get them to trust the adults and each other, then they will begin to share their dreams and vision. As adults, it’s our job to know to know each child, as well as his or her dream. If you’re a good teacher, you nourish that dream, and yes, to anticipate your next question, you nourish even the dreams you may perceive as unlikely – the boy who is 4’11” and 85 pounds who wants to be Lebron James, or the girl who is 5’9” and 200 pounds who wants to be a ballerina. Yes, I know, I know – you’re doing them a favor by helping them be realistic, or so you think.
School is a place where one should be allowed and encouraged to dream. And here’s something that may help you feed those unlikely dreams: If a child feels you’re helping him realize his dreams, he’s much more likely to help you to fulfill yours – namely, to open his mind to the joys of learning.
No comments:
Post a Comment