When Palm Beach County School District hired me in the middle of a school year to teach Language Arts to 11th grade honors students and a 10th grade ESOL class, I had no clue what I was getting into. I’d had no desire to be a teacher. I’d had no training in pedagogy or classroom management, and certainly none in how to communicate with 32 Kreyol-speaking kids and one poor little Spanish-speaking girl. I know literature, and I know grammar, and I have always been a good student myself. How hard could it be?
Sweet, stupid me.
I had a couple of things working in my favor. First, the former teacher had been an angry crone. On my first day, the principal told me, “She was mean to my kids, so she had to go.” Chances are, my new students would welcome me. Second, I was humble enough to understand that I’d have to learn along with the kids, and that I’d have to show them that many components of the teacher-student relationship are reciprocal.
One of the best things a teacher can do in a classroom is create a classroom environment where students feel comfortable and confident enough to share and discuss and even form personal ideologies. Showing my students that writing-intensive classes are opportunities to decide what they believe and discover who they are is one of the. most. important. things I do as a teacher. It’s not just good for the kid, it’s good for society.
That’s not to say it’s an easy process. My students and I were talking this morning about whether students or educators bear the most responsibility for affecting social change. Initially the students said educators should bear the load because we know things and it’s our job to share information. “But what,” I said, “about those public school teachers who are told that if they share their political or social or religious beliefs with ‘impressionable’ students they’ll be fired? What about those ultra-conservative parents who refuse to allow LGBT groups to talk to their kids in school?” Educators who encourage open discussions in their classrooms without ground rules (i. e. agree to disagree, always be respectful, no name calling or personal attacks, a list of off limit words — and increasingly, acknowledgment from parents and signed permission forms) often run into metaphorical booby traps and landmines.
I know for sure that I am a better teacher because I know what’s important to my students.