The First Post

The first post is the hardest. It has to be. There’s no established writing style, no inside jokes from another post to fall back on, no knowledge of my credentials or if what I have to say is worth the five minutes you found to read blog posts that will challenge your thinking and improve your teaching. However, when speaking about goals, one of the smartest guys I know asked me “Why not?”, and I couldn’t answer him with anything that didn’t involve me showing a complete lack of faith in myself - something I would never have allowed in my students. Therefore, welcome to my first blog post.

I didn't set out to be a teacher. To be honest, when I went back for my Bachelor’s degree my own kids were little and the summers off sounded fantastic. Being done for the day when they were done: phenomenal. Spring break. Winter break. Snow days. A magical place called “Teachers’ lounges”. Need I say more?

When I was hired for my first job in a middle school I was terrified. I thought middle schoolers were narcissistic, cruel, and wore their pants down to their knees. They swore like pirates while looking like 12 year olds, made crude hand gestures, and might even try SMOKING for goodness sakes. I was fairly certain that they were going to eat me alive and laugh while they were doing it. As it turned out, I couldn’t have been more wrong. It took me about three months to figure out that my strong suit was humor and making connections to the students and I loved them. LOVED them. Many of them I loved like my own children. I had been right. They could be narcissistic, cruel, and all the other preconceived characteristics that I described...sometimes, but mostly they had moments of being little kids again loving a five minute hand-eye coordination game, crying when someone hurt their feelings, and were just trying to navigate their way through middle school unharmed which was not much different than what I was doing. I think they recognized that in me, and there was a great deal of mutual respect and affection because of it. Since then, I’ve always said that there is nothing like teaching middle schoolers, and I mean that in the kindest, most wistful way possible.

When I moved to teaching elementary school, I treated my students like a family. I didn’t know how else to treat them. There were days that I saw those kids more than I saw my own. I designed my classroom to look as much like a living room as possible. I had a couch against everyone’s better judgement. “I’d have lice” they said. “They’ll fight over spots” they said. And they did, no doubt. One year I even had to have a schedule on who could sit on the couch at what time, but they did it because they loved that old, ratty, 70’s style brown and orange couch. When they would leave for the year, they would say good-bye. To the couch. But, it was because it had been part of their home for a year. Before I left the classroom, I had so many different chairs and spots to sit that nobody had to fight. I was doing flexible seating before I knew what flexible seating was. Had I known then what I know now, I would have gotten rid of desks all together. Those moments of allowing the students to sit where they wanted, work how they were comfortable, even if it meant me getting down on the floor to hold our reading group, connected the kids to each other and to me in a way that desks couldn’t facilitate. There is more to flexible seating than a choice in where to sit. It helped build my classroom community.

My last experience as a classroom teacher I had looped from fourth to fifth grade with the same students. The students had the chance to opt out of my class for fifth grade and not a single one left. Having the same class two years in a row, especially the class I had, was truly the best experience of my career and I wholeheartedly recommend it to any teacher lucky enough to be given the chance. At some point in that year I discovered that I belonged in education. Actually belonged there, like a club that I originally didn’t want to be a part of. I wouldn’t be the same person I am today without the influence that all my students have had on me. I wouldn’t be the professional that I am if my students, and now other classroom teachers, hadn’t  inspired me to continue to learn and grow. So, for the teacher who didn’t want to be one, and a believer in the fact that everything happens the way it’s supposed to, I am truly grateful for teaching and how it has shaped my life. The education profession is like no other in the type of relationships you create and the influence you have on students, and we are all fortunate that our paths have brought us to students to love, protect, and teach.