Our Best Selves

It has been a week of disrupted schedules, with more Zoom calls than usual, more trips to Spartanburg than usual, a morning of uncomfortable "dressy" shoes (even my dress shoes are flats, which would be seen as more frumpy than dressy by many people), a week of midterm projects due, and a fish fry on Friday.  I am weary, and it's only Thursday.  I am weary because the week-end only provides a smidge of down time.

But it is a good kind of weariness, the kind that comes from extra opportunities to catch up with friends, the kind of weariness that comes from the opportunity to get to know colleagues better.

On Tuesday morning, I had a classroom teaching observation, which in some ways, should be no big deal by now.  But it's always a bit unnerving.  Happily, the class went well.  The observation team expressed delighted amazement by how engaged the class was:  "When you had them write, everyone was actually writing."  And I had an idea that I wasn't sure would work, but it did, and the team liked that too; I had students make lists, and then I had them go to one of the 3 white boards and write 1-3 ideas on the white board.  It fostered participation, and we could discuss the ideas as a whole, without singling anyone out or putting anyone on the spot, in either a positive way or a negative way.

Because Tuesday was an observation day, I was in high energy mode for the morning class, which meant I was a bit depleted for my afternoon classes.  I always feel a bit guilty, like I'm shortchanging my students.  But when I think over the history of my teaching, I realize that I'm always feeling guilty about how much more I could be doing, yet my students remember my better days.  I just heard from one of them a few weeks ago who said, "I have never learned and achieved so much knowledge in a class than in a class taught by you!"

Yesterday was a morning in "dressy" shoes, talking about teaching strategies, teaching histories, approaches to life and education.  I’ve been trying to remember the final question I was asked. It was something along the lines of “Describe good teaching.” I said that the purpose of teaching was more than just delivering subject matter, but the real purpose of teaching was to make students know that they are more than their worst day, to remind them again and again that they are better than what advertisers want them to believe, what politicians want them to believe about themselves, so that they’ll buy more, or vote for candidates. The best teaching reminds students of their better selves and what could be.

I felt myself choking up a bit, with tears coming to my eyes, and in my head, I reminded myself that I was not in a preaching moment, and I dialed it down a smidge. I said, “Now subject matter is important, don’t get me wrong. But subject matter can come along for the ride as we turn students into the best versions of themselves.”

So, all day yesterday, and in my teaching in my Tuesday class, people saw me as one of my best selves, the teaching first year students best self.  It's interesting to think about how my best teacher self intersects with my best preaching self and how those selves interact with my best creative self.  Are there other selves at play?  I would think about this further, but time is short.

Now it's time to get cleaned up, to head down the mountain to teach.  I feel like the teaching portion of my week should be over, but it is not.  At least today I can do it in more comfortable shoes!