What is our purpose? Without it, who are we?
And just out of greduate school, I was even allowed to select the textbooks!
In my first weeks, however, I became more interested in who my students were and what they thought. Our connections with one another became my focus. I taught European history as expected with my ninth graders. I tried my best to bring its history to life. But it increasingly relegated itself to the back of the room.
Through my fifty years in the classroom, the last twelve teaching teachers, I made my purpose a priority. I imagined each class as an evolving story of our relationship with one another, a story that we wrote together. Teaching with purpose was my mantra. Without it, I imagine my career would have been about fulfilling others’ expectations. I doubt I would have had as many vivid memories to share.
In these Substack posts, I bring insights from my years in the classroom. Given increasing thrusts from outside expectations, teachers are feeling pressure to respond just to keep themselves above water. I offer my experiences as possibilities for teachers to take agency, to make their classrooms their own. Teachers who assert themselves invoke purpose––and their students know it.
I want my posts to encourage teachers to be themselves with their students and to invite students to be themselves. The classroom is a special place, perhaps the only place where teacher and students can be together without electronic devices, where face-to-face conversations happen, everyone free to be themselves.
