Credit Where it's Due

Allow me to make it abundantly clear that I would no sooner speak ill of STEP (my credentialing program) than would I insult my own mother. A good friend pointed out that my inaugural post could be construed as less than complimentary of the preparation for the classroom I recieved at Stanford. Nothing could be further from my true feelings. It was at Stanford that the embryonic teacher within me was poked and prodded, shaped and formed, and given the nourishment it needed to begin this upward journey through the classroom. Thus, it is fitting, early in this chronicle, to note the important role STEP has played in this story.

I remember entering the Stanford Teacher Education Program with a strange mingling of nervous anticipation, exhilirating apprehension, and hopeful awe. On the first or second day of STEP Orientation, Jeannie Lythcott asked as to draw a picture entitled "The Quintessence of Teaching." I found it interesting that my picture, which started out a picture of my 10th grade European History teacher, slowly morphed into a picture of me, several years down the road. I have thought a lot about that picture in the months that followed. Perhaps that is a metaphor for how I see myself in the classroom: as I stand before my students, I do not stand alone; my own teachers stand with me--teachers from elementary school, middle and high school, and most certainly the members of the STEP faculty who so inspired and encouraged me in the year leading up to this moment. The list of areas in which I noted previously that I felt equipped is no trivial list: If I can truly create a classroom that is safe and equitable, in which students support one another and engage in true historical thinking, I will have become all I ever dreamed of becoming. Without my year in STEP, I would never have been able to articulate that dream, let alone begin striving to shape it into a reality in my classroom.

In the end, it's okay that I didn't learn how to staple butcher paper to the wall while I was at Stanford. It's probably better that way.