Lessons Unreflected Upon

Finally, a Moment to Catch my Breath
If there is anything I learned in my teacher credentialing program, it was that "the only failed lesson is the lesson that goes unreflected on." I created this blog several weeks before the school year started, anticipating that others might enjoy, benefit from, or at least be entertained by, the reflections of a first-year teacher. What I did not count on was that it would take me two weeks from the first day of school before I would have a moment in which to catch my breath and begin creating some sort of a chronicle of my life as a teacher.

So now I sit on the futon in my living room, knowing a stack of papers awaits me in the other room, and steal a few minutes to reflect on these last two weeks. They have passed by with the grace and gentleness of a whirlwind, yet something about embarking on this new life also seems remarkably natural. Perhaps a witness to the strength of preparation, witness to my belief that I was intended from my beginning to teach, witness to Divine intervention, or perhaps all three, but I feel uncannily at home in my classroom. Already. Not that the feeling came without some effort, but after only a few late nights and several yards of butcher paper, I was amazed at how remarkably unremarkable it seemed to be stepping into a teaching space I could call my own classroom.

The Things They Didn't Teach Me at Stanford
I left my credentialing program at Stanford University feeling well-equipped to talk about developing students' ability to think historically and to write effectively, about supporting English language learners and students with special needs, about creating a classroom community that promotes equity, about providing safe spaces for all students, and let me tell you, I could have gone on and on about designing effective group tasks. I carried all of this knowledge, all of these ideas, into my empty, bare-walled classroom with five straight rows of small student desks, two days before school began. As I began to turn the room from a warehouse with desks into an inviting 6th grade social studies classroom, I suddenly realized that in my year at Stanford, no one had ever taught me how to put butcher paper and shiny borders on the wall without making it crooked. Now, you may chuckle to yourself and say, "a Stanford degree, and he can't even staple paper to a wall?" but I assure you it was no easy task. After several attempts, I finally produced a classroom wall that I think would have made my own elementary school teachers proud: Maps, colorful butcher paper, inspirational posters, and a few knick-knacks on the teacher's desk carry the space a long way from looking like a warehouse. I felt good about welcoming students into such a classroom.

Becoming Mr. Douglas
It almost seems odd to think of becoming Mr. Douglas only now. After all, I have been "Mr. Douglas" for over four years now--since I began work at a local elementary school my sophomore year in college. Perhaps that is one reason embarking on this new life did not seem so dramatically novel as I might have expected. Still, there is something markedly different about being Mr. Douglas this time. You only have one 6th grade social studies teacher in your life, and for 110 kids just entering the 6th grade, that teacher is Mr. Douglas. I am not just a tutor, classroom aid, or student-teacher, I am their teacher--the one of the ones whose face will come to mind whenever someone mentions history teachers, the one who will do much to shape the attitudes these students carry into their future history classes, the one they will tell stories about, for better or for worse, when they learn that their college roommate is majoring in history and wants to be a teacher. That' s a pretty heavy burden to carry, and I have learned in the last two weeks that I have not yet become that Mr. Douglas--not the one I intend to be, anyway.

That's okay, though. For many years, as I looked forward with anticipation, with eagerness, sometimes with a little too much confidence, to the moment in which I would step over the threshold into a classroom I could call my own: I thought of that classroom as a destination. I knew the classroom was where I belonged, and so I believed that when I found myself there, I would have arrived. I see now that all this time I have not been striving for a destination; I have been striving for the next trailhead.