What’s the first September that you remember as a teacher? Maybe it’s not your first but close, where you remember standing in the doorway before your students arrived.
The room was ready. Or almost ready. Close enough.
And for a moment, before the noise started, before the questions started, before the day started, you were just a person standing in a doorway with something in you that said: I want to do this.
That wanting came from somewhere. As a kid, having a teacher who saw you when you needed to be seen. Watching a kid figure something out in front of you. A moment in a classroom where learning was so alive in the room you could feel it.
Whatever it was, it shaped the teacher you decided to become. And here's what I know after decades in classrooms: that original picture doesn't disappear. It may go quiet sometimes, under the weight of everything a school year asks of you. But it stays. And the teachers who keep returning to it, who let it answer the question of why am I doing this today, those are the ones whose students feel the difference.
So this week, just one question to reflect on.
What did you believe teaching could be, when you first decided to become an educator?
Let it sit. And whatever surfaces, a name, a face, a room you were in, remember that feeling. That's your compass. It still works.
Gail
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