It happens every year, though the exact day changes and can never be pinpointed.
Here I am. Dreading the end of summer. Looking at the list of 154 new names to learn and pronounce properly. Wondering how the school year will go, and I feel nauseous. Where did summer go? I'm not ready for this.
And then, like magical clockwork, I read an article. Or a book. Or hear from a colleague. Or an old student. This year, it was attending the NCTE Affiliate meeting that did it: the itch to go back into the classroom and make learning happen ignites me from the inside out.
We are artists. We, the hardworking, innovative teachers, are artists. We take the clay of dry old texts and mold them into learning our kids end up being empowered by. We break rules to ensure our kids have access to the best curriculum we can give them. We lead the way. We stand our ground, because the foundation underneath our feet is structured with research, conferences, collaboration, and the battle cry of NCTE’s leaders. We understand great teaching is back-breaking. It's messy. It's full of failures but stronger successes. It reverberates with the echoes of our students who have told us we made them believe in themselves. Who remind us we pushed them intellectually, that we caused them to think, we helped them discover bits and pieces of who they truly are. We allowed them to fall in love with reading again. We inspired them to try harder in their writing.
And knowing we can foster that type of environment for our students? It's truly mystifying. It's magical.
Yes. We teachers, who redefine the English classroom to be a relevant place where teenagers come to think, come to question, come to write, come to truly read; we are magicians. Our affiliate meeting reminded us that great teaching is an act of magic. We cast protection spells over the lessons that may be shunned by our district, because we know they awaken the inner learner inside our students. We create intoxicating potions filled with relevant reading, enjoyable writing, with rigor and critical thinking heavily mixed in. We cite incantations that hold our students captive, that make them try again after failing, that keep them awake, when they are used to using their desk as a place to nap. We help guide them to books that they love after years of swearing off reading.
We are book-matchmakers. We get to know our students and their interests, and we pair them with texts that move them. That make them care. That make them laugh, and cry, and slam the book closed with anger as they witness characters they love be slapped with injustice. We reignite their empathy, we allow them to make connections to classic literature, or other young adult literature, or songs, or poetry, or news articles, as they make sense of their lives through the books they’ve been given. We use our brains to nudge theirs to be a bit more open.
We do all of this while keeping in mind who we learn from best: other colleagues, other affiliates, NCTE, and most importantly: our students.
Have an amazing school year. Create your masterpieces. Work your magic. Pair your students with books they adore. Not everyone gets the privilege of changing the world, but we do. One student at a time.
-Published in the Summer 2017 edition of the AETA Connections Letter.
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