To a New Teacher

This week, a graduating senior of mine wrote with a lot of vulnerability, asking for any final advice before he began his first year as a new teacher. Here is how I replied:

Dear [...],

I'm so glad you reached out! I hear you, and it's a crazy and surreal feeling to start your first year of teaching. The biggest thing I can share is to know that everything you are feeling--the nervousness, the worry, the doubt, and sense of uncertainty--is all very normal! This is what every new teacher feels, and on the first day, even most veteran teachers feel it. 

Once the students arrive, and you get a few weeks under your belt, a rhythm starts. But during your first year, it will still feel hard. You'll make mistakes, and you'll feel uncertain often. This is okay. This is part of the process of learning to teach. 

As far as preparing curriculum and strategies for the classroom, I would say to try to plan activities that don't make you the center for the whole duration of class. If you plan a lot where you have to be constantly talking and leading, you will get exhausted, and also the kids will start to struggle with behavior. They won't be able to sit and focus on you for long periods on and on, so be sure to plan in ways for them to connect with each other and to move around the room. Remember things like CHALK TALK from Assessment class, where students can get up, record ideas and responses on large posters or white boards around the room. Use that! Use activities that help students get in small groups and think through problems. I would suggest picking groups, so that students don't always just go right to friends, and so that the same kids aren't always left out. 

Come up with some fun challenges for students to work on. Things like: "If you were a group of senators in the US Senate, which 10 laws would you add to our country right now? And why? In the groups of four that I give you, talk about your ideas, then come up with your list and with one solid reason why for each law you create." You can then give students 45 minutes to talk, create their laws, maybe a second 45 minutes the next day, and then they can hang their posters with their laws around the room. Students can then do a GALLERY WALK to explore each other's posters, and then you can lead a discussion afterwards about what everyone noticed--prompting deep analysis and reflection. 

You might do an activity like this after you briefly explore some real laws--or a discussion of unjust laws in our country's past, and how to create new laws that ARE just. 

A strategy like this allows students to learn, but also doesn't put you in the spotlight for long, long periods of time, allowing you to connect with kids in small groups, and also allowing kids to do the thinking and learning!

The more you can utilize strategies like this, the more fun you and the kids will have, and the more energized you will feel!

Also remember that the words you say to students matter, and you have the power to encourage them, inspire them, and let them know that you SEE them and you CARE about them. You'll show them this by all the little things you do every day--making eye contact, responding to their joy about a movie they saw, a soccer practice they had, or a picture they drew. 

What students remember--long after they will have had you as a teacher--are these things. They'll remember whether your eyes opened wide when they told you a story. They'll remember whether you delighted in them, and whether you allowed yourself to be childlike enough to be amazed at what they'll say and do. 

Be delighted. 

Be amazed. 

This matters far more than anything else you'll ever do in the classroom. 

And one last thing: remember that they are going to try their best. On the surface, it might not look like that, but they'll also be hiding a lot of fears, a lot of worries about not being cool enough, smart enough, loved enough. Don't always take their surface-level reactions as core-level judgments of you or what you do. See deeper. Explore farther. 

Keep reaching out, and know that I'm here for you, and others are too. Never hesitate to ask away--you are not alone!

Peace, and rock on,

Professor R

Why It's Crucial that My Sons and I Watched the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament

Last night, in an epic, edge-of-your-seat basketball game, Baylor and Notre Dame went head-to-head in 40 minutes of some of the best basketball I've ever seen.

Scattered around our living room were my three sons, ages 10, 5, and 1, my wife, and I. It was deeply important to me that my sons watched the game. It was also deeply troubling to me that the championship game of the women's NCAA basketball tournament was aired only on ESPN, and not on CBS, as equivalent men's games are (and as the men's championship will be tonight). Not to mention, even more troubling that the other games of the women's tournament were aired only on ESPN2, while the men's games were on channels with far easier access.

I want my sons to be a part of stopping this kind of unequal and unjust reception.

I want my sons to get used to seeing women as powerful, poised, bold, brave, and amazingly engage to watch as they compete at the highest levels of athletic skill.

However, because the culture of inequality is so immensely pervasive, it can sometimes feel overwhelming to change.

Case in point: in earlier games, as I tried to get my oldest son to be interested in the NCAA women's tournament, his reply came honestly and quickly, "I think the men are more fun to watch. It just doesn't sound super fun to watch the women play."

Resisting the huge to respond with incredulity and shock, I stayed calm, and started to ask that key questions for parents and educators: "Why?"

As it turns out, it wasn't because he had actually seen them play and thought they weren't as exciting or interesting. Instead, it was because he had heard that the men were the most engaging to watch. He had drunk the Kool-Aid of our cultural norms, evident everywhere and ready to be received as totally legit, that the real drama and excitement in sports was in watching the men play.

All my logic didn't really get through to him, but we watched the preliminary games, and he slowly started to get a little more interested.

Then, last night, we started watching the early coverage, hearing the truly remarkable stories about players like Arike Ogunbowale and her epic buzzer-beaters from the previous season to win the semifinal and final for Notre Dame.

We heard about Chloe Jackson and her courageous decision to transfer from LSU to Baylor for her last shot at a title, having to learn an entirely new position (point guard) on the job to make the move work.

We learned about Notre Dame Coach Muffet McGraw's powerful words on equality in the workforce for women, and we heard about Baylor coach Kim Mulkey's battle back from the darkness of losing a grandchild during her daughter's stillbirth in the past two years.

And then it was game time.

Baylor came out fighting, taking a commanding lead from the get-go. But over the course of the game, Notre Dame never gave up. In the second half, led by guards Arike Ogunbowale and Carolyn Mabrey, Notre Dame went on run after run, eventually taking their first lead in the game since they led 3-2 in the first minute.

I looked over at my 10-year old: mesmerized. Literally on the edge of his seat. Hands raising in hope or fear or shock and, yes, most definitely in awe.

He was loving every minute of this tense, talent-filled and effort-fueled battle for the 2019 NCAA Women's Basketball Championship.

And as his dad, I loved watching him watch these women play.

I want him and my other two sons to learn early and often that women are leaders, game-changers, powerful and poised and worth watching, worth learning from, worth admiring, worth following.

This belief in no way diminishes my sons' own abilities or trajectories. Such a lie is far too often peddled by those fearful of change and equality.

No. Supporting, rooting for, and encouraging women to be their powerful selves does not diminish boys and men. Instead, it frees us to be fully human, too. It frees us to encourage, celebrate, and grow. It frees us to embrace equality and justice rather than harbor power and fear.

The definition of masculinity lies not in a forged and false notion of dominance, but rather in the embrace of authentic equality and progress for all people, not just those with certain attributes or labels.

That's what I want to try hard to practice. That's what I want my sons to learn from me.