“… we teach responsively when we understand the need to teach the human beings before us as well as to teach the content with which we are charged. … [It] is important to begin with the conviction that we are no longer teaching if what we teach is more important than who we teach or how we teach.”
This statement resonated with me because is a great reminder of why I am a teacher. With all the demands placed upon teachers, especially with standardized testing, the content can easily slip into the driver’s seat of teaching. However, if we want true success as teachers and want our students to succeed, we need to make our students and their needs the focus. We also need to put great care into our pedagogy because it is a direct reflection of what we value as teachers.
“If we risk taming…, days in school are no longer monotonous. Each day is a revelation... There is risk, of course. Perhaps our efforts will be rejected. Perhaps we will fail at creating ties with some students. Our colleagues may even disparage our efforts as an endeavor costly in time and emotions. In any case, it is wearying always to be taming… If we have connected with the students who left, we do mourn their parting, or at least feel a sense of incompleteness at not being able to continue to shepherd them, not being able to continue to shape and to follow their journeys…. We do feel responsible forever for those we tame.”
I enjoyed these words because to begin with it explains that risk brings value to teaching. However, I appreciate how it goes on to say that teaching is a burden upon the heart, but that it is in our students that leave us, year after year, we have given them a piece of ourselves and our hope to make the world a better place.
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