#reverb 10 Day 5: Let go

Prompt: Let Go. What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why?

I let go of my feelings of incompetency.

Perhaps it started with my first teaching job. I struggled when I taught science in a middle school. I had a hard time with the active students. I didn’t have my own room and transported myself (and my lab equipment) around from room to room with a cart. Some say I was not sufficiently supported in ways I needed in that assignment. Nevertheless, I was not rehired the following year.

I decided to stick with education and I took up substitute teaching. I developed classroom management skills, learned to sometimes think on the fly, became more comfortable interacting with different ages of students.

The next fall I was given another chance in the district I am working in today. I have been there now over 20 years. I love the school I am working at, I love what I do, I love the students I meet. But I have carried around this nagging thought that I am not as effective as I could be, that I don’t have a good, solid science program. I have seen great teaching, I know what it looks like, how it feels, but I just can’t seem to recreate it.

My husband and I decided I should start working on my Master’s degree this year, so I began an online program in September. This program has aligned itself with the National Board Certification program, a process that develops and recognizes advanced teaching. I have wanted to do both for quite a while, and as the two programs are integrated I thought it would be the perfect opportunity.

I am just finishing up my first two classes. I have been asked to study specific lessons and look at student work in a collaborative group. I have videotaped myself teaching and shown it to others for critique. I have reflected upon my homework and grading policies. I have continually been asked to look for evidence that what I do is helping students learn. This is tough. Teaching is an isolated work. To put your work up for peer scrutiny is difficult. I feel vulnerable, but I do it anyway. I kick and scream, but I do it anyway. I am flush with shame at times, but I do it anyway. I move forward with the hope that on the other side is growth and competence.

When a great man was young and struggling with his first real work of sacrifice and service, his father told him, “Forget yourself and get to work.” This past term I have been able to take my eye off my own weaknesses and feelings of inadequacy by turning my eye to what was happening with my students. I have not only had an opportunity to reflect and collaborate regarding fundamental aspects of my teaching, but I am continually checking in with my students to see how what I do affects them. I then alter what I do to make my teaching more effective. It’s not so much about what I’m doing as what it’s doing for them. In that moment, when the camera switches around from the giver to the receiver, everything changes. I am forgetting myself and getting to work. And that is the moment that my feelings of incompetency (perhaps better addressed as FEAR) begin to fall away.

There is an angel hanging on my wall over my desk. She has a variety of phrases posted on her gown. Embrace change. Begin today. Surrender your fear. Be brave. I am encouraged. I am letting go of the baggage, pruning off the dead wood, allowing myself room for new growth. At the moment, however, I’m feeling a little naked without the covering of my withered leaves. Be brave.