Want fifteen seconds of fame?  I can guarantee you will get absolutely zero.  Want to be remembered for your teaching skills?   I can guarantee you will be remembered fondly for barely anything you ever actually taught.  Your meticulously crafted curricula will amount to almost nothing, relegated over time to some dusty trophy shelf – a faded memoir of pedagogies gone by.  Perhaps your picture will hang in a forgotten corridor of your school or in the little used boardroom of your former employer, smiling at a memory that few care to recall.  Want to be a teacher? Get ready to question everything you’ve ever done or thought every single day you come to work.  Get ready to work with kids, and get ready to suffer for it.

Sound depressing?

The lives you will influence will care for nothing else then the way you made them feel.  Real or imagined, these memories will be the thing they carry with them ALL their lives.  They will remember you.  The funny things you said, the hard conversations, the way you believed in them, the time you called home, the comment that forever changed them – even if they didn’t realize it until much later.  Their memories will be much more important and meaningful to you than any amount of actual fame, more rewarding then money, and better than any job anyone could ever have, ever.

Not so depressing now, huh?  Have heart teachers, because what I tell you is true.  If you are committed to this profession, then you will make a difference.  It doesn’t matter how long you do it, or even if you’re recognized as being “good”.  You will make a difference.  Kids will remember you, and in spite of what I said in the first paragraph, some of them will actually recall some content.  Maybe even lots of content if you’re lucky.

Somehow thinking about J makes me think about these things.  When I wonder what I am doing with my life and why I continue to beat myself up for the things I should have done, or the things I should have said in my day-to-day interactions with students, I try and remind myself to think about J.

I knew about J before becoming a public school teacher.  I wrestled in high school and knew him as a rival coach – plus he knew my dad, who was also a wrestling coach at that time.  I had no clue that J was also a teacher.  I will touch on J’s influence on me as a coach in a future post, but basically the lesson is the same.  Summing it up as simply as I can, if Nick taught me how to think, J taught me how to BE.  He taught me to teach who I am.  By being as authentically myself I can, by being honest with myself and my students as to my strengths and weaknesses, by admitting to myself that I do not know all the answers and still have a lot to learn, I am ultimately more human and accessible.  I am ready to be both a teacher and a learner, and I am able to truly reach kids.  When you can be comfortable in your own skin and your students are able to see that, then a trusting, often long-lasting relationship is created.  You become a mentor and then potentially over time, a friend.  Your real self and your teaching self do not need to be different, and you do not need to separate your work life from your actual life because they are one and the same.

I told someone many years ago that I never wanted to be known for what I did.  I wanted to be remembered for who I was.  I can see now that I am the most ME when I am doing what I do for a living.  Make sense?

J is the last person on earth who would ever take credit for any of his many accomplishments as a teacher or coach.  He is remembered for his winning teams and champion wrestlers.  He is remembered equally as well for his abilities as a teacher and his unwavering dedication to his job.  You could write a book about these things alone.  I have had the pleasure of talking to J many times since his retirement, and we’ve discussed this exact topic on numerous occasions.  He is definitely proud of what he has achieved, but all of the accolades pale in comparison to the lives he has touched.  The only thing he has ever wanted to do was to be a positive influence for kids, and for that there needs to be no award.  The job is reward enough.  I wish I had learned this long ago, but I figure it’s better late than never.

Teaching is as much a collaborative process as it is individual.  We stand alone in our rooms but should never feel that we teach in isolation.  It is true to say that as much as teamwork is the rule in education, many of us struggle to accept feedback and listen to others’ ideas.  Oftentimes we feel as if we need to jump in and pretend we know exactly what to do or say because that’s what teachers are supposed to do.  We hide when we should be open.  J’s example has been instructive in this regard as well.

J’s teaching career took a dramatic turn when he decided to switch from being a Special Education teacher to being a General Education teacher.  If you’ve ever done it then you know how hard this actually is.  Contemporary education pundits would shake their head at this proposition, but current reality dictates that the two worlds do not necessarily coincide.  To make the switch not only takes guts but is a huge cognitive leap.  You have to accept that you will not know all the answers, and that you will need help from others.  You have to be able as well to admit this to your students.  Again, if you can just be YOU, then you can accomplish this.  Indeed, anything you want to do in this profession you can do.

I can’t speak for every profession, because teaching is the only thing I have ever done and know how to do.  I suspect that the above example can be applied to anything, however.  This has nothing to do with the current, mildly new-age “Find Your Passion” movement that has been written about lately and discussed in high school college counseling sessions across the country. Sorry, but some of us need to start working and worry about finding our passion later.  If we’re lucky, then what we do becomes our passion.  I think that if we try to open ourselves up to experience and to constant learning, then whatever we do becomes something we can be proud of.

Thanks, J.  Talk to you soon.