I’ve always wished I could have a second chance to teach my first classes. My first-ever students, my first third-graders, my first college students. There is so much I would do differently.
As a math teacher, I could talk authentically about the ways that I used measurement, fractions, and number sense in my life. In reading, I made book recommendations with genuine love for particular books, series, and authors.
In writing, I took sentences from worksheets that needed editing and revision work. I used authors we all knew and loved to highlight elements of craft. I projected student work to model peer conferences. None of these things were bad (Well, maybe the first one. Forgive me, Jeff Anderson.), but they kept the balance of vulnerability squarely on the students. Now that I’m a writer, I understand the weight of that burden and how it may have limited their willingness to take risks.
If I could do it again, I would write every morning before school, and share more than samples of my drafts. I would share the frustrations of a paragraph that won’t work itself out or the difficulty of cutting out my overuse of the word “just.” I would also share the rush of those days when the words flow easily or I FINALLY tame that wild paragraph. I would share in the vulnerability, because now I know it’s necessary to the writing process.