Forget Math and Life, Teaching is What's Really Hard
Being a Literacy teacher, I often joke that math is hard. I saw a t-shirt in the airport on my recent travels that read "Math is hard. So is Life. Get over it." That trip was a return from an incredible week of observing live teaching of fifth graders as it unfolded in real time and pre-briefing and de-briefing and contemplating and puzzling over the act and art of teaching- and how very difficult it can be to hone our craft.
The week I spent observing was focused on math instruction and math foundational understanding. Working with content is challenging. The teacher must be in command of the foundational understandings they hope to teach. Teachers must be aware of where these skills fall along a continuum of skills. Teachers must learn a variety of strategies for teaching all types of learners. Teachers must be keen observers aware of what students can do and aware of how to build from what they can do. Teachers must plan lessons that constantly review and build knowledge. Teachers must be able to formally and informally assess to know if learning and growing is taking place in the classroom. Teachers must be flexible to circle back when needed and revisit topics. Teachers must be able to quickly challenge students needing enrichment while encouraging others who need more practice. Thinking about all of these steps with teaching content is exhausting. But it's only the tip of the iceberg.
If we only taught content it would be challenging enough but we don't teach content. We teach human beings. We teach human beings that may or may not have their basic needs met when they walk into our classroom. We teach human beings who have been victims of trauma. We teach human beings with fears and feelings of inadequacy and uncertainty. We teach human beings plagued with a desire for perfection. We teach human beings with behaviors stemming from all of these feelings and emotions. Our audience varies from day to day depending on what happens outside of our classroom. Our audience can change minute to minute depending on what happens at recess or lunch. We have to navigate all of this while planning for content instruction. We have to establish expectations and hold students accountable while allowing for equity and making room for appreciation of all types of diversity. We have to help our students to accept each other as individuals and to appreciate what their peers bring to the classroom community. We have to work with individual students while building a community of all students to ensure collaboration and peer support for learning and growing. We have to make our classrooms a safe and caring place to learn so students have the opportunity to learn. Then we have to plan engaging and relevant lessons to show them that they want to learn. Then we have to provide well timed appropriate feedback to show them that they can learn.
After observing a master teacher struggle with some of these things and puzzling over how I would have handled things if I had been in her shoes I have come to the conclusion that math can be hard and sometimes life can be hard but teaching is always hard. It gets easier but it never gets easy. It can't get easy. Humans are complicated and that is our clientele.
You've surely heard it said that nothing good ever comes easy. This is certainly true in teaching. As teachers we constantly strive to improve and we are constantly faced with new curriculum, new students, new expectations, and new challenges. But, there is that moment- it sounds so cheesy and trite but it's so very true- that moment when a student truly gets it, when they see themselves as a successful learner and as a member of a classroom community, when they reach out with empathy to another student, when they visibly show the lightbulb coming on in the brain, when they come back years later to tell you excitedly about their college/work/life plans. Those moments sustain us. Those moments keep us moving forward, tackling the hard work because we know we have chosen a profession that makes a difference in the world.
The week I spent observing was focused on math instruction and math foundational understanding. Working with content is challenging. The teacher must be in command of the foundational understandings they hope to teach. Teachers must be aware of where these skills fall along a continuum of skills. Teachers must learn a variety of strategies for teaching all types of learners. Teachers must be keen observers aware of what students can do and aware of how to build from what they can do. Teachers must plan lessons that constantly review and build knowledge. Teachers must be able to formally and informally assess to know if learning and growing is taking place in the classroom. Teachers must be flexible to circle back when needed and revisit topics. Teachers must be able to quickly challenge students needing enrichment while encouraging others who need more practice. Thinking about all of these steps with teaching content is exhausting. But it's only the tip of the iceberg.
If we only taught content it would be challenging enough but we don't teach content. We teach human beings. We teach human beings that may or may not have their basic needs met when they walk into our classroom. We teach human beings who have been victims of trauma. We teach human beings with fears and feelings of inadequacy and uncertainty. We teach human beings plagued with a desire for perfection. We teach human beings with behaviors stemming from all of these feelings and emotions. Our audience varies from day to day depending on what happens outside of our classroom. Our audience can change minute to minute depending on what happens at recess or lunch. We have to navigate all of this while planning for content instruction. We have to establish expectations and hold students accountable while allowing for equity and making room for appreciation of all types of diversity. We have to help our students to accept each other as individuals and to appreciate what their peers bring to the classroom community. We have to work with individual students while building a community of all students to ensure collaboration and peer support for learning and growing. We have to make our classrooms a safe and caring place to learn so students have the opportunity to learn. Then we have to plan engaging and relevant lessons to show them that they want to learn. Then we have to provide well timed appropriate feedback to show them that they can learn.
After observing a master teacher struggle with some of these things and puzzling over how I would have handled things if I had been in her shoes I have come to the conclusion that math can be hard and sometimes life can be hard but teaching is always hard. It gets easier but it never gets easy. It can't get easy. Humans are complicated and that is our clientele.
You've surely heard it said that nothing good ever comes easy. This is certainly true in teaching. As teachers we constantly strive to improve and we are constantly faced with new curriculum, new students, new expectations, and new challenges. But, there is that moment- it sounds so cheesy and trite but it's so very true- that moment when a student truly gets it, when they see themselves as a successful learner and as a member of a classroom community, when they reach out with empathy to another student, when they visibly show the lightbulb coming on in the brain, when they come back years later to tell you excitedly about their college/work/life plans. Those moments sustain us. Those moments keep us moving forward, tackling the hard work because we know we have chosen a profession that makes a difference in the world.
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