“Why am I doing this and how is it good for these kids?”
Darren Draper’s “Becoming a Better Teacher” post on Drape’s Takes reminded me of a Reading Recovery training session I attended several years ago. I remember vividly the moment Dr. Nancy Anderson completely changed my perspective as a teacher. She shared that with every teaching decision she made, she asked herself one question, “Why am I doing this, and how is it good for this kid?”
As teachers, we have so many reasons for doing the things we do in the classroom. We follow the state curriculum, district objectives, content area curriculum, and curriculum office/campus initiatives. We have favorite units, things we have always taught, things our team likes to do, and the next thing that appears in the textbook. There is the newest technology tool that we need to try, in order to remain on the “cutting edge.” We even make sure that we address all of the “pet peeves” of the next year’s grade level, so they won’t be disappointed in the “new crop” they are inheriting. In the midst of all of this “stuff” do we lose site of our most important purpose – meeting the needs of the kiddos?
The thing I love most about collaborating with my colleagues, on and beyond my campus, is the way it helps me to continuously reevaluate what I am doing with my students. Sometimes it is easy to get bogged down in the mire of academic expectations, but I always try to take a moment to ask myself Nancy’s question. “Why am I doing this, and how is it good for these kids?” Sometimes it causes me to make a quick change to what I am about to teach, sometimes it doesn’t. But it does accomplish one thing - without fail. It reminds me that I am not just teaching a curriculum, I am teaching children. After all, isn’t that why we all got into this game in the first place?
