I was at a conference a few years ago, and a teacher came up to me after a session. She'd been teaching for eleven years. She said: I thought I'd be better at this by now.
She was measuring herself against something she'd imagined being. And the gap between that picture and where she stood felt like evidence of something missing.
Here's what I wanted to say to her, and what I want to say to you.
The teacher you imagined being was built in the abstract, before actual students, before real years, before the accumulated texture of actual classrooms. The teacher you became was built inside all of that. Inside the lesson that took three tries to land. Inside the student you stayed curious about for months before something shifted. Inside the day you improvised something you'd never planned and watched it work. That teacher is built from real material.
What I've seen in teachers who grow steadily over the course of a career is that they treat every moment as information. The lesson that went differently than planned, information. The student whose need took time to understand, information. The instinct that turned out to be exactly right, information. They're building something, piece by piece, from what actually happened.
The teacher you planned to be was a sketch. The teacher you are is a practice. A practice can always go deeper. A sketch just stays on the page.
This week, find one moment from the past month that surprised you. Not a dramatic moment. A small one. A question a student asked that told you something had landed. An instinct you followed that turned out to be right. A choice you made when a lesson went sideways. A moment when you looked up and the room was exactly where you wanted it to be.
A moment when you looked up and the room was exactly where you wanted it to be.
That teacher you imagined being? Every learning moment you've gathered since the beginning is moving you closer. And that's where you are right now, in the middle of something that’s constantly growing.
Gail
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