by Guy E. White on 12 February, 2015

Teacher, Tell Me What You’ve Learned

What lessons has your teaching experience taught you?

Being completely vulnerable here: Sometimes, I feel unable to give my students what they need most. Sure, I’m able to help them through a reading, identify rhetorical devices, and compose the best essays I could hope for… but something’s still missing.

If there’s anything that I’ve learned from teaching, is that I don’t have all the answers. When I was a student, I used to look at my teachers an awe of what I thought they knew. When I became I teacher, I realized that the teacher’s seat is not too far from that of the student; it’s just the teacher is a few years ahead in life experience.

I’m directly reaching out to you in this post. I want to know what lessons you’ve learned in your process of becoming and being a teacher. What have you learned?

Here are a few things that I’ve learned:

Realization #1: Students Expect Respect, But I Must Still Earn Respect

I’ve learned that my students not only deserve respect from the moment they walk into my classroom for the first time, but that they also EXPECT IT as well. From the second they walk through my doors, my students expect to be respected.

Just as important, I’ve learned that my students believe that I (the teacher) still must earn respect. I have to be at the top of my game. When I’m not at the top of my game, I need to be honest about that.

Realization #2: My Job Is Not To Be a Human Library

Students have the sum knowledge of humanity inside their pockets (on their phones). My job is to encourage them to tap into that knowledge and grow as human beings in the process.

Each day, I’m learning more and more what it means to be a teacher in a world where the answers are a Google search away. The “application,” “creation,” and “evaluation” levels of learning become so important.

What About You?

What lessons have you learned? I’d love to learn more about what you’ve learned through working with your students in your classroom. Post a comment below, send me a photo, or simply comment on the post in which you discovered a link to this page.

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