I need a partnership

 

a secret of teaching

I am a much better teacher

when the students are carrying much of the load, 

when they come to class hungry to learn,

ready to take a risk,

to open themselves to

first expressing who they are,

and second to letting themselves grow,

despite how difficult the birthing can be,

then I can release the higher qualities of my leadings,

the right call, the right response,

the good question, the connection of threads.

instead, I can be working more than the students

when I have to slip into being the disciplinarian

who tells a student not to talk to a friend

and who has to then deal with the student’s

denial of what is observably true,

in a better world it’s just a simple correction,

and we move on to more important work,

a far better use of my time, of their time,

of the class’s time,

than my having to be conscience to their impulsivity,

that’s an overt problem,

even worse is the covert problem

when the students can be so socially anxious

that venturing an opinion, even reading the textbook aloud,

is too much for them,

and so the whole class suffers from their verbal absence,

and so do they,

how tragic to have ideas and to be afraid to share them,

how tragic to settle for fear instead of for hope,

how tragic to not let one’s self attempt to soar.

by Henry H. Walker

November 4, ‘22