I LOOOVE THAT BOOK!

I’ve been having some sleeping issues. I fall asleep within 10 seconds of my head hitting the pillow, but around 3:30 am I am wide awake. Tossing and turning for at least an hour. Needless to say I’ve had lots of time to think. Probably the reason I've been feeling more compassionate than usual - I'm sleep deprived. At those sleepless times I think about my students and what comes to mind is what interesting, unique people they are and how far they’ve come in only a few months. I’ve even got them sitting in groups of four and they are talking about science! The geek that I am gets super psyched about hearing my students talk about the subject J

My other recent event is that I’ve become enthralled in a new book, The Help. I am so wrapped into these characters that sometimes I sit and wonder why I'm so sucked in; what has the author done so skillfully to make me care about these fictional, non-existent people?

So today I’m sitting at a table group with some of my 10^th graders. We are having good science discussions and of course the topic of “I hate THAT teacher” comes up. There is this one teacher I work with this year that I’m not connecting with at all. She is really stand-offish and I don’t know anything about her. The students really dislike her and I usually hear about it at least once a day. I know that my students can be super emotional teenagers so I always defend this person. I say things like, “well if you knew her better you might not feel that way.”

The response today was – “Miss, she doesn’t even know how to deal with kids! She’s too inexperienced to know what to do!”

I replied, “What, last year she had a very important role at her school. She’s been teaching for several years now.”

“Whhhattt? No way!” The disbelief in their voice is disheartening.

“Yes, seriously. You mean you don’t know that about her? You mean that she has never told you where she worked or what she did? You mean you’ve been in this teacher’s classroom for 8 months now and you don’t even know that?” I’m astonished.

“Noooo” they whined.

Then it hit me. No wonder they don’t like this person. No wonder they keep complaining about her. This teacher has done nothing to develop her character. No one connects with a book or story where there is no character development. Well, damn. This makes total sense. In fact, no wonder I don't like her. She really is kind of boring. Not much to say or contribute to a conversation. And I got to thinking… a good teacher develops her character. She chooses what information to share and when and how to share it. She doesn’t share inappropriate information. She carefully, but authentically selects the information about herself that is essential. She creates a novel in her classroom where the students have a role, an important role. There is investment in that story. Where will the novel go? What will happen next, to us, to our teacher? She helps the students develop their own character. She models what it is like to work collaboratively. It is not an us and her situation anymore, it’s just us. She’s with us.